75 - Psychological and Transformational Stages of the Mass

            Some of the more traditional religious ceremonies are preceded by a procession exhibiting festive pageantry. Participating in a procession fulfills our need to discover whatever is holding us back from our quest and release ourselves from it.

            But it is in the custom of performing ablutions that our sense of guilt is sparked. It brings home to us the importance of confronting our conscience as we recollect having offended or abused or harmed a fellow being. By the same token it draws our attention to the immaculate nature of that deep core in our being in which we discover the sacred.

There is a deep core in our being that is of the nature of a mirror that can never be tarnished by the impressions upon it. 

Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

            Just as in the Catholic Mass, we first need to go through the Kyrie and Christe Eleison before participating in the Gloria. We cannot approach the immaculate center of our being without coming to terms with our guilt. To be honest with ourselves, (otherwise it would be a masquerade), we resort to ponderous soul-searchings. Memories of forgotten incidents besiege our minds and pummel our emotions. Our reason will come to our rescue, furnishing us with the most unconvincing arguments intended to justify ourselves. We may fall for these unaware, yet our conscience may not feel totally assuaged.

            Our assessment of our guilt avers itself not to be too reliable. It easily overlaps with our resentment. We may feel guilty for having allowed ourselves to be abused, or co-dependent. Anger serves as our defense system. But we need to clearly distinguish between rage and outrage. Consider rage as the personal dimension of outrage and outrage as the impersonal dimension of rage. Rage can degenerate as hatred; outrage can erupt into heroism.

            Toying with the impelling emotions generated in the drama of our lives, religion avers itself to be our saving grace. By grasping the splendor in the heavens behind the iniquity in the earthly drama we are lured out of our self-pity, which helps us to heal. Is it worth missing out on the Gloria by being waylaid by our hurts in our storms in our teacups, when life in all its glory beckons us to participate in the cosmic celebration?

            Is it the act of glorification rising aloft from the fervor of the congregation into the high vaults amidst the rafters adorning the colossal masonry of the nave as incense echoes the celebration in the heavens - or is it our incantations that enchant those celestial beings by an eerie sortilege into an upsurge of jubilation? It is as though a skylight had been suddenly opened between earth and heaven.

            The Gloria of the Mass serves as a reminder that it is only out of an act of glorification that we can raise ourselves above our commonplace self-image in which we are encapsulated by our trite emotions, our greed, our lack of mercy and compassion. It brings home to us that it is our ability to honor our intuition about a splendor that is continually trying to break through the painful circumstances constraining us in the existential condition that fosters our transformations.

            Of course those realms that we ascribe to the heavens are not located elsewhere; they are not confined to us either. But we accede to these by confectioning that very temple built in the fabric of our own person, our body, magnetic field, aura, psyche, securing a psychological area offering us protection against the sacrilege rampant in the world, also within ourselves.

            It is indeed our faith in our intuition - a kind of inborn sense of meaningfulness not based upon the judgments of our limited minds - that gives us access to the higher dimensions of our being, and by the same token of the universe. Incidentally let us not confuse faith with belief which is based on authority.

            This is where the Credo comes in, bolstered by the power of our personal convictions. It is a mode of cognizance, not based upon our assessment of situations but upon the fact that our thinking is of an identical nature to the thinking of the universe when not limited by our personal focal center. This perspective emerges only when we are able to grasp the cosmic and transcendental outreach of our being.

            It is prayer, the act of glorification that shifts our thinking from the commonplace mode to this cosmic and transcendent mode. The effect of prayer is challenging to our minds by revealing to us hidden causes behind events that do not make sense in our lives or that of others. In our ignorance of that which is enacted behind situations, sometimes dramatic, we tend to make serious mistakes in our handling of our affairs with dire consequences for ourselves and others. It is difficult for our minds, functioning in their limited fashion, to grasp the interaction between destiny and free-will. It is difficult to gauge the cosmic laws whereby the interplay between our covetousness and our dedication to service affects our destiny. Or how this effects our personality, our attunement and our fulfillment of our life's purpose. That the act of giving, sacrifice, relinquishing even to the point of surrender should be the ultimate issue in our lives defies rational common-sense. Why this moral injunction about sacrifice epitomized in the rituals of all religions illustrated in the oblation of the Agnus Dei, the lamb of God, or the immolation of Isaac, culminating in the Crucifixus of the Mass?

Those who are crucified on earth will be free in the heavens and those who are free on earth will be crucified in the heavens. 

Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

            It is not much use trying to argue with whatever we ascribe to destiny - that is the bona fide of the enigmatic intentions of the programming of the universe. But it is clear that we cannot appraise this intention from our limited perspective. However I think that we can agree that charity makes peoples personalities appealing and welcoming.

            However the only sense renunciation could possibly make is in resurrection - Resurrexit. That the quintessence of whatever has been achieved in the process of becoming is feedback into the pool of resourcefulness of the cosmos makes metaphysical sense. However since that which has been achieved by existentiation is that the virtual Totality should be diversified in each of us, points to the original contribution of our personal dimension - that the quintessence of our personality and know-how must be resurrected.

            It becomes obvious to ones soul-searching that one cannot expect ones being to be resurrected unless purified of its blemishes. To extract the quintessence, Alchemists need to drain away the dross. This is where one finds that asking for forgiveness is not good enough; one needs to repent, which means renewing ones pledge never to repeat the offense: the Confiteor.

            This pledge to service illustrated by Issaias send me is a commitment to accept whatever the office asks of one in terms of sacrifice to the point of persecution, torture, martyrdom. There is a feeling that those called to cosmic service are being eulogized by heavenly beings - the Sanctus. Moreover something in the human spirit surges forth to honor, venerate, sanctify our heroes who have lived up to this higher calling - the Hosanna. They figure in our sacred treasure-house as living examples of the value we treasure most. Only after this may the celebrant approach in the Introit, the altar, the holy of holies to participate of the Eucharist.

            Hic est enim Corpus Meum; Hic est enim Calix Sanguinis Mea.

                    This is my body, this is the chalice of my blood.

     According to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin:

The body of Christ represents the matter of the universe that is continually being transmute into spirit (energy), and the blood is the suffering implied by the incarnate condition, being transfigured into joy.

            The ritual serves as a reminder that we do carry within us the inheritance of the whole universe which may be looked upon as the body of God. But if we are not aware of our divine inheritance, it remains recessive in us - we cannot actuate it in our personal idiosyncrasies. *

Be ye perfect as your Father.

            The celebrants now return to their seats replenished by the many-splendored bounty lying in wait in their own being. Conversely by following the psychological stages celebrated in the Mass the contemplative may in his/her own personal orison experience this holy communion with the whole universe at all its levels.

The altar is amongst the stars.

Teilhard de Chardin

            The kind of peace that passeth all understanding in the Dona Nobis Pacem could not possibly be reached unless one has gone through the cosmic drama, enjoying the privilege of the gift of life and suffering defeat and humiliation and despair. There is no peace equal to that at the aftermath of a storm - when one has confronted the challenge and come to terms with it. Hence the last words of Christ: It has been fulfilled.

Ita Missa Est - the Mass is completed.

* Reference could be made here to the Greek myth of Zagreus, the son of Zeus. When Zeus vacated his throne, his son Zagreus sat upon it. While stupefied at the discovery of his resemblance to his father as he looked into the mirror presented to him by the Titans, they precipitated him into the abyss and devoured him. Zeus shattered the Titans with his thunderbolt and men were born out of the ashes of the Titans who had ingested the body of the son of God.
