Digital Altars

The phrase ‘digital altars’ was totally unknown to me. The young fellow who introduced me to it, was actually expressing his disappointment for not being able to attend Holy Mass regularly and fulfill his other spiritual activities due to his attachment to his “digital altars.”

Puzzled, I clarified what and how these ‘altars’ looked like. The fellow laughed and explained that he was simply referring to his laptop, tablet and cellphone. He was literally glued to them all day because he had to finish off some deadlines for work.

Pondering on what this young professional shared, I realized that ‘digital altars’ do exists in our day and age of connectivity. Our many electronic devices and gadgets have been transformed into ‘altars’ where much of life’s hours and days revolve.

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An altar is commonly understood as a place to offer something to God. In the Old Testament, the Patriarchs, Prophets and Kings would place on the altar sanctified offerings—that is, reserved animals and goods—to seal a Covenant with God. Thus, the altar was a central part of Israel’s religious and social life.

With the New Testament, however, Jesus revealed a new altar and thus a new form of offering sacrifice. When He spoke with the Samaritan woman at the Well of Jacob, He prophesied that “the hour will come when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father (…) but will worship the Father in spirit and truth.”

This was fulfilled when our Lord instituted the sacrifice of the Holy Eucharist on Holy Thursday, and sealed the Covenant with the most perfect offering of Himself upon the Cross. This unique sacrifice, offered once and for all, upon the altar of the Cross transcends time and history, but become sacramentally present each time the Holy Mass is celebrated.

Despite the perfection of this form of worship, a physical altar and location are still necessary in order to carry out this most sublime offering of our Lord’s Body and Blood. In fact, the altar symbolizes Christ’s Body, which the priest greets with a kiss prior to the usual opening prayers.

Through the centuries, there may have been very slight variations in the design and place of the altar within the Church, but what has never changed is what is commemorated upon it. Here are some moving examples:

Pope Francis, on the 8th July 2013, just a few months after his election, celebrated a penitential mass at the island of Lampedusa some 180 miles off the coast of Africa. This was his first papal visit outside of Europe to clamor for the nearly 30 thousand North Africans who have perished trying to cross over to Europe. He said that mass on an “altar made of the wood of one of the capsized rafts. (The Great Reformer, Austen Ivereigh)”

St. John Paul II on his excursions with some Polish youth would celebrate the holy mass on top of an inverted kayak. St. Josemaría, crossing the Pyrenees to escape the religious persecution during the Spanish civil war, celebrated the mass on a slab of rock. There are the countless testimonies of priests, suffering under Communist persecution, who clandestinely said mass while lying down in prison and distributed communion to their co-prisoners.

Although most of these occurred under extraordinary circumstances, they are testimony of the infinite value of the one sacrifice offered by Jesus in Calvary which cannot go uncelebrated until the end of time.

With the rise of the ‘digital altars’ it seems many are distracted and appreciate less Christ’s sacrifice. Although these will never succeed in overshadowing the grandeur of the holy sacrifice, they still manage to render us less disposed to receive and take advantage of the graces channeled in every mass.

These modern altars in our homes and places of work, however, are not bad or sinful except when we allow them to supplant what we owe to God and others when we only seek ourselves and worldly goods. In fact, we must strive to make them as ‘extensions’ of the one altar of the Mass. We achieve this if our hearts are revolving and constantly orienting other realities towards the mass.

St. Josemaría, in an open air mass invited the university students and employees with these following poetic but spiritually charged words:

“Reflect for a moment on the setting of our Eucharist, of our act of thanksgiving. We find ourselves in a unique temple. We might say that the nave is the university campus; the altarpiece, the university library. Over there, the machinery for constructing new buildings; above us, the sky of Navarre…”

“Surely this confirms in your minds, in a tangible and unforgettable way, the fact that everyday life is the true setting for your lives as Christians. Your ordinary contact with God takes place where your fellow men, your yearnings, your work and your affections are. There you have your daily encounter with Christ. It is in the midst of the most material things of the earth that we must sanctify ourselves, serving God and all mankind. (Homily, Passionately Loving the World, 8-X-1967)”

Finally, St. Josemaría says that what matters is where our heart is centered in. If it gravitates towards our ego, then our hearts will only render pride, anger, lust, and every kind of vice. If, however, it is anchored in God, then everything we do, even the most insignificant things, will have a divine quality and value. This is beautifully expressed when he reflects, “Heaven and earth seem to merge, my sons and daughters, on the horizon. But where they really meet is in your hearts, when you sanctify your everyday lives. (Ibid.)”