A Meditation at Early Morning Mass on the Georgic

Fred J. Tritton

 

This is my blood poured out for you; this is my body broken for you. This is how I give myself; this is how God gives Himself, eternally for his creation.

The crass materialization of allegory—don’t get entangled in metaphors; don’t hold on to the dead form; seek to know and feel the life that it embodies. The perpetual celebration of the Supper, Communion, Mass, is in itself, nothing; but it helps to concentrate on a tremendous spiritual reality, and by concentration, focusing of all feeling, thought, desire, aspiration, imagination, body, soul, spirit, we are able to penetrate to the heart of mystery, feel ourselves into it, become identified with it. The blood shed is God’s life flowing through us, washing away our stain, washing us clean from sin, invigorating and strengthening us to do all things that are God”s will. We also must pour out our life in like fashion because it is one life—and look for the operation of that life in others.

The body broken is the form ever being shattered so that the life may be liberated. Ideas, notions, concepts, ideals also, must be continually broken up and their essence absorbed for our spiritual nourishment. Even Christ himself (the idea, word, concept of God incarnate) must be taken and broken in order to know him in his essential reality. He is a gateway rather than a cul de sac. He who sees him sees beyond him. He who knows that he can never be imprisoned in a concept, that he will always be knowing more but never know him finally.