Want to deepen your understanding of the Mass? Start with this new book

(LifeSiteNews) — If you’re a faithful Catholic who attends Mass every Sunday and Holy Day of Obligation, you may know what it’s like to occasionally “go through the motions” and not be fully attentive to the stunning reality of what’s happening at the altar. Of course, this is not a sin when not deliberately willed. In a sense, it’s normal and only human to relax one’s attention in familiar situations with the same “scripts.”

That being said, we should never take the gift of the Mass for granted, and we should always strive to be full, conscious participants at every point during the liturgy. One way to mitigate our lapses in attention is to enrich our understanding of the Mass and the profound symbolism therein, and to meditate on these truths while we’re present.

Dr. Annie Tinnin’s new book The Way: Jesus Fulfills the Old Testament Feasts demonstrates the beauty and profundity of the Mass by showing how Christ has fulfilled all the various Old Covenant feasts and sacrifices. God gave the people of Israel those rituals not as ends in themselves but as means pointing to Christ and the “perfected” worship He eventually gives us in the Mass, where “the heavenly liturgy (is) made present” and we offer everything we are and have as a “living sacrifice” in union with Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross.

Such a subject may normally lie in the domain and interest of biblical scholars and theologians, but Tinnin makes these concepts accessible to the layperson and sheds light on the relevance of these truths to one’s spiritual life. The repetition of key ideas and phrases will help solidify the reader’s understanding as well. Every Catholic should integrate a bit of study into their lives as far as they’re able, and The Way would not be a bad place to start.

The book even includes helpful tables on the various types of Old Covenant feasts and sacrifices, breaking down their various elements and significance in an easily digestible format. For example, I appreciated the table showing where each Old Covenant feast finds its particular fulfillment — some are obvious, like Sunday Mass taking the place of the Sabbath, but others I learned for the first time, such as the daily offerings of the Tamid finding their fulfillment in weekday Mass and the Divine Office.

For those interested in further reading, the author provides a bibliography at the end of the volume. Tinnin draws from Church Fathers and Doctors like Sts. Irenaeus, Gregory the Great, Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, and from contemporary sources like Ratzinger’s The Spirit of the Liturgy. No danger of an erroneous or heretical mystagogy in this book!

What is the ultimate message of The Way? “It was written to awaken hearts to the reality that truth exists, and that in the Catholic Church resides the fullness of that truth,” the author said. One of the worst tragedies of the Protestant Reformation was the widespread rejection of “(e)ssential truths regarding the sacrificial nature of the Mass and the covenantal reality of the sacraments.” Simply put, without the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, we’re not worshiping God the way He wills us to worship Him.

Tinnin challenges the reader not just to read through the book and move on but to put the truths it presents into practice. If you haven’t been to Mass or confession in a while, return as soon as you can. If you’ve never read or studied the Church Fathers, make a concerted effort to do so (they’re not as inaccessible as you may fear!). If Tinnin’s book succeeds at deepening your faith and love of God, then it will have served its purpose well.

Click here to purchase The Way: Jesus Fulfills the Old Testament Feasts. All proceeds will benefit the Purify the Church movement, which describes itself as a “Traditional Catholic media and resource site exposing abuse, heresy, and corruption in the Church.”