The mystery of our reality

BY FR RALPH DE HAHN

We live in the world that is both real and unreal. Most people live in the unreal and superficial world of illusion. We fall in love with concepts and therefore we are strangers to reality. Surely, we can understand that our concepts are not the same as reality, for our prejudices, emotions and conditioning get in the way.

Take, for example, the concept of God: the final barrier to discovering God is the very word “God”, for indeed the human concept we produce distracts from the reality. St Thomas Aquinas broke into the “great silence” when, in his later years, he realised he had foolishly attempted to put God into concepts, debate and discourses. It would appear that the highest knowledge of God is to know him as unknowable, although we sense his presence all about us.

All reality is a mystery. Reality is whole, pure and uncontaminated; it is ever in flux, while concepts are frozen and static. Words cannot give us reality; they may only point that way.

Even life makes sense only when conceived as mystery. Therefore, to know reality, we have to journey beyond words.

See how a little child captures reality, sees it with wonder and awe. When grown she develops language, words and concepts, and then, behold, the magic is no longer there!

We come to know reality only by signs; we live by faith, we experience it as mystery. Note how we give human meaning to bread as the sign of life, and to wine as the sign of joy. Now we use these elements in the celebration of the Eucharist as ordained by Jesus himself. Here we are face to face with a profound mystery where words are certainly insufficient and possibly misleading, but it is all we have! In our normal daily Eucharistic practice there is, I feel, so much we need to unlearn and simplify; God is simple, marvellously simple, and not complicated.

Our Catholic faith declares three great mysteries, which are divinely revealed realities: the Blessed Trinity, the Incarnation of the Son of God and the Blessed Eucharist. They are mysteries which defy definition or explanation. Even the seven sacraments, which we know are a divine reality, are displayed in a human dimension.

Since Jesus has gone back to his Father in heaven, the sacraments now continue his work of saving, healing and sharing with believers his new life. It is the same Jesus, the same saving power at work.

Daily we hear at Mass “Do this in remembrance of me”, and this we do not fully grasp, for remembrance is not enough to satisfy human love; only a union with divine love will satisfy. Here we are assimilated into Christ as food into the human body; we become what we eat.

The Eucharist differs from every other sacrament; in the others we receive life from Christ. In the Eucharist we receive Christ himself. It is indeed a sacramental form of giving, only here what is given is the Giver himself!

Let us never forget that the Eucharist is a most precious gift, being the fruit of the Lord’s passion and resurrection. Reflect carefully on the words spoken by Christ, and of course his priests, and see beyond the words themselves: “This is my body which will be given up for you”.

One last thought. The priest is the true witness of the Lord’s passion, self-sacrificing love, death and resurrection; though very human, he is the minister and guardian of the Eucharist. It is his whole life, without which he may never become a truly holy priest. The people need him; he also needs his people.

If our people are showing little respect for the Eucharist and, in their ignorance, are leaving the Church because the Sunday Mass is “always the same and boring, as well as the homily”, then maybe, just maybe, we have found the answer, the why and the reason.