Marvels of Mass

We open our Masses this weekend singing “Table of Plenty” (Dan Schutte, ©1992, OCP): “Come to the feast of heaven and earth! Come to the table of plenty! God will provide for all that we need, here at the table of plenty.” This text reminds us of our earthly time of harvest as we move into winter – gathering all of our garden’s produce for a table of plenty, as well as our impending feast at the Heavenly Banquet at the end of time when Christ returns. Remember that we’re ending our liturgical year in another week!

We gather together once again this weekend, to praise God in our community, singing “In the Day of the Lord” (M.D. Ridge, ©1992, OCP): “In the day of the Lord, the sun will shine like the dawn of eternal day. All creation will rise to dance and sing the glory of the Lord.” We praise our God as we look forward to the Second Coming of Christ as we approach the end of our liturgical year.

This Sunday, November 1, we celebrate the Feast of All Saints, a feast day to celebrate all of those saints, known and un-known, who have served the Lord and are with Him in Heaven. This feast is one of the older feasts that we celebrate in the Church, dating back to the 5th century. Due to having more martyrs and saints than days in the year, the early Church instituted a common feast for all of them on the Friday following Easter in the Syrian church.

As we continue Matthew’s Gospel, we hear this week of the two greatest Commandments: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” We sing this weekend of various aspects of this love that we are called to – from love of God and Christ in our opening hymn; to love of our neighbor in our closing song, which calls us to love and serve the Lord by serving one another.

We gather together this week, singing ‘Gather us in, the lost and forsaken; gather us in, the blind and the lame. Call to us now and we shall awaken, we shall arise at the sound of our name.’ (Gather Us In, M. Haugen, © GIA Publications) We come to worship together, being called by our God as we hear in both our first and second readings. As we continue to read from the Gospel of Matthew, as we near the end of our liturgical year, we hear another lesson from Jesus’ public ministry.

We begin our Mass singing “Gather the People” by Dan Schutte where we encounter the Gospel message for the first time: “Gather the people! Enter the feast! All are invited, the greatest and least. The banquet is ready, now to be shared. Join in the heavenly feast that God has prepared.” (©2004 OCP) You guessed it – the parable of the wedding feast thrown by the king where no one will come. The idea of being invited to share in a banquet and not choosing to partake is related to God’s willingness to call us to His eternal banquet in Heaven and us having the choice to say yes or no.

This week I’m going to address a topic that has recently been in the news. A prominent and prolific Catholic music composer, David Haas, has been accused of sexual battery and spiritual manipula-tion. In no way am I defending his actions. All of the victims were over the age of 18, and many of the relationships started out be-tween mutually consenting adults. Mr. Haas has accepted responsi-bility for what he has done and has asked for forgiveness. The songs most commonly known by Mr. Haas are “Blest Are They”, “You are Mine”, “We Are Called”, “Now We Remain” and “We Have Been Told”.

This weekend’s opening song is a general hymn of praise to our God, after all, that’s what we gather together to do: Praise and worship our Heavenly Father. “Praise the Lord! Ye heavens adore him; Praise him angels, in the height; Sun and moon, rejoice be-fore him; praise him, all ye stars of light. Praise the Lord! For he has spoken; worlds his mighty voice obeyed; laws which never shall be broken for their guidance he has made.” (Praise the Lord, Ye Heavens; tune: Hymn to Joy, Ludwig van Beethoven) Random trivia question: ‘Hymn to Joy’ is originally part of which work by Beethoven?

This weekend’s readings take the previous weeks’ themes of mercy and forgiveness to the next step: God’s generosity. Through His mercy, forgiveness and kindness, He shows His boundless love for us. He will meet us each where we are, and guide us into His heavenly kingdom if we answer His call: “Let us go to the altar of God, the God of our goodness and joy!

Once again this week, we hear about forgiveness and compassion in the readings at Mass. Once again, we are reminded that through forgiving others, we will be forgiven; by having mercy on others, God will have mercy on us. Our gathering song brings this message to us as we come together to worship: “There’s a wide-ness in God’s mercy like the wideness of the sea; There’s a kind-ness in his justice which is more than liberty... For the love of God is broader than the measures of our mind, and the heart of the Eternal is most wonderfully kind.