Sunday is the LORD’s Day. Christians rise with the sun on the eighth
day, the first new day of a new age of the Resurrection, and go to
buildings which have been set apart for divine worship by the name
church. They
are called church because it is the Mystical Body of Christ, the
Church, which assembles there in the presence of God just as the twelve
tribes of Israel assembled at the foot of Mt Sinai to receive the Law
and came to the temple in Jerusalem to offer sacrifices to ask God to
forgive their sins. Christians come to celebrate the sacrament of the
Eucharist, a word which means thanksgiving, in the context of a liturgy
filled with rites and ceremonies called the Mass.
Every baptized Christian becomes a member of the Church when water and
the Holy Spirit are poured over him at baptism. And so the Christian
enters the church building just as he entered the Church through
baptism, taking holy water as a reminder of his baptism and tracing upon
himself the Sign of the Cross which brought about his insertion into
the life of the triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit whose Name he
invokes.
The Christian finds a space in an assembly where there are no divisions
between rich and poor, races or social class. When he crosses the
threshold of the church from the outside world into the church, he
leaves behind all earthly cares to enter into a foretaste of the
Heavenly Jerusalem, the place where heaven meets earth at this Mystical
Banquet. Jesus Christ reigns in the church as surely as He reigns in
heavens, from his throne in the tabernacle, where He waits for us to
come and worship and adore Him. We enter the church and gaze at Christ
who waits for us in the tabernacle and we touch the right knee to the
ground in a simple act of adoration to Him who is worshipped by the
angels and saints and by men.
At the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow.
We prepare for Mass by kneeling, a symbol of our own submission to the
will of God. We make prayers of adoration, contrition, thanksgiving
and supplication. We silently prepare ourselves for the re-enactment of
the drama of Calvary, to receive the fruits of the one sacrifice
offered to the Father for the salvation of men.
The priest, a man ordained to offer sacrifice for the living and the
dead, has no other reason to exist than to make present in the here and
now the same sacrifice that the LORD accomplished on the Cross, and to
give to us the fruits of that sacrifice. Every day he offers the Mass,
so that at every moment somewhere in the world there is the one
sacrifice of redemption is celebrated in ritual forms and under symbolic
guise, from the rising of the sun to its setting, and throughout the
watches of the night.
The priest enters the sacristy clad in his black cassock, a sign of his
renunciation of the world and of penance for his sins. He washes his
hands and prays,
CLEANSE my hands, O Lord, from all stain, that, pure in mind and body, I may be worthy to serve Thee.
Just as the priests of the Old Testament purified the hands that would
offer sacrifices of animals and plants, the priest of the New and
Eternal Covenant washes his hands as a symbol of a prayer that he may be
worthy to offer the last sacrifice for the People of God. The priest
then puts on vestments reminiscent of those worn by the priests of the
temple and the doctors of the law.
Adore the LORD in holy attire,
the Psalmist says, and the priest, putting on these special clothes,
reminds himself that what he is doing is no ordinary, everyday action,
but the Act by which Jesus redeems and saves us. He makes the Sign of
the Cross and picks up the amice, a linen cloth held by strings evoking
the prayer shawls of Jewish men, and prays,
PLACE, O Lord, the helmet of Salvation upon my head to repel the assaults of the Devil.
Satan hates the Mass, because by that sacrifice commemorated here his
reign over the hearts of men was destroyed, and so he seeks to distract
the priest from his noble task and draw him into hell with the damned.
Undaunted, the priest picks up the alb, a white garment stretching to
the feet which reminds him of the pure white robe given to him at
baptism as a symbol of his restored innocence. The word alb comes from
the Latin word
alba, which means white. When St John had his vision of the end of the world, he saw
a
multitude which no man could number, from every nation, from all tribes
and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the
Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and
crying out with a loud voice, Salvation belongs to our God who sits upon
the throne and to the Lamb! The
priest standing in the place of the people, appears before them a sign
of the blessed in heaven praising the Lamb slain for them in this
sacrifice, and prays,
CLEANSE me, O Lord, and purify my heart, that, being made white in the Blood of the Lamb, I may attain everlasting joy.
