The Altar of God

IN TWO OF his Sermons for July and August, Saint Anthony meditates on the significance of the altar in Holy Scripture. He is not concerned with the literal details of Old Testament worship in themselves, but with how they foreshadow the spiritual worship of Christian people. Can we apply his insights to ourselves?

In the first Sermon, that for the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost (Sermons, II, 137-155), the Gospel under consideration begins with Our Lord’s exhortation to let our justice abound more than that of the Pharisees. The fundamental meaning is that our religion must not be a matter of merely outward observance, but must come from our hearts. In fact, for Christians true justice can never be simply the moral virtue that even pagans admire, but must be animated by charity, which is our participation in the Love of God, the Holy Spirit.

 

Elijah’s altar

 

Following his usual method, Anthony looks for a parallel in the Old Testament, and finds it in the story of Elijah building an altar for the Lord on Mount Carmel. Christians are penitents, people conscious of their shortcomings and yearning to be more like Christ. “Elijah is the penitent who rebuilds the altar of the Lord, destroyed by sin, with the stones of virtue. On it he offers the sacrifice of praise in an odour of sweetness.” Elijah surrounded his altar with a trench, filled with water. Similarly, the penitent Christian digs deep into his heart by contrition, filling it with tears of sorrow for his past sins. The prophet placed wood upon the altar, and the carcass of the animal to be sacrificed. Anthony relates these actions to our following of the examples of the saints: I would suggest we also see in the reference to the slain animal placed upon the wood an image of the Lamb of God, fastened to the Cross. Here is our supreme example. We should seek to ‘die to self’, embracing whatever cross God sends us.

Elijah poured water three times upon the sacrifice: “He pours water once, twice and three times upon the holocaust and the wood, by keeping his thoughts, words and deeds always in purity of conscience and compunction of tears. And he does not stop until the trench is full of water, that is, until the joy to come, which will follow present sadness, is perfectly fulfilled.” We make little progress in our spiritual lives, I would suggest, because the gap between what we are and what Our Lord wishes us to be does not pain us as much as it should. Anthony was never complacent in this way. He constantly lamented how far he fell short: if he did, how much more should we?

 

The sacrifice

 

The sacrifice may be ready, but it needs something that we can never supply: “Then it will be as is written: Fire fell from heaven and consumed the holocaust, etc. Then the judgement of the heavenly Judge, which examines our words and deeds and our whole life perfectly, testing us as fire tests silver, will make us immortal and blessed, and will enthrone us for ever.” We can prepare ourselves (by God’s grace) to receive the Fire, but it is the Lord Himself who sends it.

Anthony then considers the idea of justice in more detail. “A man is bound to show justice in five ways: by honouring God, by taking proper care of himself, by loving his neighbour, by despising the world, and by hating sin... If you show honour to God, God will be your strength. If, as far as you can, you take proper care of yourself, He will be the protector of your salvation. If you love your neighbour, He will save both you and him. If you despise the world, He will bless you, who are His inheritance. If you hate sin, He will rule you, and you will live with Him for ever and ever.”

Our Lord, in the Gospel, went on to say that if anyone should be offering his gift at the altar, and remembers that his neighbour has a grievance against him, he should seek reconciliation first, and then offer his gift. This is a reminder that we cannot divide the two commandments, loving God, but not loving our neighbour.

 

The four altars

 

Anthony now considers four ‘altars’: above, below, inward and outward. The altar is the place of sacrifice, the place in which we offer our gifts (remembering that our real gift to God is ourselves).

The ‘altar above’ is God himself. The centre of our worship is the Mystery of the Holy Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit, three Persons in one God. The ‘altar below’ is the humanity of Jesus Christ, hypostatically united to the Person of the Word. We can only approach the ‘altar above’ through Jesus Christ, true God and true man, who has said, “No-one comes to the Father except through me.” By mentioning these two ‘altars’, Anthony indicates that the object and end of our worship is not our own self-improvement, but the glory of God for its own sake. We do not worship for what we get out of it – which is why excuses for failing to go to Mass along these lines are so irrelevant. Our performance of the Liturgy may often be dull and uninspiring, but it lies with us what we are prepared to put into it. We must centre our minds and hearts on the Trinity and on the Incarnation, on what we wish to give, not on what we hope to get.

The ‘altar within’ is in fact the soul’s own devotion, which Anthony likens to the altar of acacia-wood for burning incense, mentioned in Exodus. Acacia is a thorny tree, producing hard wood that does not rot, and which becomes still harder when exposed to fire. Accordingly, it reminds us of the compunction that should pierce our hearts in relation to our sins, our resistance to the corruption of sin, and our firmness in face of the fire of tribulation. The Biblical altar was covered with gold – so our hearts should be pure and chaste. From our hearts should go up the incense of prayer.

 

Our Blessed Lady

 

The ‘outward altar’, modelled on the altar for the burnt-sacrifice, is our body, especially when disciplined by penance. Thus we offer ourselves – our souls and bodies – as a living sacrifice to God the Holy Trinity, uniting ourselves with the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the altar of the Cross, and in the Liturgy of the Mass. Pope Benedict has recently reminded us that the reform of the Liturgy is not a matter of tinkering with texts and ceremonies, but of entering more fully into the Mystery of Christ.

In the Sermon for the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost (Sermons, II, 316) Anthony reminds us that the perfect example of such an altar is our Blessed Lady: “Blessed Mary is indeed an altar... An altar is an elevated structure on which sacrifice is offered. Blessed Mary was both ‘high’ in her sublime contemplation, and ‘low’ in her humility. She was an altar burning with the fire of divine love, offering herself to the Lord in an odour of sweetness.” May we model ourselves on her.