The Eucharist: Door to Heaven

I shall share some thoughts about the Ascension as it relates to the Eucharist which also may speak to your faith, as it does to mine.
 

When Jesus ascends into heaven, he enters heaven as our Great High Priest. In the Jewish worship offered in the Temple, the High Priest would enter annually into the inner sanctum, the Holy of Holies, on the Day of Atonement to offer blood sacrifice for the sins of the People. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews compares Jesus’ entry into heaven to this entry of the High Priest into the Holy of Holies. The Ascended Christ brings his own Sacrifice on the Cross for our sins before God and opens the way for us to follow him to heaven. (See Hebrews 4:14; 9:11; 10:19,20)
 

In heaven Christ is our Priest. He presides over the Heavenly Liturgy which includes the angels and saints and all the blessed of heaven. As Priest he offers his One Sacrifice, once offered on the Cross, i.e. himself in his Body and Blood. The Catechism (#1187) says about this Heavenly Liturgy:
 

"The liturgy is the work of the whole Christ, head and body. Our high priest celebrates it unceasingly in the heavenly liturgy, with the holy Mother of God, the apostles, all the saints, and the multitude of those who have already entered the kingdom."
 

Christ also makes intercession for us in heaven. (See Hebrews 7:25) This is why at our Sunday Mass, at the time of the Intercessions, we say we are joining our Intercessions with those of Christ.
 

When we celebrate our Eucharist on earth, we spiritually ascend to heaven, to participate by faith in the Heavenly Liturgy with Christ. I have learned a great deal about this "ascension in the liturgy" from an Orthodox Priest and Liturgical scholar, Fr. Alexander Schmemann. He writes:
 

"But the liturgy of the Church is always...a lifting up, an ascension. The Church fulfills itself in heaven in that new eon which Christ has inaugurated in His death, resurrection and ascension, and which was given to the Church on the day of Pentecost as its life..." (For the Life of the World, p.42)
 

The U.S. Bishops say much the same thing about Christ’s Presence in the Eucharist:
 

"Christ does not have to leave where he is in heaven to be with us. Rather, we partake of the heavenly liturgy where Christ eternally intercedes for us and presents his sacrifice to the Father and where the angels and saints constantly glorify God and give thanks for all his gifts." ( "The Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Sacrament of the Eucharist: Basic Questions and Answers," USCCB, June 2001)
 

In the oldest Roman Eucharistic Prayer (Now called Eucharistic Prayer I), after the Consecration, the Priest prays:
 

"In humble prayer we ask you, almighty God:

command that these gifts be borne
by the hands of your holy Angel                                                                       

to your altar on high

in the sight of your divine majesty,

so that all of us, who though this participation

at the altar

receive the most holy Body and Blood of your Son,

may be filled with every grace and heavenly blessing."
 

This prayer refers to the altar in heaven mentioned in several places in the Book of Revelation (). Christ is Present at that altar. As one commentator says: "The community in the church on earth is mystically gathered at God’s altar on high." (Paul Turner, The Supper of the Lamb, p.89)  Our altar  on earth participates in the Heavenly Altar.


 

The question as to how Christ is now in heaven (after his Ascension), yet Really Present in the earthly Eucharist, "under" the appearance of the Consecrated Bread and Wine, was the subject of some debate in the Middle Ages. Does he "come down" from heaven to be Present in the earthly Eucharist? The Bishops answer he does not; and yet he is truly Present to us at the Eucharist.
 

For myself, I understand this matter in this way: first, when we speak of Christ’s being in heaven, we cannot really say "he is up in heaven" or that "he comes down from heaven" (i.e. after his Ascension). Heaven is not a location like a geographical location on earth. The Catechism (#2794) says: "[Heaven] does not mean a place (‘space’), but a way of being; it does not mean that God is distant, but majestic. Our Father is not ‘elsewhere’: he transcends everything we can conceive of his holiness."
 