The priest then puts the cincture around his waist,
GIRD me, O Lord, with the girdle of purity and quench in me the fire
of concupiscence, that the grace of temperance and chastity may abide in
me.
He is reminded that he is a sinful man, prone to the lusts of the flesh
as any man, but called to a life of angelic chastity for the love of
souls. As Jesus said to the Apostle Peter, he says now to the priest,
When
you were young, you girded yourself and walked where you would, but
when you are old, you will stretch out your hands and another will gird
you and carry you where you do not wish to go. Christ
reminds the priest that he is promised to an obedience which transcends
his own desires, a sacrifice willingly undertaken for love of souls.
In ancient times, the priest put on his left arm a maniple, a
handkerchief to wipe his sweaty brow during the Mass, and he prayed,
GRANT me, O Lord, to bear the light burden of grief and sorrow, that I may with gladness take the reward of my labor.
The priest’s life is one of hard work and solitude, so he asks for the strength to live the life Christ has asked him to live.
GIVE
me again, O Lord, the stole of immortality, which I lost by the
transgression of my first parents, and although I am unworthy to come
unto Thy Holy Sacrament, grant that I may attain everlasting felicity. This
man of obedience, this man of sorrows, kisses and places round his neck
a stole, a long, narrow piece of cloth. Roman government officials
wore stoles as signs of their authority, and the priest, who has the
authority from God to teach, sanctify and govern, wears this ancient
emblem of office whenever he celebrates a sacrament. But more important
than authority, however legitimate, is love, and so the priest covers
the stole and everything else with the chasuble, from the Latin word
casula, or little house, signifying that charity is to cover all else in the priest’s life. He prays,
LORD, who hast said, My yoke is easy, and My burden is light, grant that I may so bear it, as to attain Thy grace. Amen. The
priest may then put on his headcovering, the biretta. Having its
origin in the Middle Ages as a scholar’s cover, the priest must be
learned in the sacred sciences, so it is appropriate that he wear the
sign of that learning in church.
The priest spends time in silent preparation for what he is about to do.
When the time has come, he bows to the Cross in the sacristy, as just
as the Word made Flesh came forth from the body of the Virgin into the
world, the Word’s herald comes vested in the ancient garments of
tradition from the womb of the sacristy into the Church, the Body of
Christ given for the life of the world. He rings a bell as a sign that
the drama of Calvary is about to begin, and everyone is ready to witness
its power and glory.
Today there is an option to sing man-made hymns chosen by the priest or a
parish staff member during Mass. But the Church has always appointed
texts from the Psalms to accompany ritual actions at Mass. The Introit,
or Entrance Antiphon, is taken from the Psalms and other scriptural
texts to proclaim the theme of this particular celebration of the
mysteries of divine life. The Church has never believed in singing at
the Mass or praying at the Mass; the Church sings and prays the Mass.
At the beginning of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the sacred ministers
and those who serve them make their way in a dignified procession to
the altar. A thurifer leads the procession with a smoking vessel of
incense called a thurible. The smoke of the incense symbolizes our
prayers rising to God and has since antiquity been a sign of homage to
holy people and holy things.
Another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and
he was given much incense to mingle with the prayers of the saints upon
the golden altar before the throne; and the smoke of the incense rose
with the prayers of the saints from the hand of the angel before God.
Then the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar
and threw it on the earth.
Behind the thurifer comes the crucifer, who holds aloft before our eyes
the image of Christ who came to save us. Just as the Israelites
wandering through the desert looked upon the image of a bronze serpent
and were healed of their illnesses, Christians gaze upon the likeness of
the Crucified and are stirred to devotion, to reverence and to prayer.
