Finding Fault?

Some of us play an intellectual game at Mass of finding fault with the way the Mass is celebrated.  We may be motivated to do this out of a false sense of piety born from a desire to have everything perfect.  But the Mass is not a place for us to sit back like movie critics and to find fault; rather, it is a place to encounter Jesus Christ.

Some of those who encountered the Son of God during His earthly ministry complained about His lowly estate.  When our Lord took on our human nature, as Saint Paul says, He “emptied himself, taking the form of a servant” (Philippians 2:7).  Part of this lowering was being raised in Galilee.  Galileans were considered uneducated and backward by the religious elite in Jerusalem.  Recent Bible studies have revealed hints that Jesus was thought of in this way by some of His contemporaries.

We can see this in the Scriptures themselves, when our Lord’s Aramaic is not as perfect as the Jews living in Jerusalem would have spoken it.  Examples of this are citied in the Lord’s use of “talitha kum” [tah-lee-tha koom] for “little girl get up”; the words He uses mistakenly mix the masculine with the feminine grammatically.  It is also hinted at during His crucifixion when He cries out, “Eli, Eli, la’ma sabach-tha’ni?”[E-lie, E-lie, lah-mah sah bahk thah nee]  We are told it means, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46).  But those residents of Jerusalem heard him say it and did not understand, and thought He was invoking Elijah.

This might scandalize some of us who expect that if God were to become human, He would be perfect in every way.  But a reading of the Gospels shows us that God truly lowered Himself, from being born in a stable to having “nowhere to lay his head” during His life on earth.

If we are waiting for the perfect priest to say the perfect Mass for us, we will miss out on the great graces our Lord wishes to bring to us.  The people who experienced Jesus walking on the face of the earth had their excuses.  “Surely this man was of little consequence,” they would have said to themselves, “there was nothing special about him.”  And so they missed the opportunity of an eternal lifetime – to meet the Son of God.

We, too, can miss Him when we play the same game.  It might be the priest celebrant, the choir, the worship space, the people around us.  But being a critical spectator of the Mass distracts us from the gifts God wishes to bestow upon us during the sacred act of the Mass.