I am able to understand this by imaging heaven as a "dimension," so to speak, that transcends our world of time and space. Perhaps I first thought this from a passage (again) from Fr. Alexander Schmemann. He speaks of the Liturgy of the Eucharist as a "journey into the dimension of the Kingdom [of God]":
 

"We use this word ‘dimension’ because it seems the best way to indicate the manner of our sacramental entrance into the risen life of Christ. Color transparencies ‘come alive’ when viewed in three dimensions instead of two. The presence of the added dimension allows us to see much better the actual reality of what has been photographed. In very much the same way, though of course any analogy is condemned to fail, our entrance into the presence of Christ is an entrance into a fourth dimension which allows us to see the ultimate reality of life." (For the Life of the World, p.26-27)
 

(Because of Einstein, we often call time the fourth dimension, but Schmemann is not referring to that description; indeed, his fourth dimension would be eternity)
 

As a "fourth dimension," paradoxically heaven is nowhere and everywhere. It is like the Ultimate Reality "behind" our earthly reality. (We have to keep using spatial language for a reality that is not spatial) I can image the Eucharist, then, as opening, a portal, so to speak, to heaven: "the gates of heaven."
 

The Psalmist says: "I rejoiced with those who said to me, ‘Let's go to the Lord's house!’ Now our feet are standing in your gates, O Jerusalem." (Psalm 122:1-2)
 

The Psalmist was speaking of the earthly Jerusalem. With the Eucharist, I am thinking of the heavenly Jerusalem, about which I have written quite a bit lately. What I am saying is that in the Eucharist we are standing spiritually within the heavenly gates of the New Jerusalem.
 

When I think this way, I think of C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, where four children discover in a closet wardrobe a doorway to a magical country called Narnia. (Narnia also is not on the same time as our world).
 

Another way of seeing this is that heaven and earth join in the Eucharistic celebration. Christ does not leave heaven, nor do we literally leave earth, but we meet and receive the Risen Christ in heaven in the Eucharist, the "meeting place" at "the gates." Again the Psalmist says: "Open for me the gates of righteousness; I will enter and give thanks to the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord through which the righteous may enter. I will give you thanks, for you answered me; you have become my salvation." (Psalm 118.19-21)
 

 

 

Listen HERE to Handel's  "Lift up your heads, O ye gates" sung by  the Brandemburg Consort and the Choir of King's College Cambridge
 

Return to Homepage

Why the Heavenly Jerusalem is Important

 

 

It seems to me that we live in a time when Christians think less about heaven than in any other time in the Church’s history. So often we humans are always going from one extreme to the other. There have been times in the Church’s history when heaven was so emphasized as to discount and disregard our life on earth. If Christians suffered in this life, they would be compensated in the next. This is true enough, but that doesn’t mean we have no responsibility to eliminate suffering, especially from human oppression, wherever we can.

 

However, our proper concern for the life we live on earth should not exclude our awareness of the "life of the world to come," which will include heaven and earth ( a new heaven and earth) symbolized in the New and Heavenly Jerusalem mentioned in our Sunday Second Readings from the Book of Revelation during the Easter Season.

 

Christ does not save us only for this world, but also for the world to come, which we profess in the Nicene Creed. It occurred to me at some point in my learning about the Catholic Faith that it really means something when we pray in the Our Father, "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." If for no other reason, we should be interested in what goes on in heaven so as to know how to do God’s Kingdom on earth. I like very much this quote from an essay I read by Daniel Tappenier about the Second Coming of Christ and the result of his Coming:

 

"What, in fact, is presented as the final result of the great drama of creation and history? We look to a renewed heaven, a renewed earth, and a Spirit-filled creation totally under the dominion of the will of God, so that the kingdom of God manifests itself perfectly in every sphere and every aspect of existence. In the Spirit-filled creation we find a Spirit-filled people, walking, serving, loving, worshiping, and rejoicing in God. God becomes humanity's God fully and truly, and humanity becomes God's people, wholly redeemed."

　

This corresponds to the spirit of Isaiah 25:6-8:

 

           "The LORD of hosts will prepare a lavish banquet for all peoples on this mountain;

            A banquet of aged wine, choice juicy meats,

           And refined, aged wine.

 

          "And on this mountain He will swallow up the covering which is over all peoples,

          Even the veil which is stretched over all nations.

 

          "He will swallow up death for all time,

           And the Lord GOD will wipe tears away from all faces,

           And He will remove the reproach of His people from all the earth;

           For the LORD has spoken."

　

The Heavenly Jerusalem
(Notice all are feasting together)
 

This passage is used a great deal in our funerals at Holy Faith. And as I point out, this passage refers to the End of Time, when Christ comes again, and thus the destiny of the world is to become a Feast. This destiny is already being fulfilled in heaven and awaits fulfillment here on earth.