The crucifer is accompanied by two candlebearers, who carry lights that
symbolize Christ, the light of the world who pierces the darkness of
sin and death, lights given from candles blessed on the Feast of the
Presentation of the Infant Jesus in the temple on 2 February, made from
the wax of bees who work diligently like Christians at their appointed
task. Other servers, representatives of the faithful at the Sacrifice,
process as so many saints to the Throne of Grace. A deacon, the servant
of the priest and the Church, clad like the priest except for his
dalmatic of joy and gladness, enters, holding before him the beautifully
bound Book of the Gospels to place upon the altar. The priest enters
the church as Jesus rides into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, amidst great
joy and Hosannas, always mindful of the awe-inspiring events which will
take place in this holy place.
The priest arrives at the foot of the altar. In ancient times, he did
not enter the Holy of Holies, the sanctuary of the Church, until he had
taken off his biretta as a sign of submission to God and genuflected to
Christ in the Blessed Sacrament reserved in the sanctuary. He would
recite with the ministers the words of Psalm 42,
I will go to the altar of God, to God the joy of my youth and then recite a formula for the confession of his sins.
The priest then, right foot first, enters the inner precinct of the
sanctuary. In the temple of Jerusalem, only the High Priest could enter
the inner sanctum once a year, and say the name of God. Now the
minister of the Eternal High Priest, Jesus Christ, enters into the holy
place another Christ, so that God may become present amongst men and
dwell within their hearts.
In the sanctuary there is a table. This is no ordinary table for an
ordinary meal; it is an altar of sacrifice and the table of Passover.
The Jewish ritual of the Passover meal and the sacrifices in the temple
of Jerusalem find their fulfillment on the altar of the wood of the
Cross on which was sacrificed the Lamb of God. The altar of the
Mystical Sacrifice of the Mass is of wood or of marble, but it
represents Christ in His tomb.
The altar is covered with three fair linen cloths, which symbolize the
winding sheets in which Christ was placed in the tomb. Christians from
earliest times celebrated Mass in altars raised over the remains of
those who gave their lives as witnesses to the faith, sacrificing their
lives because of their belief in the sacrifice of Christ. Today the
Church places relics, physical remains of or objects belonging to the
saints, to remind us of the connection between the sacrifice of the
Eucharist and the sacrifice of those who are nourished by the Eucharist.
Behind the altar is always to be found an image of the Crucified Christ.
This image is a powerful reminder of the unity between the sacrifice
of Calvary and the sacrifice of the Mass. When Christ died on the
Cross, he faced outward to the West. Since the beginning of the Church,
Christians have prayed facing east, facing Christ who died gazing at
them and whom tradition holds will come again at the end of time, from
the east. The universal custom of the Church has always been for priest
and people to face, if not directional East, at least liturgical East,
at Mass, indicated by the image of the Crucified. Only two exceptions
are known: in Rome, the ancient basilicas were built westward facing, so
the priest stood behind the altar people actually turned their backs to
the altar to face East during the consecration of the Mass; and now, in
many places in the West, where Mass is celebrated facing the people so
they may see the rites on the altar. The eastward position is not so
that the priest can have his back to the people; on the contrary, it is
so that priest and people may be together on the same side of the altar,
worshipping the LORD together and awaiting His Second Coming.
In the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, also referred to as the Old
Latin Mass, the priest prayed as he approached the altar,
Take away from us our iniquities, we implore Thee, Lord, that with pure
minds we may worthily enter into the holy of holies: through Christ our
Lord. Amen.
Now as then, he kisses the Altar, the symbol of Christ. In the Extraordinary Form he prays,
We implore You, Lord, by the merits of all Thy Saints, whose relics are
here, and of all the Saints, that thou wouldst deign to forgive me all
my sins. Amen.
