Oh, to die of joy

By Tom Quiner

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“All the angels and the saints,

unite to pray with man.

Let us shed the earth’s constraints,

At the supper of the Lamb.”

[Excerpted from “The Liturgy of Heaven,” copyright 2012 by Tom Quiner]

The Catholic Mass exceeds my feeble understanding. Christ is there. All the angels. All the saints. The New Jerusalem joins earth in singing praise to God Almighty.

This Eucharistic sacrifice is man’s salvation.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI describes the Mass as the Liturgy of Heaven.

In order to express my love of God and try to make sense of His Awesomeness, I write music and song lyrics, such as the verse excerpted above from “The Liturgy of Heaven.”

Saint Jean Vianney’s quote above is a thrilling reminder that the Mass exceeds our comprehension, or as Jack Nicholson said in “A Few Good Men,” “you can’t handle the truth!”

Or to paraphrase, we can’t handle the beauty, at least not yet.

For to understand the Mass is to die of joy.

What a way to go!

Our life’s goal is to enter that New Jerusalem and spend eternity with our God in eternal joy.