This is the fifth and final week in our series of homilies about the Holy Mass.  Over the past few weeks, we’ve said that Mass is most fundamentally the sacrifice of Christ made present for us, and Our Lord is the one who does all the really important work.  But what we do is important too: and so, we discussed Mass being the perfect act of worship, which is what we’re here to do: to worship God.  We focused on the Eucharistic Prayer, which so beautifully brings together those two fundamental elements: sacrifice and worship.  Then we talked about what an incredible and extraordinary privilege it is to receive the Sacred Body and Precious Blood of the Lord in Holy Communion.  So that’s about it.  Obviously we could keep doing this forever.  Because the Mass is the Mystery of Christ himself, it’s inexhaustible: there are always more glorious things to talk about.  But next week for Christ the King Sunday and then after that into Advent, we’ll get back into our normal routine of thinking about the Scripture readings and the Feast Days that we’re celebrating.  

But what should we take with us from this little diversion we’ve been on the last several weeks?  It’s this: and I’ll say it one more time: St. John Vianney said that, if we really knew what was going on at Mass, we would be so overwhelmed and so moved and so awe-struck, that we would die of joy.  So here’s the point: the Mass needs to be the center of our everything.  The Sacred Heart of Jesus, truly present for us in this sacrifice, needs to be the beating heart of our lives.  In the middle of everything.  Pumping life into everything that we do and everything that we are.  Vatican II taught that the Mass is the source and the summit of the Christian life.  The source, and the summit.  It’s the source of our Christian life, because everything flows from it: everything that we do should be motivated and nourished and inspired by our participation in Mass.  If we can realize and remember that the Mass the most important thing in our lives, the most important thing that we do: then everything in our life will flow out of it, and we will be defined by the sacrificial love of Christ, that we can only fully experience here.  Mass is also the summit of our life.  It’s the highest point we ever reach.  Not only should Mass inspire all of our day-to-day stuff, all of the regular activities of our lives should propel us back towards our experience of Christ at Mass.  Our prayers, and our work, and our leisure, and our family life, and our little annoyances, our fun, our joys, and our sorrows: all these normal things should push us right back to our safest and dearest home, which is this altar, where we encounter the Heart of Jesus Christ.  

Now I realize I do this for a living, and obviously I’m going to think it’s important.  And please understand: I’ve been giving you the “hard sell” for the last few weeks.  But I want you to know: it’s only because I love you.  I’m not paid on commission, and I’m going to say Mass anyway, whether there are 200 other people here or, or 10, or 1.  But I care about you, and I’m here to give you really good news: if you want your life to be infused with meaning and purpose, if you want to grow in true peace even amid the great difficulties and very real struggles of your life, if you want to have a firm anchor that keeps you grounded and attached to the most important realities that there are: if that's what you want, then love the Mass, more and more.  Come to Mass, more and more.  Make the Mass the absolutely indispensable part of your week.  It won’t make everything in your life easy; it's not a magic trick.  But it will give you strength, comfort, stability, and a true peace that the world cannot give.  And then, when your days on this earth are coming to their close, you will have spent so much time looking through a window into heaven, that you will be ready to die of joy.