BOOK REVIEW: Calvary and the Mass

It has been quite some time since I enjoyed a book so much that I read it cover to cover in one sitting. However, this morning I completed Calvary and the Mass by Fulton J. Sheen in a couple hours.

This beautiful reflection on Christ's sacrifice at Calvary emphasizes the reciprocal nature of love. Sheen, in his signature juxtaposed phrases, poignantly reminds the reader to contrast the completeness of God's love for us and the imperfections of our loving response to His initiative. He challenges and exhorts us to greater fidelity to Christian life. "What was done on Calvary avails for us only in the degree that we repeat t in our own lives." Sheen delights in paradox and describes the Divine irony and mercy entwined in the mystery that the Crucifixion, the result of our sin, has become the sole antidote to our imperfect love and lives.

While delving into the intricacies of our relationship with God, Sheen also communicates these truths with an attractive simplicity and honesty. He structures his reflections around the 7 last Words of Christ and parallels them with the various parts of the Mass. He employs clear analogies that are easy to remember. For example, Sheen compares our participation during the Mass to a radio. He notes that we can only tap into the mystery of what is going on if we are tuned to the right station, if we strive to listen to the whispered desires of Our Lord for communion with our hearts. Through his straightforward examples and anecdotes, Sheen's own ardent, trusting love of Our Lord and His Mother quickly stokes the fire in the heart of his readers.

I'll close with part of a prayer Sheen includes in his reflection on the Consecration:

Consecrate these trials of my life which would go unrewarded unless united with Thee; transubstatiate me so that like bread which is now Thy Body, and wine which is now Thy Blood, I too my be wholly Thine.

I care not if the species remain, or that, like the bread and the wine I seem to all earthly eyes the same as before My station in life, my routine duties, my work, my family--all these are but the species of my life which may remain unchanged; but the substance of my life, my soul, my mind, my will, my heart--transubstantiate them, transform them wholly into Thy service, so that through me all my know how sweet is the love of Christ. Amen.