At the source of spirituality

by Massimo Marelli

After having seen what liturgy is, let's now try to define what celebrating is and what each celebration is. The Second Vatican Council reiterates that the celebration, belonging to the entire body that is the Church, has as its subject the entire liturgical assembly, that is, not only the presbyters and ministers, but all the faithful.

If we were to present a snapshot of the Church we should capture it in its celebratory moment, that is, when it is gathered where the bishop presides, surrounded by presbyters, deacons, altar servers and with the participation of all the people of God. This is the perfect image of the Church.

The Church manifests itself mainly in the act of celebrating.

On the invisible level, the one who leads the celebration is Christ who always presides over his Church, as the only mediator between God and men, of the priestly presence whose ordained ministry is the transparency of his.

However, each baptized person is part of his mystical body and, as intimately united with him, operates in the liturgy in various forms and degrees. The Church is the community of the redeemed in Christ and manifests itself as the visible subject of this celebration, finding its full physiognomy in the local assembly.

So what is celebration?

It is our being effectively re-presented to the salvific event of salvation which is the cross and the empty tomb of the Risen One, through the sacrifice of the Church, which achieves at the same time the sanctification of man and the glorification of God.

Every time we celebrate the sacraments, through the rite and by means of sensitive signs, we are made present to the mystery of salvation.

We understand this well in the Sunday or daily celebration of Mass.

We, in fact, can celebrate the Eucharist because the Lord, in the cenacle, gave us the sign that it is his body and his blood under the species of bread and wine, but especially because he said some important words: do this in memory of me who died and rose again.

The sign given on the eve, during the Last Supper, prophetically refers to an immediate future which will be the event of the death and resurrection of the Lord, but through the order of iteration: "do this in memorial of me", opens to a distant future, that is, to our ritual celebrations of the Eucharist.

Every time we take up the sign of the bread and wine given in the cenacle, we are re-presented to the founding event of the death and resurrection of the Lord and we participate in that saving power. The prophetically given sign of the Cenacle and the founding event of the death and resurrection of the Lord are certainly unique and unrepeatable realities, which belong to precise coordinates of space and time. In the celebration of the Mass the Lord does not die and does not rise again, the sacrifice of the cross and the event of the resurrection are not renewed for us in this sense. If the Lord had not commanded us to commemorate his Easter, the salvific event of Calvary and the empty tomb would have remained locked in its specific coordinates of space and time.

The ritual iteration is necessary so that we too, who are the pilgrim Church in history, can draw on the saving power of Easter.

By celebrating the Eucharist it is as if we break through time and space, participating in the eternal present of God. This means "sacramental re-presentation". So the Mass is our going to Calvary every Sunday, every day, in our daily celebration, with the eyes of the soul, with our theological feet. Even though we remain physically in our churches, nevertheless through the sacramental reality we are made present at the Lord's Easter event. In other words, it is the community that celebrates the Eucharist today in memory of the dead and risen Lord who is at Calvary. By saying Calvary we must mean the entire Easter event, in fact the cross is never separated from the resurrection, so we cannot speak of resurrection without keeping in mind the mystery of death on the cross.

Our Eucharistic celebrations are not a representation of which we are simple spectators, perhaps emotionally involved, but extraneous to what is represented. Sacramental re-presentation means that it is the community that celebrates - of which I am part - that is made effectively present at the salvific event.

For example: in the sacrament of marriage, during the solemn prayer of blessing, while the Holy Spirit is invoked, the spouses are truly re-presented with the primordial blessing that God, in the garden, bestows upon the first human couple. In the sacramental action they have access in faith and in the power of the Spirit to that primordial nuptial consecration which now belongs not to the past, but to the eternal of God.

The divine blessing is not renewed for them, but by leaving their own limited space-time coordinates, through the rite they are effectively made present to that unique and unrepeatable blessing pronounced by the Lord in Paradise.

Let us understand, then, where the stability of this blessing is based which unites the two in one flesh. It is not guaranteed by man, but by God who never withdraws the gifts of his love for him.

With our own strength alone, we must humbly note, we cannot live this unity, but by trusting in the word of the Lord, which is stable forever, and in the grace of the Spirit, which accompanies it and realizes what it says, it is opened up to man and the woman has the possibility of realizing it in a story of fidelity.

Thus, through the memorial of the Eucharist, the Church is effectively made present to the Mystery it celebrates.

However, a memorial is not a psychological memory or an affective memory, as if one were present. Memorial is true presence at Calvary and at the empty tomb of a community that celebrates together and makes the same gestures together and pronounces the same words.

This is the work that manifests us as the Church.