Smells and Bells

I went to Mass twice this Trinity Sunday. The first was our traditional solemn morning Mass in our seminary chapel. It had it all: a handful of priests concelebrating, a choir of 70 Legionary seminarians, incense, candles, Gregorian chant, the works. The entire Mass was sung in Latin. I felt like I was in Heaven, and I was!

My second Mass that day was quite different. In the afternoon I stopped by the room of one of our elderly priests to spend some time with him. He is eighty and in poor health. Another priest was just bringing the books and sacred vessels to celebrate Mass with him in his room since he was too sick to do so with the rest of the priests, so I asked if I could stay and participate. It was beautiful. Rather than a large decorated chapel, it was a small, congested bedroom. The altar was a computer desk. There were 2 priests. One stood at the make-shift altar; the other was confined to his bed. I was the only one “in the pew.” And yet, this Mass was no less the Wedding Feast of the Lamb than the solemn Mass that morning. In both, the veil between Heaven and earth was lifted, and we were united with the angels and saints in the Heavenly Liturgy.

Every Mass, no matter how simple or solemn, is a reliving Christ’s total gift of self. The fact that the music at the parish makes the hair on your neck stand on end or that you can’t understand the accent of the foreign priest or that the he is too monotone or quiet or loud or artificial—priests have heard it all—doesn’t take away from the awesomeness of what is happening on the altar. I remember serving at the Good Shepherd Sunday Mass as a seminarian a few years ago at a parish in Dublin. After Mass this mildly belligerent Scotswoman with a creamy brogue came up and started railing at us for not smiling on the altar. I was taken aback, first because I thought we were pretty joyful, but also because I wondered why she was so focused on us and not on what was really important. What was she looking for? A show?

Mass isn’t a re-enactment, but a reliving. If we were simply putting on a stage production of the Last Supper, then the accidentals would make all the difference. The priest would be the protagonist of an act that could be judged by the emotional experience of the audience. If that were the case, all the smells and bells would play an essential role, and my Mass in that priest’s bedroom would have been a pretty “bad Mass.”

But that isn’t the case. Every Mass is a reliving of the supreme sacrifice of Christ’s love: his Life, Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension! It isn’t a re-enactment. It is an event, the greatest event of time and eternity, the Wedding Feast of the Lamb. Christ is the protagonist, and he isn’t acting. It is real. Granted, the smells and bells, the tone of the priest’s voice and the quality of the choir help us touch the true inner beauty of the Heavenly Banquet, but they aren’t center stage. They are aids, not essentials. We need to look beyond and see that, whether in a glamorous Gothic Cathedral or in a hospital room or prison cell; whether on a magnificent high altar with a glorious polyphonic choir or on a rock in the mountains or an upturned canoe, each Mass is equally the Heavenly Liturgy on earth. Relish it!