 

What makes a feast a feast is not only the abundant food, but the people at the feast. The Feast of Heaven consists of a Community of the Blessed who totally love one another with the love Christ has for us. When he commands us to love one another as he loved us (John 13:34) this is already fulfilled in the Church in heaven.

 

So, basing how we do God’s will here on earth on how it is done in heaven, we can ask ourselves "What prevents people on earth from experiencing life now as a feast?" All we have to do is look at the newspaper and read about poverty, hunger, ignorance, domestic abuse, greed, racism, loneliness, etc. to see that these and other problems bring no joy to others. But we can help alleviate some of this suffering and make life more like a feast than a burden. Isaiah promises: "the Lord GOD will wipe tears away from all faces."

 

Once again, heaven models for us the superabundant love of God by which all our actions will be judged. It is a communion of love in the life of Christ:

 

"This mystery of blessed communion with God and all who are in Christ is beyond all understanding and description. Scripture speaks of it in images: life, light, peace, wedding feast, wine of the kingdom, the Father's house, the heavenly Jerusalem, paradise: ‘no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him.’" (Catechism#1027)

 

The Catechism also says that in the Final Age: "Then all those he has redeemed and made ‘holy and blameless before him in love,’ will be gathered together as the one People of God, the ‘Bride of the Lamb,’ ‘the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God.’ (#865)

 

This "gathering" is the nature of God’s salvation and the reality of the Church. It is why we must gather together on Sunday: we must witness visibly by our gathering for the Mass on Sunday what the Church is all about and the Kingdom of God. Someone may claim to be closer to God in solitude on a mountaintop or by the ocean. This may be very true. But it is the duty of the members of the Church to gather on Sunday to be the Body of Christ visible to the world. No one can do this alone.

 

Dance of the Blessed outside the Heavenly Jerusalem
 

Moreover, the Liturgy of the Church (the Church’s public worship) is a foretaste and image of the Heavenly Liturgy. While we are reminded at the Sunday Mass about how we should live in this life, we are also reminded of "the life of the world to come":

 

"[T]he Church on earth shows that she is united with the liturgy of heaven. She gives glory to Christ for having accomplished his salvation in his glorified members [in heaven]; their example encourages her on her way to the Father." (#1195)

 

So these are some of the reasons I am inspired by the Heavenly Jerusalem and why it makes a difference in how we live on earth. (For more go HERE to: "What Difference Does Heaven Make?" by Dr. Peter Kreeft.)

 

When Christ comes again and "the kingdom of this world will become the Kingdom of our God and of his Christ," surely this song or something equally "heavenly" will be sung:

 

Handel’s "Hallelujah Chorus" HERE

 

Return to Homepage

More About the Heavenly Jerusalem

I wrote last week about the Heavenly Jerusalem described in several of the Sundays of the Easter Season’s Second Reading from the Book of Revelation. In this upcoming Sunday’s Second Reading, John sees a new heaven and a new earth and the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven: "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. The former heaven and the former earth had passed away...I also saw the holy city, a new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. (Revelation 21a:1-2a)
 

This reference to new heavens and a new earth is also mentioned in 2 Peter 3:13: "But according to his promise we await new heavens and a new earth in which justice dwells."

 

"Justice" in its Biblical sense means "right relationship." The original Greek word for this gets translated as either "justice" or "righteousness" (cf. "rightness") There may be a legal aspect to this, but the Biblical meaning of justice goes beyond legal issues to relational ones. It is an interesting exercise to ask if we are living in right relationship with God and others? Another related Scripture passage is Hosea 6:8: "God has shown you what is good and what the Lord expects of you: to do justice [right relationships], to love with mercy, and to walk humbly with your God."

 

What is it about "right relationships" that Jesus reveals to us? He, also mentions relationship with God and with others and he says that the greatest commandment is to love God with everything and to love others as oneself. (See Matthew 22:35–40, Mark 12:28–34.e) But he goes even further, and we hear this in this Sunday’s upcoming Gospel: He says "A New Commandment I give you: love one another as I have loved you." (John 13:34)

 

The way Jesus loves us is sacrificially (as revealed on the Cross where he is like the Lamb slain, another favorite image of the Book of Revelation) and Jesus loves us without end (revealed to us in the Resurrection where he has conquered all that opposes love and justice).