The Mass is not just a celebration for the men and women physically
present in the church; it is a celebration of the entire celestial
court, and the priest calls on the saints to assist him in his ministry
to the People of God. He kisses the altar to make reparation for the
traitorous kiss of Christ. He kisses the altar to remind us all of the
intimate relationship between God and the soul professed by the Beloved
in the Song of Songs,
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth. The
Mass is more than an act of worship; it is that intimate kiss of love
between Christ and His Bride, the Church, a kiss by which new life is
generated and death overcome by the Resurrection.
In the Extraordinary Form, the priest-celebrant assists at most of the
Mass from his position at the altar. Only a Bishop would preside from a
throne set off to the side. In the Ordinary Form, after the priest or
bishop reverences the altar he goes to a special chair off to the side.
Chairs in the ancient world were a symbol of authority. When Jesus
explained the scriptures in the synagogue where the Jews gathered to
study the Word, he sat and taught from a chair. A bishop’s church is
called a cathedral because the Bishop teaches sitting in a large
throne-like, called a
cathedra in Latin. Today, priests have
smaller and less ornate chairs than Bishops, but the principle is the
same: the one who is seated has authority to teach.
The priest starts out the Mass with the sign of our salvation as we all
make the Sign of the Cross over our bodies as he sings, In the name of
the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The Mass is a
Trinitarian act of worship to the Father, through the Son and in the
Holy Spirit. Many of the prayers of the Mass are addressed to the
Father, through the Son and in the Holy Spirit for this reason. The
priest than turns to the faithful and addresses them, The Lord be with
you. This invocation occurs several times in the Mass. It is taken
from the Book of Ruth, where the pious farmer Boaz greets his wheat
reapers with those words before he takes the foreigner Ruth as his wife.
Boaz is a type of Christ, who gives the LORD to the Church, His
Spouse. We respond and with your spirit, as we realize that the priest
is performing a work of the Spirit, and by these simple words pray that
the priest who offers the sacrifice may be in the Spirit, to fulfill his
office as priest worthily and well.
Priest and people recite together the Confiteor, a prayer asking for the
intercession of Mary and the saints in our request that God may forgive
our sins. This prayer, borne aloft by sorrow for our sins, suffices to
wipe away venial sin and orient us to receive the graces that come from
the Mass. We then sing the Kyrie, the ninefold invocation of Father,
Son and Spirit for mercy which is often reduced in the Ordinary Form to
six fold. The Kyrie is the remnant of a longer litany which disappeared
from the Roman liturgy very early on and was restored, in Greek, in the
Latin liturgy in the sixth century because of its antiquity. On
Sundays and feasts the celebrant intones the first words of the Gloria
just as they were announced by the one angel at Bethlehem to the
shepherds before a chorus of angels took up the song of praise. This
ancient hymn was put into the Mass around the year 160. This hymn ends,
as end so many prayers and hymns, with the Hebrew word Amen. This
little word, which is the automatic end of our prayers, means so many
things: so it is, let it be done, I believe. It is a statement of
belief, a profession of hope, and an exclamation of trust in God.
The priest then prays the first of three prayers which change according
to the day. This prayer is traditionally called the Collect, because by
it the Church collects together various strands of thought in a short
prayer, usually to the Father, sometimes directly to Christ, but always
invoking the entire Trinity. The priest performs a gesture called the
Orans position, from the Latin word for praying. He stretches out his
hands in supplication before God, to show that his prayer is directed to
God on behalf of His people. The priest raises his hands before God
like the poor man begging alms from a rich man, the priest praying on
behalf of poor sinners to the source of all riches, Christ. Whenever he
mentions the Holy Name of Jesus, everyone in the congregation bows
their head reverently at the Name before which the demons flee.
