Today I'd like us to consider our second reading, from the letter to the Hebrews, and consider “what [we] have come to” (Heb 12:18) by coming to Mass.
As the unbelieving world sees it, this is a gathering of human individuals.
As the world sees it, there are a hundred people here in a stone building, facing an empty space.
As the unbelieving world sees it, we are gathered to utter words to a Being that is not here.
“What [we] HAVE come to” (Heb 12:18), in fact, is not something capable of being seen.
What we have come to is some ‘Thing’ beyond the realm of the seen.
We have come to the One who is the Creator, as we say in the Creed, of things “visible and invisible”.
We are here because we recognise that there is more to the world than what is seen, there is more to the world than can be known by the senses, more to the world than what my touch and taste and sight can tell me.
And, and this is the crucial point: we are here because we recognise that this ‘Thing’ that cannot be seen or sensed is actually what gives meaning and purpose to everything that we CAN see and sense.
We are here because knowing and meeting the Creator changes how we experience the world of the senses.
How did our second reading put it?
“What you have come to is nothing known to the senses: not a blazing fire [unlike Moses, who had God speak to him from a burning bush],
or a gloom turning to total darkness, or a storm; or trumpeting thunder or the great voice speaking which made everyone that heard it beg that no more should be said to them [unlike the children of Israel wandering in the wilderness who had the Lord manifest Himself to them in such external glory].”(Heb 12:18-19)
He continues, “You have come to come to God Himself”(Heb 12:23).
That text made many allusions to the Jerusalem and Temple of the Old Covenant, and when we read those words in the Mass, the liturgy of the NEW covenant, it should remind us that God is present HERE.
In the Old Testament He was manifested in power in the Temple, but He was not present in the flesh.
In the NEW Testament, however, as a result of Him having instituted the Mass, He IS present in the flesh, is present “in His physical reality”(Paul VI, Mysterium Fidei, n.46)
BUT greatness of His presence, His reality, so far exceed our capacity to see Him that He has taken a small insignificant thing, bread, and made it into Himself. So that we don't confuse worldly glory with His real glory.
But He IS present. Recognising that is a crucial part of realising that there is more to life than the senses.
Let me put that another way, in thinking of the fact that the most important things in life are the things that cannot be seen:
What is more important, the house your family lives in, or, the love in your family? The love, obviously. But love is an unseen thing, though real. Seen in its effects, but not seen in itself.
Even more, this is true of God: He’s the unseen reality that gives meaning to the seen.
(Pause)
Today, as most of you know already, is my last Sunday in Shaftesbury. I've been here 9 years and I've been thinking about what I've done in those 9 years, in the light of this text from Hebrews.
I've not built anything visible. Some priests build new churches, or church halls, or schools. But I'm not leaving the parish with any changed or new building. Any change I have left here will be in the realm of the unseen. But, actually, that's fine. That's actually the more important things.
What have I built unseen?
For a priest, especially, that’s a difficult question to ponder, because any REAL work I've done actually hasn't been MY work, but God’s work.
And, any REAL work I've done, similarly, isn't my work but YOURS –your allowing God to work in you.
That said, I've known in my time here many cases when I've been privileged to a PART of that, to be a help in that happening, to be an instrument in the Lord being active in your lives.
The most important examples are things I can never speak about, which is typically the case for a priest. But, again, that's ok. I deal with the realm of the unseen. I deal with the more important realm.
Thank you, for letting me be a part of your lives, and a part of your encounters with the Lord.
Thank you for your support and encouragement in the apostolate I've sought to work among you and in you.
It's been a pleasure to be here. I feel this is a great parish, and it does a lot, especially for such a relatively small rural congregation.
To return to where I began this sermon: “what [we] have come to” (Heb 12:18) by coming to Mass.
We have come to God Himself.
We have come to Him whose Presence and working are beyond the realm of the seen, beyond the realm of the senses.
He works THROUGH the senses: He takes sensible bread to become Himself.
But He is more than what our senses are capable of detecting.
And what is unseen, be it love, or the presence of God, it is the unseen that is the most important and gives meaning to everything else.