 

I really wish I had the talent and time to write a comprehensive book about the Love of God. Everything in our life of Christ is related to this love, which is not mere sentimentalism, but an almost fierce and certainly all-giving love on God’s part in relationship to us.

 

Since the Gospel of John this Sunday is about the New Commandment of Christ and it is proclaimed in the Easter Season, we can rightly conclude that this sacrificial and unending love of God, shown to us by Christ Jesus, is the animating spirit of the Resurrection. To begin living even now the Risen life of Christ means to live in his love and have his love live in us.

 

I can also detect this new Risen way of love in the Second Reading for this Sunday in the Book of Revelation 21:2: "I also saw the holy city, a new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband."

The New Jerusalem, which is all the redeemed who are loved and saved by Christ, is the Bride--the Church for whom Christ, the Bridegroom, gave his life and she in turn gives her all to him. The Catechism has this magnificent passage:

 

"The entire Christian life bears the mark of the spousal love of Christ and the Church. Already Baptism, the entry into the People of God, is a nuptial mystery; it is so to speak the nuptial bath which precedes the wedding feast, the Eucharist. Christian marriage in its turn becomes an efficacious sign, the sacrament of the covenant of Christ and the Church." (#1617)

 

It is appropriate that the Eucharist is mentioned as a wedding feast between the New Jerusalem and Christ; every earthly Mass participates in the eternal Liturgy of Heaven, the New Jerusalem

 

I have more to say about the Heavenly Jerusalem next week.

 

Return to Homepage

Fourth Sunday of Lent: The Sacred Geography of Lent Part IV (In the City)

As I continue my meditation about the sacred geography of Lent, I wonder if the particular landscapes and cityscapes mentioned in the Gospels of Lent speak to the spiritual imagination of others as they do to me. I came across an encouraging essay that begins "In the history of Christian faith, landscape and spirituality are frequently intertwined." (Belden C. Lane, "Landscape and Spirituality.")

I know that such things as deserts and mountains are archetypes of the human psyche. They represent a symbolic constellation of experience, desire, emotion, stories and images hard to describe. Last week I found it instructive to think about encounters of Jesus, such as with the Samaritan Woman, that are "outside the city," as that would have been understood in Antiquity as a meeting on the margins with the marginal.

So what will the upcoming Sunday bring? Are we still following Jesus in the desert? This Sunday we find Jesus not outside the city this time, but in the city; and not just any city, but in Jerusalem. There he encounters a Blind Man and heals him after the man washed in the Pool of Siloam.

 

Jerusalem, Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493

Jerusalem is mentioned in both the Old and New Testaments. It was the new capital of King David’s reign (c. 1002–970 BC); David’s son Solomon built the first Temple there. Jerusalem came to symbolize both the place of right worship of God with the ritual sacrifices in the Temple and as a place of pilgrimage for the People of Israel.

Jesus as a child made pilgrimage with his family to Jerusalem. Later he would teach there and be tried and condemned to death in Jerusalem. It was outside the city walls of Jerusalem that he would be crucified. So this city, holy to the Jews, also became holy to Christians. But for Christians, the significance of Jerusalem transcended the actual city which would be destroyed by the Roman army in 70 AD and then rebuilt later over time. For Christians, what is of greatest meaning is the Heavenly Jerusalem (also called the New Jerusalem) which at the Second Coming of Christ comes down from heaven, "as a bride adorned for her bridegroom." (Revelation 21:2)

Heavenly Jerusalem  1580
 Fresco in Annunciation Cathedral, Russia

In the ancient Church and also very prominently in the Medieval Church, especially among the monks, was this longing for this Heavenly Jerusalem, which the monastery or the Church on earth might be an anticipation of heaven.

I find this in my own spirituality and spiritual imagination as something very attractive. I remember when I was in the seminary and first read a classical work on Early and Medieval monasticism called The Love of Learning and The Desire for God by Dom Jean LeClerq.

LeClerq details one of the themes of the monastic culture which was this longing for heaven, focused on the Heavenly Jerusalem. This was reinforced by the daily prayers of the monks taken from the Psalms with their frequent reference to Jerusalem.

