The Eucharist is something that Catholics experience frequently. But do we take time to seriously contemplate what happens at Mass? If not, maybe we should. The time will be well spent because, while it is absolutely true that the Holy Eucharist is pure gift and a mystery that we will never fully understand on this side of the heavenly gates, the mystery is not totally impermeable to our understanding. Furthermore, as believers we are given the grace to receive the gift and to enter into the mystery in some measure.
We know from Revelation that God is an infinite and eternal God who creates from nothing. He created time, He will end time, and He stands outside of time. But Revelation also tells us that God also entered time. The eternal and omnipotent God sent his Word, and the Word “became flesh and dwelt among us.” The events of Jesus’ earthly life occurred in time. But they were not limited to time and history, and this fact is very important in understanding the Eucharist.
Many people love science fiction, and there seems be a new movie every month with characters who go back and forth in time and history, and in and out of our solar system. But that is what it is: fiction. The Eucharist is real. The historical events of the Triduum were simultaneously in and yet beyond time and history. Easter and Holy Thursday were interwoven with Good Friday. Jesus pre-enacted the Sacrifice of Calvary at the Last Supper. At that first Eucharist He told the apostles: “Now is the son of Man glorified and God is glorified in Him (John 13:31).
This very point is made in the Constitution On The Sacred Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council: “At the Last Supper, on the night when He was betrayed, our Savior instituted the Eucharistic sacrifice of His Body and Blood. He did this in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the Cross throughout the centuries until He should come again, and so to entrust to His beloved Spouse, the Church, a 
memorial of His death and resurrection: a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a Paschal banquet in which Christ is eaten, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us” (Sacrosanctum Concilium No. 47). Thus, when we consider the Holy Eucharist we are compelled to look from the crucifixion back to the Last Supper and forward again to Good Friday, and then to Easter Sunday.
Moreover, the Sacrifice continues eternally in heaven. As Preface III for the Easter season says: “He is still our priest, our advocate who always pleads our cause.”
In sum, while we are unable to fully comprehend it, the eternal and omnipotent Creator of all things broke into earthly time and became man. He shed His blood and gave up his life in a sacrifice that was a historical event within time on this earth to atone to the Father in heaven for our sins. But that sacrifice is also eternal and never ending. “But when Christ appeared as a High Priest of the good things that have come…He entered once for all into the holy place, taking not the blood of goats and calves but his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For Christ did not enter into a sanctuary made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf” (Heb 9: 11-12, 24-26). The sacrifice then continues with the risen Christ now glorified by the Father.
We are material beings with the distractions of the world, and those distractions do not disappear as we join our fellow parishioners at Mass. Usually they even multiply. So we need to work hard to prepare and be focused. Then think of what we are doing.
When we are present and participate in the Mass we are given personal access to the heavenly and eternal Liturgy. As humans we exist in time, but the Sacrifice of the Mass is both in time and outside of it, and because we are children of God we are allowed, although still on earth and limited by our material existence, to participate in that eternal and timeless Sacrifice in heaven.
Put another way, by the grace of God our participation in the eternal Liturgy is not delayed until when we are received into heaven. While still on earth we are allowed in this life a foretaste of paradise. At every Mass we are taken up into the eternal Liturgy in heaven, and by receiving Him in the Eucharist we are taken into the life of the Holy Trinity itself.
Consider the big picture here. The God who created you and me also created the entire universe, and He created it all from nothing. Ex nihilo. He is before, after, and greater than the entire created universe. Recall looking into the sky on a clear night with a sky full of stars. The vastness seems overwhelming, but even the universe is limited by time and space, and is less than its Creator. Nevertheless, meditating on such vastness can assist us in understanding, however inadequately, the greatness of the eternal Sacred Liturgy to which we are allowed, with our limited senses transformed by faith, to come close and to witness on the earthly altars in our earthly churches.
Indeed all creation, but especially mankind, was created for the praise of God in the eternal Liturgy of heaven. So as we immerse ourselves in the Sacred Liturgy be conscious of the great cosmic event in which we participate.
Pope John Paul II said it well: “Even when it is celebrated on the humble altar of a country church, the Eucharist is always in some way celebrated on the altar of the world. It unites heaven and earth. It embraces and permeates all creation. The Son of God became man in order to restore all creation, in one supreme act of praise, to the One who made it from nothing. He, the Eternal High Priest who by the blood of his Cross entered the eternal sanctuary, thus gives back to the Creator and Father all creation redeemed” (Ecclesia De Eucharistia 8).
Therefore, he who is before and outside of time and history, He who created the vastness of the universe (and more!), calls to us and beckons us to join all creation, draw close, and enter into the eternal sacrifice of the Son to the Father in the Spirit. But be forewarned. That call to us comes not in thunder and fire from the heavens, but in the quiet whisper of the pure love of the Eucharistic invitation, much as the prophet Elijah discovered. “Then the Lord said, ‘Go outside and stand on the mountain before the Lord; the Lord will be passing by.’ A strong and heavy wind was rending the mountains and crushing rocks before the Lord–but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake–but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake there was fire–but the Lord was not in the fire. After the fire there was a tiny whispering sound. When he heard this, Elijah hid his face in his cloak and went and stood at the entrance of the cave” (1Kings 19:11-13).
When the priest at Mass elevates the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of our Savior for us to worship and praise Him, Jesus is not arrayed before us as a king in gold and fine clothing, but in the humble simplicity of the unleavened host and fruit of the vine. It is a reminder that the transcendent and omnipotent God out of love for us “emptied Himself,” became one of us to save us, and extends His invitation to each of us for Holy Communion with Him. It is also a reminder to us of the humility and reverence with which we should approach the altar to receive Him.
Therefore, if we seek a deeper understanding and involvement in the Eucharist it is good to stop and consider in what we are engaged, because we are most privileged. As children of God, adopted sons, we are permitted to enter into the divine Eucharistic Mystery. In the Eucharist we are invited to the eternal Liturgy in the “sanctuary [not] made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself.” We should humbly answer the invitation.
