From time to time
one of the schools asks me to give a class of children a tour of the cathedral.
I usually begin by posing the question: What
is the most important furnishing in the church? And, of course, it’s the
altar. If you stand at the back of the cathedral you can identify the many
architectural ‘lines’ which naturally draw the eye immediately to the altar.
Indeed, we could say
that this church building is little more than a ‘covering’ for the altar. We
could remove the pictures, the pews, and so on, even the tabernacle, but we
couldn’t remove the altar. Every church must have an altar.
But there’s more.
Every altar must have a bishop (or a priest delegated by the bishop). An altar
without a priest is just a block of stone; a priest without an altar is ...
well ... a priest in search of an altar. The two are inextricable.
And it must be a
properly ordained priest. Without a properly ordained priest, by a properly
consecrated bishop, there is no priesthood. Jesus conferred the priesthood on
his Apostles at the Last Supper when he commanded them: Do this in memory of me. It was this very command which conferred
the power of the priesthood on the Apostles and those upon whom they later conferred
it themselves through ordination. This is why the Anglican priests who join the
Ordinariate to become Catholic priests have to be ordained again. A valid Mass
requires a validly ordained priest.
Another question I
ask the children is: What is an altar?
They give many answers. But the best one is from the child who told me that an
altar is a place we put things we want to give to God.
The Old Testament is
absolutely littered with accounts of altars built by people who wanted to give
things to God. The famous altar on which Abraham was going to sacrifice his son
Isaac comes readily to mind as well as the altar of the Temple in Jerusalem
where thousands of sheep and cattle and goats were sacrificed. The smoke rising
heavenwards from this altar could be seen from almost anywhere in the city. But
the smoke never reached heaven; it couldn’t. However high it went, however
wonderful and rich the offering, it could never reach God. In fact, it could
never reach the altar that stands in heaven
in the sight of God.
Did you realise
there is an altar in heaven? It’s probably not something we think about too
often. It’s the altar of God’s justice which appeared there when the first, the
Original Sin, was committed. And the tragedy was that there was no human good
enough, and no sacrifice worthy enough to be placed on that altar before God.
But God came to our
rescue. He sent his Son to us, the divine Word made flesh in the womb of the
Virgin Mary, to dwell among us as a man. He was truly one of us whilst
remaining God.
Well you know the
rest. This Son, the Lord Jesus, was crucified. He was nailed to the Cross, not
just by a group of Roman soldiers obeying orders, but by the evil resident in
our fallen human nature. Since we all share this nature we are all guilty of
his death.
He was innocent of
any wrong-doing and could have escaped this cruel death. As he told his
followers (Mtt 26:53): ... do you think
that I cannot appeal to my Father who would promptly send more than twelve
legions of angels to my defence? Instead, Jesus offered himself in obedience to the Father as a sacrifice of love
on the Cross – a pure victim, a holy victim, a spotless victim.
And so this brings
us to the third altar, the most important one of all, the one which binds the
altar in heaven to the altar here on earth. Can you guess what that third altar
may be? Yes, it’s the Cross; the altar of the Cross.
This altar lay waiting
on the ground on the hill of Golgotha and Jesus, stripped of his clothing, would,
the next day, willingly stretch himself out upon its rough surface and allow
himself to nailed there – a pure victim, a holy victim, a spotless victim – a
sacrifice entirely pleasing and acceptable to his Father. Jesus would be both
the priest who offers and the sacrifice being offered – he would become true
priest and true victim?
Jesus was very
conscious of all this during that final meal which he celebrated with his
Twelve and which we celebrate this evening. In his overflowing love and mercy
he wanted to make it possible for US to
be able to offer that same acceptable sacrifice to the Father.
Occasionally I hear
it said that people do not like the cross on our altar; they say it’s too big. In
a way I think it’s actually too small. I sometimes like to imagine it as life
size, as large as the Cross of Calvary, planted right here in front of us, to
remind us of the totally incomprehensible mystery by which Jesus made his
sacrifice on the Cross present in bread and wine.
Please forgive me
for using technological language but we might almost say that he ‘downloaded’
his sacrifice to the Father into the bread and wine. So that this became that and that became this.
This is my body given up for you; this is my
Blood poured out for you.
The Cross is the
Mass - and the Mass is the Cross.
The sacrifice made
on the altar of the Cross will, in a few moments, become fully present on our
altar here in Sale and on our behalf the bishop will say:
In humble prayer we ask you,
almighty God:
command these gifts be borne
by the hands of your holy Angel
to your altar on high
in the sight of your divine majesty...
command these gifts be borne
by the hands of your holy Angel
to your altar on high
in the sight of your divine majesty...
... and through these gifts we are saved.