Over the years I, too, have come to long for that Heavenly Jerusalem. Our celebration of Mass is also a participation in what is called the Heavenly Liturgy of Christ with his angels and saints and the blessed of heaven. "In the earthly liturgy we share in a foretaste of that heavenly liturgy which is celebrated in [heaven:] the Holy City of Jerusalem toward which we journey as pilgrims..." (Catechism #1090)

The interesting outcome of focusing upon and longing for the Heavenly Jerusalem is that it replaces any other place in this world with no place in this world. Or as the author of the Letter to the Hebrews (13:14) says: "For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come." In other words, we are pilgrims or exiles in this world. Thus "biblical imagery of exile, wandering in the desert, and foreignness, as well as the concept of the heavenly Jerusalem adopted by Christianity from its infancy, prevailed in Christian literature..." (Encountering the Sacred: The Debate on Christian Pilgrimage in Late Antiquity. Bruria Bitton-Ashkelony, p. 111)

A perfect heavenly city of course contrasts with imperfect earthly cities. We may be pilgrims and exiles, but Catholics have always been solidly connected with specific places. Early Christianity was essentially an urban phenomenon. The New Testament letters were communiques with the Christians in particular cities, like Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, etc. But cities have an ambivalent reputation in the Scriptures. Andrew Crook writes in an essay on the subject:

"Cities, like human beings, do not get a very good press in the Bible. Their origins were in sin, rebellion and violence, and they continued in this vein. They were concentrations of oppression, corruption and bloodshed, as well as paganism and immorality.

 

"However, as with individual humans, God's reaction to this was not one of anger but of compassion. It appears that he has a redemptive plan for urban life, which will only be completed with the unveiling of the new Jerusalem, but which will be foreshadowed by the work of his people in earthly cities." ("The City in the Bible: A Relational Perspective.")

 

So in the spiritual geography of this upcoming Sunday, I think about the challenge of living in the city. I have mentioned that there was a movement in the early Church where some Christian men and women fled the distractions and temptations of the city. This would develop into monasticism. Most of us, however, have to live in the city, negotiating those distractions and temptations, bringing the lessons of the desert into the city (such as prayer and fasting).

This Sunday’s Gospel reminds us that just as the Blind Man was healed in the city of Jerusalem, so we can meet Jesus in the city, wherever that city may be, as well. He is the Light of the world, and his Light is greater than the city lights.

                                                                                     +   +   +

 

From an Anonymous Monk of the Benedictine Abbey of Bèze (early 12th century?): "Elevations on the Glories of Jerusalem" (quoted in Jean Leclercq OSB, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God: A Study of Monastic Culture, ch 45).

 

The frequent recollection of the city of Jerusalem and of its King is to us a sweet consolation, a pleasing occasion for meditation and a necessary lightening of our heavy burden.

 

I shall say something briefly – and, I hope, usefully! – on the city of Jerusalem for its edification; and for the glory of the reign of its King I shall speak and I shall listen to what the Lord within me tells me of Himself and of His city...

 

May your soul leave this world, traverse the heavens themselves and pass beyond the stars until you reach God. Seeing Him in spirit and loving Him, may you breathe a gentle sigh and come to rest in Him…

 

The city of Jerusalem is built upon the heights. Its builder is God. There is but one foundation of this city: it is God.

 

There is but one founder: it is He, Himself, the All High, who has established it.

 

One is the life of all those who live in it, one is the light of those who see, one is the peace of those who rest, one is the bread which quenches the hunger of all; one is the spring whence all may drink, happy without end.

 

And all that is God Himself, Who is all in all: honor, glory, strength, abundance, peace and all good things. One alone is sufficient unto all.

 

This firm and stable city remains forever. Through the Father, it shines with a dazzling light;

through the Son, splendor of the Father, it rejoices, loves; through the Holy Spirit, the Love of the Father and the Son, subsisting, it changes; contemplating, it is enlightened; uniting, it rejoices. It is, it sees, it loves.

 

It is, because its strength is the power of the Father; it sees; because it shines with the wisdom of God; it loves, because its joy is in the goodness of God.

 

Blessed is this land which fears no adversity and which knows nothing but the joys of the full knowledge of God.

 

Now, each has his own garment; but in the eighth age, the armies of the blessed will bear a double palm. All will know. All words will be hushed and only hearts will speak.

 

Return to Home Page