22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time
(Sunday 2nd September 2018)
“Lift up your hearts” – Mark 7:1-8,14-15,21-23
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus quotes something from the Prophet Isaiah that, I think, really challenges us. Jesus is quoting the Prophet Isaiah as He says that “this people honours me with their lips but their hearts are far from me.” In our lives today, we can often be exhorted to really pay attention to where our hearts are with God. Do we just pay God lip service? Do we just sometimes go through the motions in our prayers and devotions where we are saying the words but our hearts are not really there. I think this is true especially for Mass. Do you ever get distracted at Mass? We all do. We can go through the motions at Mass where we stand up, sit down, kneel, make the sign of the Cross, we say ‘Thanks be to God’, ‘The Lord be with you and with your spirit’, ‘Glory to God in the Highest’, etc. We know all of these words by heart and sometimes we can just go through the motions. All of a sudden we are coming near the end of Mass where we are saying the ‘Our Father’ and we wake up and realise that we haven’t even been thinking about what is happening here. My heart is not really here. If you are someone who feels a little bad about that sometimes, one thing to encourage you is that many of the early Church Fathers recognised that it is hard to pay attention with the full devotion all throughout the liturgy for the entire hour or ninety minutes or however long the Mass might be. But there is a certain moment in the Mass that is like a wake up call for us. It is right before the Eucharistic prayer where the priest says, “Lift up your hearts”.
The heart in the bible is not just a vital organ but biblically it describes the centre of all of our intentions, all of our affections. All of our actions flow from the heart. And so when the priest is saying to lift up your hearts, this is the moment that we really want to give our best attention. We should be paying attention all throughout Mass but if there is ever a moment where we really want to give our best, it is right now at this point. This is like a wake-up call for us. Why? Because we are about to hear those sacred words, the words of institution as the priest says those words of consecration and the bread and wine are changed into the very Body and Blood of Jesus. Our very God is about to come into our midst in this powerful way through the Blessed Sacrament. And so we really want to get our hearts ready, especially at this moment. We should always be trying to pay attention throughout the Mass but this is the really big moment. The priest says “Lift up your hearts”. It reminds me of what Jesus said there in our Gospel reading for today where he describes how many people will just honour Him with their lips but their hearts are far from Him. They just say words but they are not really present to Him. So how many times at Mass when the priest has said “Lift up your hearts” and we have automatically responded “We have lifted them up to the Lord” without really trying to pay attention.
One great Church Father by the name of St. Cyril said that at this point of the liturgy we should set aside all anxieties, all worldly concerns, all worldly affairs, etc and raise our hearts up to God in Heaven. So at Mass, how many times do we just say the words and my mind is thinking about some project that I am going to do at home or some problem at work or something someone said to me that day etc. These are very earthly things and St. Cyril is exhorting us to set aside all of them. So if there is ever a moment that we want to give our very best, it is right here when the priest says “Lift up your hearts”. Lets set aside all of those other things and really try our best from this moment all the way to the consecration to join our hearts, our whole lives with Jesus, with His offering of Himself to the Father, so that we can prepare our hearts to them receive Him more fully in Holy Communion.
So practically, this is what I want you to do – the next time that you go to Mass, I want you to really think about those words. Remind yourself before Mass that when we get to that point where the priest says “Lift up your hearts..”, that you are going to really try your best to do it.