The Lamb's Supper

Of all things Catholic, there is nothing that is so familiar as the Mass. With its unchanging prayers, the Mass fits Catholics like their favorite clothes. Yet most Catholics sitting in the pews on Sundays fail to see the powerful supernatural drama that enfolds them. Pope John Paul II described the Mass as "Heaven on Earth," explaining that what "we celebrate on Earth is a mysterious participation in the heavenly liturgy."

The Lamb’s Supper reveals a long-lost secret of the Church: The early Christians' key to understanding the mysteries of the Mass was the New Testament Book of Revelation. With its bizarre imagery, its mystic visions of heaven, and its end-of-time prophecies, Revelation mirrors the sacrifice and celebration of the Eucharist.

Beautifully written, in clear direct language, bestselling Catholic author Scott Hahn's new book will help readers see the Mass with new eyes, pray the liturgy with a renewed heart, and enter into the Mass more fully, enthusiastically, intelligently, and powerfully than ever before.

This book was loaned to me by a western rights friend.  (I refuse to use the term "Catholic" with an adjective given the word's meaning.)  Not being of the western rights liturgy, I was not of the intended audience of the book.  I was not familiar with the Mass liturgy, so there is likely great information that I did not gather any knowledge from.  I do think Dr. Hahn wrote an excellent text concerning and supporting his understanding of the Mass.  He did help me as a Protestant understand my differences with my western rights and Orthodox brothers and sisters.  I do not have strong theological arguments with them.  My differences are strictly philosophical.

My western and eastern rights brothers and sisters focus heavily on the importance of the history of church liturgy.  The Mass and its connection with the Revelation is a chicken and egg argument, i.e., did the early Church fathers pattern their new method of worship after the Revelation or does the Revelation reveal the meaning of the Mass?  Dr. Hahn does not discuss this conundrum.  He assumes the second by axiom.

Since this is my blog, you get my thoughts on this subject.  I believe that this new method of worship that the Lord said nothing about was patterned after what the early church fathers knew: Judisim.  As the Church has grown and taken on other cultural histories, worship today looks different across the earth.  Is that wrong?  I believe not.  If the pattern of worship was important to the Lord, I believe He would have spoken on it.  Dr. Hahn quotes extensively from the Revelation because that is the focus of his text.  I am certain of his knowledge of the Scripture, but there are two I will quote that I believe ends the argument.

For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift — not from works, so that no one can boast. 

Ephesians 2:8-9

For freedom, Christ set us free. Stand firm then and don’t submit again to a yoke of slavery. 

Galatians 5:1