The Liturgy of the Word
Jews gathered in places called synagogues to study the Word of God. At
the center of the synagogue is the Ark in which the scrolls of the Law
were kept and from which they were joyfully removed to be studied. In
front of the Ark is the bema, a raised platform with a reading desk on
which the Word is read and from which the teachers of the Law expounded
on its meaning. Christians gather in their churches to study the same
Hebrew Scriptures as well as the writings of the Evangelists and
Apostles which are also the Word of God. At the center of the church is
the Tabernacle in which the Word made Flesh dwells and from which the
Blessed Sacrament is joyfully removed to nourish the faithful. Because
Christ is truly present in the Eucharist under the forms of bread and
wine, the written word, although it is treated with great reverence,
takes second place. The bema of the church is called a pulpit or ambo,
and on it is placed the Lectionary from which the appointed readings for
the day are proclaimed.
In the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, the first readings were
proclaimed facing the altar. Because those were the readings which
pre-dated Christ, they were like the preaching of John the Baptist which
pointed to Christ, hence they were proclaimed towards the altar which
is the symbol of Christ. In the Ordinary Form those readings are
proclaimed towards the people, as a sign of God speaking to the people
through them.
Between the Epistle and Gospel in the Old Rite and between the Old
Testament and New Testament readings in the New Rite, the Gradual is
sung. The gradual comes from the Latin word for steps; it is a psalm,
and just as the Jews sang psalms as they ascended the steps of the
temple in Jerusalem, Christian cantors sang the psalms from the steps of
the altar. Often today the Gradual is replaced by a responsorial
version of the psalm.
Before the Gospel, the Church places on the lips of her people another
Hebrew word, Alleluia. The Church has always sought to praise her LORD
with the same word that Christ praised His Father, in the same tongue, a
word which merely means, Praise the LORD! The proper Gregorian chant
Alleluias will often have a large number of notes on one syllable,
symbolizing the effusion of joy of the Spirit in praising the Father,
pointing out the yearning for union with Him. On penitential days, the
mournful Tract or the simple Gospel Acclamation replaces the Alleluia.
During the Alleluia or Tract, the deacon asks for the blessing of the
priest to proclaim the Good News worthily and well. He goes to the
altar upon which at the beginning of the Mass he placed the Book of the
Gospels. In Revelation, we read I saw in the right hand of him who was
seated on the throne a book written within and on the back, sealed with
seven seals. As the altar is the symbol of the throne of Christ, the
deacon takes the Book of Life from Christ Himself to announce the word
of salvation to men in the Gospel. He says, The LORD be with you, but
he does not open his hands in the Orans position as the priest does, not
usurping the priestly gesture of raised hands. He then reads the name
of the Gospel writer as the faithful make the sign of the Cross on their
forehead, mouth, and chest, praying that the Gospel will be in their
minds, on their lips and in their hearts. In the Extraordinary Form of
the Mass, the Gospel is chanted facing north, against the cold and dark
regions of the earth that symbolize the malice of the Evil One. The
Gospel is audaciously sung in the face of evil itself. Now it is
usually read towards the people, that the evil in their hearts may be
driven out by the words of the Saviour.
Faith is a gift from God; the priest, who stands in the person of the
object of faith, Jesus Christ, intones the first word, Credo, I believe,
to show that faith is a gift from God that demands a response, a
response given by the faithful taking up the words of a profession of
faith drawn up at two ecumenical councils of the Church at Nicea and
Constantinople, in the fourth century. When Henry, the Holy Roman
Emperor, went to Rome in the eleventh century, he was scandalized to
find that they did not sing the Creed like they did everywhere else in
both West and East, at Mass. The Pope told him that the Church at Rome
had no need to profess her faith because she had never needed to be
corrected from error like so many other places, but shortly thereafter
the Pope ordered that the Creed be sung on Sundays just to make sure
that no one would ever claim they didn’t know the central truths of the
faith even if they came to Mass. In the middle of the Creed are the
words, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and
became man. To symbolize the condescension by which Christ came down to
earth in the Incarnation, the ministers and the faithful bow profoundly
during these words, except on Christmas and the Annunciation, when they
kneel.
At the end of the Creed, General Intercessions, prayers for the state of the Church and the world, may be prayed.
