The Mass Revealed
Ricardo Reyes Castillo
Independently published, £11.25, 92 pages
This book is whimsical and profound, charming, doctrinally sound and something of a page-turner. It takes us on a slow pilgrimage through the Mass, exploring in depth the profound significance of the movements through which we pass: you can’t say “stages” or even “parts of the Mass”, because one of the things it helps us to understand is that the whole thing is more like a glorious symphony.
Using a number of images, the author explores the huge reality of the Eucharist, and does so without resorting to trite clichés or dry statements of the obvious. Using the image of light and transfiguration, he explains that in the Mass we are entering “that unique event which makes present Christ’s victory over all limits, over space, over time, over sin, over death. The event is the same one that occurred in Jerusalem more than 2,000 years ago. It is indeed unique, but it is also the same one that every day is made present on every altar.”
