The Altar as Pledge of Love
The Isenheim altarpiece helps us understand the strange act of adoration that takes place at the beginning of every Mass. The priest approaches the altar, bowing toward it, kissing it with reverent love, and incensing the cross and the altar together. The word altar should denote to us a place of sacrifice. And the fact that the cross and the altar are incensed together further underline the sacrificial event that takes place at every Mass.
Of course, the altar that is kissed is itself a strange kind of altar. There will be no sacrifice of animals upon the altar stone. Rather, in the Liturgy of the Eucharist, bread and wine will be brought forward. Prayers will be prayed. The memory of Christ’s passion and death will be recalled. But no blood (unless something seriously terrible happens) will be spilled upon the altar stone.
The sacrifice of the Mass is Christ’s very sacrifice of love. It is the sacrifice of love that is the very origin of the Church to begin with. As Pope Benedict XVI wrote:
The Church is able to celebrate and adore the mystery of Christ present in the Eucharist precisely because Christ first gave himself to her in the sacrifice of the Cross. The Church’s ability to “make” the Eucharist is completely rooted in Christ’s self-gift to her. Here we can see more clearly the meaning of Saint John’s words: ‘he first loved us’ (1 Jn 4:19). We, too, at every celebration of the Eucharist, confess the primacy of Christ’s gift. The causal influence of the Eucharist at the Church’s origins definitively discloses … the priority of the fact that it was Christ who loved us “first.” For all eternity he remains the one who loves us first.4
In this sense, our participation in the sacrifice of the Mass is a return gift of love offered to the God who made the first move of love toward us. The God who entered into relationship with us in creation, who called us into covenant in the Exodus, who invited us to love anew in the prophets, who in the fullness of time entered into human history in Jesus Christ: this God made the first move. He loved us first, and he loved us unto the end, dying upon the cross as a supreme act of love. And he still loves us, drawing us closer to his side.
So the priest kisses an altar. Not because Catholics are masochists, having a carnival in the midst of a suffering world. We kiss the altar because it stands among us as a sign of Christ’s total act of love. What can we do as human beings but respond with a kiss to such a gift? As the priest kisses the altar, each of us gathered in the sanctuary is to let our whole heart long for the God who first loved us.
Bringing the Wounds of the World to the Altar
Of course, there is still something very provocative about kissing an altar, that object in the ancient world that functioned as a place of violence and death. Too often American religion serves as a pleasant sedative that enables us to bypass the suffering of the world. Religion is meant to make us feel happy in a world that is sad. To escape the sorrows of the mundane world. You often hear this kind of sentiment in really terrible liturgical music that seems to say: sure, not everything is great, but don’t worry, Jesus will make it all better.
Such an approach to religious practice is simply not Catholic. When we go to Mass, we do not leave behind the joys or sorrows that mark us. The Body of Christ throughout the world suffers from the wounds of sin and death, some of which we have inflicted through our own callousness. Psalm 42 cries out to God, “My being thirsts for God, the living God. / When can I go and see the face of God? / My tears have been my food day and night, / as they ask daily, ‘Where is your God?’” (Ps 42:3–4).
In the midst of the illness of loved ones we may ask, “Where are you, O God.” As we long for a spouse, only to discover relationship after relationship ending, we may cry out, “O God, where are you?” As we suffer through conflict in our marriage, we may cry out, “God, please do something!” As Christians undergo persecution in the Middle East, their voice rings out most clearly: “Act now, my God!”
And yet, the Psalmist does not give up hope: “Bring me to your holy mountain, / to the place of your dwelling, / That I may come to the altar of God, / to God, my joy, my delight” (Ps 43:3–4). To this very altar we bring everything that we have. We bring our joys, which will be offered in love to the Father through the Son. We bring our sorrows, which will also be given as a gift to the triune God. What a radical act to stand before God even when our world is afflicted by violence and sin and death and still hope that God can transform our suffering.
The Reign of Peace Begins
The opening words and actions of the Mass testify to this hope. When we cross ourselves in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, we demonstrate that God’s love has begun to have its reign in our very bodies. It is not simply some ritual tic. It is a continual sign to myself and all the world that my being is already participating in God’s very life. I am no longer an individual apart from the rest of the world, apart from God. I exist in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Every part of my life is to have meaning in God’s sacrificial love.
The priest says to us, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” This is not simply a fancy way for the Church to say “Hello, nice to see you. How have you been?” God’s love is already active in assembling us together for this prayer. The Lord is with us, drawing us toward His sacrifice of love upon the altar. At the beginning of Mass, we need only make the space for God to live and move within us. In the Mass, the reign of God’s peace, God’s love, has begun.
Take me to your holy altar, O Lord
And make me a sacrifice of love unto, my God.
I give to you my joys and sorrows,
My very self.
And I receive back from you, a love that makes all things possible.
Make space within me to receive this love, to become this love.
To share this love to all the ends of the earth.
Questions and Practices
1. In kissing the altar, we offer a return gift of love to the God who first loved us. Where have you already noticed God’s activity of love in your own life?
2. What joys and sorrows do you want to bring to the altar of God? What do you hope that God will do with your offering?
3. What obstacles in your life exist that make it difficult to accept God’s peace in the Mass? What would you need to do in order to move past these obstacles?
4. Buy an icon or other piece of religious art for your home. At the end of every evening, kiss this image. How has the act of kissing this icon or image become a prayer for you?
Chapter Five
The Penitential Act
“Lord, Have Mercy”
When I am stuck in traffic, I become a terrible human being. Frustrated, I begin to categorize those around me. The driver who continues to tailgate me becomes the scum of the earth. I imagine said driver, caught by the cops and thrown into jail, receiving the punishment that he deserves for being so inconsiderate. The person driving in front of me, constantly moving from the accelerator to the brake, is the most incompetent person in the world (according to my peerless judgment). I long for an occasion to meet this person one-on-one, letting him know the proper