The altar must be prepared for the sacrifice. The Missal, the book out
of which the priest signs the prayers, is placed on the altar along with
the sacred vessels, all made from precious metals. The chalice in
which the LORD’s Precious Blood will become present is placed on the
altar under a veil. There are many veils in the church, and all of them
have the same symbolism. A veil partially or completely covers
something, pointing to the fact that what is beneath it is a mystery not
entirely accessible to man. Thus, much of what has to do with the
sacrifice is veiled. The chalice is veiled. The tabernacle where the
Blessed Sacrament is veiled, like the tabernacle of old. Inside the
tabernacle are to be found veils, which symbolise the veil separating
the Holy of Holies from the rest of the temple. The ciborium which
contains the Sacred Host has a veil on it after the hosts inside are
consecrated.
Saint Paul in even instructs women to veil their heads when they pray:
any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled dishonours her
head . . . a woman ought to have a veil over her head because of the
angels . . . if anyone is disposed to be contentious, we recognize no
other practice, nor do the churches of God.
The altar itself is often veiled with an antependium, a covering over
the whole altar. In the Middle Ages a large veil called the hunger veil
hid the entire sanctuary from the people at Mass during Lent, to
highlight the separation of man from God by sin. In the East, an
iconostasis, a large wall covered with holy images, blocks the view of
the people so that they may not gaze on the mysteries and have contempt
for them. In the West, rood screens and grilles are often seen in
churches to underscore that God and the things of God are sacred,
removed from the profane, wholly other. The language of Latin also
serves as a veil; the words which are used in sacred worship are
different than ordinary words, consecrated for divine use to emphasize
that the actions that are taking place now are truly from another world.
In ancient times, the faithful often made the bread and wine for Mass
and brought them, along with all kinds of gifts for the poor and the
needy, to the altar. The deacons would distribute them from the altar
while the priest went with the bread and wine to the altar. In the
Ordinary Form it is common to have a procession during which monetary
offerings for the good of the parish are brought up along with the bread
and wine for the Eucharist. The bread is unleavened, just like the
bread used by Christ at the Last Supper on Passover. The wine is
ordinary wine made from grapes with nothing else added or taken away.
The bread is fashioned into smaller and larger hosts. The word host
comes from the Latin hostia, victim, because the bread of the host then
becomes Christ who is both Priest and Victim. A larger host is placed
on a paten, a large dish, and smaller hosts in ciboria.
In the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, the subdeacon takes the paten
away from the altar and stands with it wrapped in a humeral veil placed
around his shoulders. During the entire Eucharistic Prayer, he stands
with the paten over his face, to symbolise the cherubim who covered
their faces from the Divine Presence in the Book of Ezekiel, again
calling to mind the mystery of the God hidden underneath the sacramental
veils of bread and wine.
The priest and deacon prepare the chalice with wine, careful to use a
purificator, a linen cloth, to wipe away drops which adhere to the sides
of the chalice, A small quantity of water, no more than a drop, is
added to the wine. The wine is a symbol of Christ, and is not blessed.
The water symbolizes us, and is blessed before it is placed in the
wine, just as by baptism in water we are blessed in Christ and then
submerged into his divine life. When water is mixed with wine in the
chalice, the people are united to Christ. The sacred vessels are placed
on another linen cloth called a corporal, from the Latin corpus, or
body, because the Body of Christ will become present in the Host which
rests upon it. The chalice is covered by a rigid piece of cloth to
protect it called a pall, the same word used for the covering of a
coffin at a funeral Mass. Everything on the altar at this moment makes
reference to the death of Christ, which the Mass commemorates. The
round paten is the stone rolled over the tomb. The Chalice is the
sepulcher. The purificator and pall are the winding sheets and the veil
used to cover the face of Jesus in the tomb. The stage is set for the
Sacrifice of Calvary to be re-enacted in an unbloody manner.
