The Mass and an interesting twist of thought

I recently purchased Bishop Barron's newest project and gift, The Mass. Since it is in high demand and the warehouse is behind in their shipping, those of us waiting a bit longer for their shipment to arrive got a free pass to watch it online.  Only wanting to get a peek, I watched the Bishop's first episode and introduction to the project.

 In this six-minute presentation, Bishop Barron explained in beautiful detail, the Mass and it's meaning.  He treated us with an interesting twist of thought from Romano Guardini, a German-born Catholic priest and Theologian of the twentieth century.  The bishop quotes Guardini, "The liturgy, the Mass, is the supreme form of play."  Pretty shocking, right?  Bishop Barron explains it like this:  Work is an activity that has a purpose; play, on the other hand, is done entirely for its own sake.  Play has no purpose outside of itself, therefore, it's higher than work, it's more beautiful than work, more precious than work."   GK Chesterton observed, "Children always know how to engage in serious play."  Play is the most useless thing we can do, which means it is the most important thing that we do.  We tend to think work is the most important thing, instead of playing.  In Heaven, we will not be working at all.   There we will be resting or in eternal rest and relaxation, worshiping our God in rest.

The Mass is the supreme moment of worship. When we worship our God and our Lord Jesus Christ, we are right with God and ourselves.  The Mass gives us this chance to direct our worship to the one true God and the highest directive.  Bad praise comes when we do not direct our worship to God and instead raise to the highest place in our minds and hearts things of the earth and of mankind.

Bishop Barron's work for the Church is quite magnificent and boundless in his eloquent style of verbiage.  I am pleased that we have such a theologian as this in our modern day midst to help us along the way in understanding and appreciation of our faith vehicle, called Catholicism.

May God bless and keep our wonderful Bishop for many years to come!