Jerry: Like the Batman villain?
George: (condescending) If that helps you.
Through the dust and the smoke of this man-made hell
Walked a giant of a man that the miners knew well
Grabbed a saggin' timber, gave out with a groan
And like a giant oak tree he just stood there alone, big John.
And with all of his strength he gave a mighty shove
Then a miner yelled out, "There's a light up above"
And twenty men scrambled from a would-be grave
Now there's only one left down there to save, big John
This helps me appreciate the Mass a little more. That "action whereby we re-enact His Death on the Cross is the Sacrifice of the Mass," says Fulton Sheen in Calvary and the Mass. At the Mass, we are united with Him,
. . . in spite of our nothingness; in a certain sense, we lose our individuality for the time being; we unite our intellect and will, our heart and our soul, our body and our blood, so intimately with Christ, that the Heavenly Father sees not so much us with our imperfection, but rather sees us in Him, the Beloved Son in whom He is well pleased. The Mass is for that reason the greatest event in the history of mankind; the only Holy Act which keeps the wrath of God from a sinful world, because it holds the Cross between heaven and earth . . .
Like Big John grabbing that sagging timber and giving a mighty shove, bringing light to the darkest of places, the Cross keeps the wrath of heaven from crashing onto the earth and enveloping us in darkness.
I guess the analogy ends there. Jimmy Dean tells us "they never re-opened that worthless pit," but "they" did re-open this worthless pit we call "earth."
After that grossest of injustices on Calvary, God should've closed this worthless pit, but that's what Holy Thursday explains. Christ said, "The pit is now collapsing but I will push open a path in just three days. After that, you'll need to keep that path open, and here's how you do it."
He then instituted the precise way it should be done. That's what we commemorate on Holy Thursday. That's what we do at every Mass.
Calvary is the pit collapsing. Calvary is the reason this pit should never be re-opened. The Mass is the constant re-opening of the pit, pushing away the collapsed earth, letting in the light, and opening a way to escape (to be saved).
In a way, Holy Thursday and Easter sandwich the meat that is Good Friday. Holy Thursday intimates that the pit will soon collapse but there's a way to scramble out. Easter confirms that the way works.
And the way is to unite ourselves to that sagging timber that Big John used to create space between the pit and the surface. The Mass is the most intimate way we attach ourselves to that timber.
