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Sanctus With this meditation I return to my commentary on the liturgy of the Mass. Today I will focus on the beautiful short hymn called the Sanctus, (“Holy, holy, holy Lord...") which has been an essential part of most Eucharistic Prayers from ancient times. It is actually the conflation of two, originally separate biblical texts. The first part (“Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might! Heaven and earth are full of your glory”) is a modified version of Isaiah 6: 2-3, while the second part (“Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest”) is from the New Testament: it is the acclamation of the crowds welcoming Jesus as he entered Jerusalem in solemn procession before the Last Passover of his life. (It is worth noting that the cry “Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” consists of free quotes from Ps 118: 25-26. This Psalm was traditionally sung by Jews at the end of each Passover celebration and expressed their hope and prayer for the coming of the Messiah, who according to a wide-spread belief, would come exactly during the celebration of the Passover. Let us also recall that “Hosanna” derives from a Hebrew verb form expressing a prayerful wish “grant salvation” or “save, then”). This acclamation, which should if possible be sung at Mass, leads us into the heart of the Eucharistic mystery. As I pointed out before, the end of each Preface expresses our conviction that we are saying, or singing, the Sanctus together with all the saints and the heavenly choirs of angels. The Sanctus calls us to wake up to the reality of where we are in the liturgy. We are at the intersection of time and eternity or, rather, our worship in time is raised up by the Holy Spirit into the eternal worship of the saints and angels. We experience what happened to John, the author of the Book of Revelation, who was caught up in spirit to heaven (4:1-11). We, too, should discover in awe that we are allowed to participate in the eternal praise and thanksgiving of the angels and the saints who stand before the throne of God and worship him unceasingly. In fact, the Greek liturgy says at this point: “Set aside all worldly care” -- that is, forget about your petty worries that ultimately do not count. Set them aside and realize what the future holds for you. Note that this is not merely a preview of our future; rather, we are introduced into our future, into heaven itself. It depends upon us whether, after the mass, we want to live on earth as “citizens of heaven,” our hearts longing for the light of truth and fire of love that is awaiting us there. The angelic hosts are rejoicing that heaven and earth are full of God’s glory. That is,God’s light, beauty, splendor, and goodness radiate through the universe. But you may ask, “How can we see God’s beauty, goodness and wisdom in the world that is so full of evil, ugliness and falsehood? How can we believe in the goodness of the Creator who allowed the genocide of 6 million Jews, the murder of millions of Cambodians, Africans and Bosnians? How can we see the splendor of God in creation where the AIDS epidemic is decimating the children of Africa, where countless other children are sold into prostitution? The beauty of the universe seems to be an unrealistic dream, the result of a treacherous self-deception. How can we see the universe realistically as beautiful in the face of so much evil? The second half of the Sanctus provides us with the answer: “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” In other words, there is a double movement in the liturgy: while we are taken up into the heavenly liturgy, the crucified and risen Lord himself descends and comes into our midst. “Behold, he is coming amidst the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him” (Rev 1:7). The risen Lord is coming to us, the one whom we have crucified, whose hands and feet and side were pierced by our sins. Mel Gibson was right when he insisted that in his film he personally would drive one of the nails into the hands of Jesus. He showed what each one of us did with his sins to Jesus. On the cross the Son of God took upon himself all the evil, all the darkness and ugliness of the world. He bore this burden in his own body and burned away all the dirt in us by the fire of his love. As St. Bernard says with another image so simply and beautifully, Jesus was like a special kind of stone: the more we were hitting him with our hatred, the more beautiful the music of love uttered by the stone. The horrifying evil of the world called forth a beautiful song of love from Jesus’ pierced heart. Thus, it is in this way that he has conquered evil: his all embracing love shines from his wounds, which like precious pearls symbolize the victory he has won over sin and death. If we receive Him into our hearts, we can look at the world and discover not a false dream, but the beauty, goodness and splendor of God shining everywhere, even in the midst of suffering. Then we can sing with conviction that heaven and earth are full of God’s glory, and then perhaps even our own hearts will reflect, to some extent, the glory of his love.
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