Bread in the Wilderness (New Directions Classic) by Thomas Merton

Author:Thomas Merton [Merton, Thomas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-8112-2416-1
Publisher: New Directions
Published: 2014-08-22T16:00:00+00:00

3:

“Visible Mysteries”

SINCE WE HAVE JUST SPOKEN OF THE MASS OF Ascension Day, let us take up another idea that is emphasized in that Mass. The Postcommunion prayer is one of the many dogmatic statements of the spiritual power that is exercised upon souls, by the Holy Ghost, through the Mysteries and Sacraments of the Faith, to transform men into Christ. The prayer runs: “Grant us, we beseech Thee, O almighty and merciful Lord, that what we have received as our nourishment in visible Mysteries we may enjoy in its invisible effect.”[50]

What is meant by the term “visible Mysteries”? It is evident from this particular context that it is an expression which the liturgical language of the Church uses when it speaks of Holy Communion. And of course it refers not to Communion in the abstract, but to Communion as the vital act of participation in the Sacrifice of the Mass by receiving the Body of Christ. The word “Mysteries,” in the liturgical language of the Church, means the Mass, in all its essentials and all its integral parts and all its accidents. The “Sacred Mysteries” are the Mass and all that surrounds the Mass. The ceremonies and functions of the Divine Office are not usually referred to as “Mysteries.” However, they bear a close relation to the Mass which is the center of the whole Liturgy. What is more, there is a whole gamut of meanings in which the word “Mysteries” transcends its merely liturgical reference. And the Mystery of Faith in these higher and broader senses is also contained in Scripture and is accessible above all in the Gospels and the Psalms.

In the first place, God Himself, the Holy Trinity, is the infinite Mystery and of Him all other “Mysteries” are a revelation. He manifests Himself to us in the “Mysteries” with which the Scriptures are filled. But above all He has spoken to us directly in His Son, locutus est nobis in Filio.[51]

It is also customary to speak of the “Mysteries of Christ.” These “Mysteries” are groups of significant actions in the Life of Jesus—the Mystery of the Nativity, of the Hidden Life, the Baptism, the Passion, and so on—considered as God’s revelations of Himself to us in Christ. For Christ, the Man, is the Word of God and all His actions and virtues as man give the most perfect possible human expression to the Life He leads as Word in sinu Patris, in the depths of the God head. His Sacrifice of Himself on the Cross for us, an unfathomable Mystery of disinterested Love, is a most perfect concrete expression of that Charity which is the very Nature of God: for God is Love.

These “Mysteries” of Christ are not merely called “Mysteries” because they are too deep for us to understand and are therefore proposed to us to be contemplated with silent and adoring faith. They are not just something you think about and look at. The term mysterium in St Paul has a dynamic sense. It

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