What an honor it iswhenever a Bishop visits his parish. For the Bishop is the living icon of Jesus Christ the high priest. As such, he re-presents Christ; that is, the Bishop repeatedly makes Christ present.
Yet is not Christ present with us at every Divine Liturgy? Absolutely! Is there ever a Mass where Our Lord is absent or not present? Of course not! Christ is present in His true and actual Body and Blood in the Eucharist. Christ is present in the faithful who attend to His Word. Christ is present in the proclamation of His Gospel.
However, when we gather with and around the Bishop, then we both see and realize the fullness of the Church. With the Bishop and the faithful together, the Church is complete. This is what St Ignatius of Antioch (the third patriarch) means when he claims: “Wherever the bishop appears, there let the people be; just as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.”
Instinctively, spiritually, we recognize this. That is why, I’m sure, we get excited and worked up and eager when we know that the Bishop is coming. On the surface, we want to make a good impression on this important guest. And we want to impress this man who has some say on our parish. But deep down, if we really think it through, we’ll realize that we know that this man stands apart from other men; that he is a bishop not simply because of certain skills. At the heart of it all, we recognize that our Bishop is supposed to make Christ real to us in a way that little else does.
And so we prepare better; we are more fastidious; and we want to make sure everything is just right, and runs smoothly. Not simply because an important person is coming, but because the living icon of Christ will soon stand before us.
This truth, however, is not fully understood—and, in fact, is denigrated—if we suppose that Christ is made present and real to us only when the bishop visits; and if we think that the bishop visits only when the bishop visits.
Consider what St Ignatius says immediately his previous words: “It is not lawful to baptize or give communion without the consent of the bishop. On the other hand, whatever has his approval is pleasing to God.” Those words refer neither to the bishop nor to the faithful in attendance, but to the priest. And those words mean that the priest is to make the Bishop present, who in turn makes Christ present.
That is why, for example, we have the bishop’s throne prominently displayed in the church; and why we treat it with special respect even when the bishop’s not present. For the throne tells us that this is the bishop’s church, and that he is presiding and re-presenting Christ through his delegate, the priest.
So, every time a priest celebrates Mass, every time a priest leads us in prayer, every time a priest performs a liturgical and spiritual work in the name of the bishop—then also we should see and realize the fullness of the Church. Then, also, we should be able to say that the Church is complete.
What does this mean in practical terms? Among other things, it means that we should approach every Divine Liturgy with the same care and attention to detail as when the Bishop visits. It means that we should hold in our hearts the same eagerness at every Divine Liturgy as we hold when the Bishop arrives. And it means that we should approach every Mass with the same trembling of excitement mixed with trepidation mixed with joy.
For, truly, what is the bishop’s visit about? It’s not about the visit of a special dignitary. It’s a visible reminder, for us too earthly-bound people, that entering Church is, indeed, entering the kingdom of heaven. That being at Mass is being with Christ Himself.
It’s so easy for us to lose sight of this. It’s so easy for us to forget that, just a few steps over is a vastly different place—a place that brings us into contact with God, a place that, in a mystery, intersects heaven and earth; a place that truly does lift up our hearts into the heavenly palace.
So, it is a good thing that a Bishops visits our parish. For his visit helps us to remember what the Mass is all about: “laying aside all earthly care that we may receive the King of all, invisibly escorted by the Angelic Hosts.”