Fr. Michael Williams

It’s always nice to be invited to a wedding! I was invited to preside at a wedding in the Cathedral yesterday. This couple had met one another at the Champions League Cup Final in Istanbul in 2005 when Liverpool won the European Cup for the fifth time. Of course I enjoyed mentioning that during the sermon!

Today’s reading from the letter to the Hebrews today is a text that deals with the Wedding Feast of the Lamb of God, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

‘What you have come to is nothing known to the senses’. Our senses are engaged at Holy Mass- seeing, hearing, touching, tasting- but the Mass goes much deeper than our physical senses. God uses our senses to draw us into a spiritual communion with Himself at Mass. During Mass the Spirit of God touches our spirit. Spirit speaks to spirit; the Unseen God communicates with our spirit. ‘What you have come to is nothing known to the senses’.

The author of Hebrews continues, ‘you have come to the city of the living God, where the millions of angels have gathered for the festival’. There are other spirits in existence other than our human ones: there are angelic spirits. Saint John Chrysostom says, \“When Mass is being celebrated, the Sanctuary is filled with countless Angels who adore the Divine Victim immolated on the altar.\” Besides the guardian Angels of the faithful who are present, thousands of Heavenly spirits assist at Mass, reverently worshipping their Lord and God.

There are not a few accounts of angels making an appearance to the faithful to remind them of the Divine realities at Mass. Before Our Lady appeared to the three shepherd children at Fatima in Portugal in 1917, the Archangel Michael appeared to the three children, holding the Sacred Host over the Chalice of the Precious Blood. He taught them this prayer in front of the Body and Blood of Christ: ‘My Lord, I believe, I adore, I hope, I love You. And I ask pardon for all those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope and who do not love You’. If you ever go to Fatima you will see a statue commemorating this event.

We do need these reminders from time to time because as the letter to the Hebrews reminds us with the angels we are ‘citizens of heaven’. That citizenship has begun for us now. It is not something for the future, it is here and now. We are called to live as ‘citizens of heaven’ here and now in the service of God and His people. This citizenship is a prelude to entering the banquet of eternal life, a banquet which we experience during Mass.