These gifts of bread and wine, work of human hands, are now set apart
from any use other than that of sacrifice. In the temple in Jerusalem,
there were three sacred spaces, an altar of incense, an altar of bread
and the Holy of Holies. The church melds all three sacred spaces onto
the altar which is the Cross on which Christ is sacrificed and upon
which bread and wine are transubstantiated into the Body and Blood of
Christ. The priest imposes incense in the thurible once more. In the
Extraordinary Form, he asks the blessing, not of the angel standing at
the right hand of the altar in heaven in John’s dream of the Apocalypse,
but of the Archangel Michael, the prince of the heavenly hosts. Just
as the Cross was the battle by which Christ vanquished the Father of
Lies and the Prince of Darkness, the Church invokes the blessing of him
who offers us protection from the wickedness and snares of the Devil as
our prayers ascend before the Father on His Celestial Throne. The
priest incenses the gifts, the Cross, the altar, all in groups of three,
which recalls the three comings of Mary Magdalene to anoint the LORD
with aromatic spices: at the house of Simon the Pharisee, t the house of
Simon the Leper, and at the empty tomb.
The priest is then incensed, and one by one, every one in the sanctuary
is also incensed in order of rank, and then the faithful assembled in
the church. This hierarchical incensation is a reminder of the
hierarchical nature of the Church. Just as there are nine choirs of
angels, there is a hierarchy in the order of grace and in the order of
nature.
When the priest has been incensed, while the thurifer incenses others in
the church, filling it with the smoke which hearkens back to the pillar
of cloud in the Book of Exodus which guided the people of Israel and
the fragrance of holiness, the priest washes his hands. In ancient
times, the priest frequently became dirty from handling all of the
material gifts the people brought at Mass and the use of incense. Now,
it is generally a ceremonial washing. But it is still important. As
the priest quietly prays, Wash me, O LORD, from my iniquity and cleanse
me from my sin, he reminds himself that he must be entirely pure to be
admitted into the presence of the LORD and that his life must be
coherent with his preaching. He returns to the altar, the words of
Psalm 26 accompanying his movement, I wash my hands in innocence, and go
about thy altar, O LORD.
The priest invites the people, Pray, brethren that my sacrifice and
yours may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father. The sacrifice of
the priest is different from, although not unrelated, to that of the
people. Only a priest can offer sacrifice; only a priest can celebrate
the Mass because he is ordained by God to do so. He offers the
sacrifice in the person of Christ the Head. Yet, where the head is, so
too the Body, and the faithful unite the sacrifice of their praise and
their lives with the action on the altar.
After saying another prayer, the priest engages in a dialogue with the
people that is present in all forms of worship from all times. He
shouts out, Lift up your hearts and raises his hands from where they
have been resting on the corporal in that priestly gesture of prayer.
He then bows low before the Divine Majesty as he says, Let us give
thanks to the LORD our God. The moment of sacrifice has arrived, the
death of Christ comes upon us. But it is not a sad and tremendous
occasion as it was on Calvary. We look upon the unbloody re-enanctment
of this one sacrifice with great joy as the price for our redemption,
paid once for all on a green hill far away, is made present in the here
and now of our lives. And we rejoice as the priest prays the Preface, a
prayer to recall to us the mystery of salvation, sung according to the
same melodies the Greeks used to welcome their heroes home fro the
Olympic Games. The priest calls upon the angels and the saints to be
present on the altar before the choir representing the blessed in heaven
along with the Church militant on earth and the Church suffering in
purgatory all cry out, Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus.
Holy, Holy, Holy LORD, God of hosts, heaven and earth are filled with
your glory. The heavens open to unite themselves with earth and the cry
of the angels in the Book of Revelation becomes ours as we proclaim the
awesome majesty of God. We cannot help but cry out in the primitive
language of the Church, Hosanna, save us, the Hebrew invocation to Jesus
as he rode triumphantly amidst palm and olive branches into Jerusalem.
