Catholic by the Mass

The Catholic Herald serves up a mixed dish at times,
On this occasion it came up with a brilliant spotlight on one man's discovery of Faith through the Eucharist.

Becoming a Catholic without illusions

The historian Christopher Lee is familiar with Catholicism's patchy historical record. So why was he received into the Church earlier this month?

The Catholic Herald 10 June 2008

I find the words of Christopher Lee have a ringing authenticity in their unencumbered focus on the Mass, a simple faith in the Mystery of the Eucharist.
He writes:

Do I need to be a Roman Catholic? . . .
So what does bring me to Rome? First, I feel at home in its structure, its ritual, its devotion to Our Lady and the Sacrament of Confession.

But above all, I am brought to Rome by one simple celebration of Faith: the Mass.

I am welcomed by the unswerving devotion in the Liturgy of the Eucharist. It is a devout and profoundly personal moment when that wafer is indeed the Body.

It is a moment that has no need for the debate between a philosophical and anthropological approach to the Eucharist.

The Dominican Edward Schillebeeckx wrote that "the basis of the entire Eucharist event is Christ's personal gift of himself to his fellow-men and, within this, to the Father".

For me, it is a moment of almost mediaeval simplicity transcending a Tridentine and post-Tridentine perception of faith. It is a personal experience that is both frightening and a blessed excitement.

Did I not find it elsewhere? No, no I did not.

Yet, I have no evangelic message, certainly no sense of ecumenism. To my mind, one is one and the other is the other. There is no reason for wishy-washy diplomatic compromise and certainly not reconciliation.

Moreover, the Church of Rome is not a refuge of downtrodden worshippers. It is the true home of the expression of the Trinity and the Liturgy of the Mass. That is an awesome responsibility and one that it must with much louder voice more publicly celebrate.

On May 11 the Church of Rome welcomed me home - mucky taps and all. Thanks be to the Trinity.