The Mass is God’s celebration, and we have been invited. This is not our celebration to which we have invited God. When we gather to celebrate the Sacred Liturgy and to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, we are joining in the Wedding Feast of the Lamb of God. Our worship on earth is a participation in the worship of heaven. The altar servers carry out the ministry of the angels. They bring the gifts to the table of the wedding feast. The deacon is the friend of the bridegroom. He is the best man. He prepares the table of the feast, and stands at the side of the bridegroom. The priest sacramentally re-presents Christ, who is the bridegroom of the Church. And the beautiful and glorious bride is the assembly of the baptized. Again and again the scriptures speak of the wedding banquet. The Lord Jesus inaugurates his ministry and performs his first miracle at the wedding at Cana. The entire book of Revelation depicts the wedding feast of the Lamb. When we gather as a body for worship, we are taking part in the wedding feast. And that means that the words that we speak to each other in the Liturgy, our prayers and responses, are wedding vows. The words that we speak are filled with power, with history, and with promise. They are not ordinary words, and they do not speak of ordinary things. At the invitation of God, we are invited to add our voices to the words of love and promise that Christ professes to the Church and the Church professes to Christ her Lord.
Presented at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic
Church, Monroe, NC
