Last Thursday, I stood in the Dome at America's Center with 50,000 other faithful as Fulton Sheen was declared Blessed.

Sheen is remembered for many things - his television presence, his wit, his convert-making. But underneath all of it was his theology of the Mass. Everything he did flowed from the altar. Everything he taught pointed back to it.

In honor of the man who just became Blessed - and in the spirit of the "Re-Learn the Mass" talk I gave to 40 parishioners last Saturday - here are five things Sheen taught us about the liturgy.

1. The Altar Is the Center

"In the Catholic Church the altar, and not the pulpit or the choir or the organ, is the center of worship, for there is re-enacted the memorial of His Passion."

Walk into most Protestant churches and you'll find the pulpit front and center. The sermon is the point. The music supports it. Everything orients toward the proclamation of the Word.

Walk into a Catholic church and - if it's arranged correctly - you'll find an altar. Not a table, an altar. A place of sacrifice.

This isn't a matter of taste or tradition. It's a matter of what we believe is actually happening. If the Mass is merely a teaching moment with some songs and a symbolic meal, then sure - put the pulpit in the middle. But if the Mass is the re-presentation of Calvary, if Christ is truly present, if heaven touches earth at that spot - then the altar is the center because it has to be. Everything else serves what happens there.

2. Preaching and Music Aren't Enough

"A pulpit in which the words of our Lord are repeated does not unite us to Him; a choir in which sweet sentiments are sung brings us no closer to His Cross than to His garments."

This one stings a little - especially for someone who spent 14 years in parish music ministry.

Sheen isn't dismissing preaching or music. He's putting them in their place. Good preaching matters. Beautiful music matters. But neither of them, by themselves, unite us to Christ. They can prepare us. They can dispose us. They can lift our hearts. But they cannot do what the altar does.

I think of all the energy we pour into homily prep and music selection - and rightly so. But if we're not pointing people toward the sacrifice, if we're not leading them to the altar, we've given them the garments without the Cross. We've given them something beautiful that stops short of the thing itself.

One of the things that continues to stand in my heart and mind is one of our Homiletics professors who drove home that we should always point back towards the altar and the Eucharist in our preaching.

3. The Mass Is the Greatest Event in History

"The Mass is the greatest event in the history of mankind; the only Holy Act which keeps the wrath of God from a sinful world, because it holds the Cross between heaven and earth."

Not one of the greatest events. The greatest event. Greater than any war or treaty, any discovery or invention, any election or revolution. The Mass.

And not just historically - as in, it happened once and we remember it. But presently - as in, it is happening now, holding the Cross between heaven and earth, in every parish and chapel and cathedral where the sacrifice is offered.

Sheen understood that the Mass isn't primarily something we attend. It's something that saves. The Cross held aloft. The wrath of God absorbed. The world sustained by an act most of the world ignores. When you understand that, you stop thinking of Mass as an obligation to check off and start realizing it's the hinge on which everything turns.

4. His Whole Life Was Centered on It

"All my life is centered around a piece of unleavened white bread, the size of a quarter, the Most Blessed Sacrament, Holy Communion."

This is Sheen at his most personal. Not a theological argument - just a confession. A statement of how he actually lived.

A piece of what has the appearances of bread, the size of a quarter. And his whole life revolved around it.

There's something almost absurd about that sentence - and Sheen knew it. The world builds its life around careers, around wealth, around reputation, around pleasure. Sheen built his around unleavened bread. But that bread was not merely bread. It was - it is - the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ. And once you believe that, centering your life on it isn't strange. It's the only thing that makes sense.

5. The Holy Hour Extends What the Mass Begins

"The act of adoration outside Mass prolongs and intensifies all that takes place during the liturgical celebration itself."

"I do not know how I could live without my daily holy hour. It is the hour that makes my day."

"The Holy Hour becomes like an oxygen tank to revive the breath of the Holy Spirit in the midst of the foul and fetid atmosphere of the world."

"During a Holy Hour we grow more and more into His likeness."

Sheen made a Holy Hour every day of his priesthood - over 60 years. He didn't see it as separate from the Mass. He saw it as the Mass continued. The same Lord present on the altar, now present in the tabernacle, now available for encounter.

The Mass is the summit. But we don't stay on summits. We descend back into the valley, back into the foul and fetid atmosphere, back into the demands of the day. The Holy Hour is the oxygen tank. It's how we breathe. It's how we grow into His likeness between one Mass and the next.

I wore my Holy Hour stole to Sheen's beatification - the one I wear every Sunday evening when I assist at our parish's hour of adoration. They asked us to wear white. Mine was more gold. But I figured a man who spent 60 years before the Blessed Sacrament would understand.

What Sheen Knew

Sheen trusted that people wanted substance. He didn't water things down. He taught the faith - clearly, winsomely, without apology - and millions watched.

He was right then. He's still right now.

Blessed Fulton Sheen, pray for us.