The veiled vision of the glory of God inspires us to call out to Him to
save us and we are reminded of that great truth, Blessed is he who
comes in the name of the LORD, affirming that the man who has faith to
come to God to ask for mercy has is truly blessed in this moment when
the doors to heaven are mystically opened to the believer in the Mass.
Part 5: The Eucharistic Prayer
Holy Thursday meets Good Friday in the most sacred part of the Mass, the
Eucharistic Prayer. This prayer of consecration changes bread and wine
into Christ Himself. This is the kernel of the Mass, the actual
sacrifice. Christ bent over bread and wine during a Passover meal and
said, This is my Body, which is given up for you, the same body which
would be given up for men the next day on the Cross .
Christ’s actions on that first Holy Thursday night were not yet another
re-enactment of the traditional Jewish Passover meal. There was
something different about this meal, as evidenced by how Jesus
celebrated it. Christ gives the definitive meaning to this meal only
the next day, when he dies. The sacrifice of Christ, which is ordered
to be commemorated by the memorial of eating bread and drinking wine
which is His Body and Blood, is the fulfillment of Passover, the passing
over of Christ from death to life in the Resurrection.
What happens in the Eucharistic Prayer is no more an exact replica of
the Last Supper meal than Jesus exactly replicated the Passover meal.
In fact, what is called the Institution Narrative, the words that
surround the consecration of the bread and wine, are not taken exactly
from the scriptures at all, but is an amalgamation of scriptural texts
into the form of the sacrament. The reality is that what Christ did is
commemorated in a way which makes the entire Christ present, Body and
Blood, Soul and Divinity, under the outward appearances of bread and
wine.
Up until the liturgical reforms after Vatican II, the entire Eucharistic
Prayer was said in silence. The priest never turned to face the
people, intent on contemplating the divine alone, and raised his voice
only seven times from the beginning of the Offertory until Communion,
reminiscent of the seven words of Jesus from the Cross. The entire
church was plunged into silence, rapt in the mystery of what was
happening before them. The silence is there, not to obscure the prayer,
but to draw attention to the fact that Christ is doing something on our
behalf which is beyond our rational comprehension, it is something to
be submitted to in faith.
The text of the first Eucharistic Prayer, or Roman Canon, was fixed
already by the end of the second century. In the Ordinary Form of the
Mass it is heard aloud, as are the new Eucharistic prayers introduced in
1970. During the first part of the Canon, the Church prays that the
LORD will accept the gifts, offerings, unspotted sacrifices she offers
to Him. She then prays for the living and remembers the apostles and
martyrs before beseeching the LORD to accept this offering as a
sacrifice to deliver the elect from eternal damnation.
Then something wonderful happens. The priest then spreads his hands
over the gifts of bread and wine. Just as the priests of the Old Law
placed their hands on animal sacrifices to set them apart and sacrifice
them to the LORD, the priests of the New Covenant do the same to the
bread and wine, praying the Father that they become the Body and Blood
of His Son, Jesus. This moment of the Mass is called the Epiclesis, the
invocation of the Holy Spirit who will change the elements into God
Himself. The graceful motion by which the priest’s hands flutter over
the gifts symbolizes the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the gifts to
change them.
The priest then proceeds to the Institution Narrative, the Consecration.
The bread and wine are consecrated separately just as they were at the
Last Supper, using the very words of Our LORD as appear in the
scriptures, although not in any one place. After each consecratory
formula, the priest holds the element aloft for the faithful to see.
The Body of Christ under the form of bread is showed to the faithful so
that they may be stirred to devotion and hope in their salvation. As
the LORD said, If I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all things
to Myself, and He brings to Himself at that moment all who gaze upon
Him with living faith under the sacramental veils of bread and wine.
The priest replaces the Host and the Chalice on the corporal, and
genuflects: he bends the knee in adoration before the Divine Majesty.
The priest continues to pray that this sacrifice may be carried to the
Father in glory and that all who participate in the sacrifice may be
blessed. He remembers all the holy dead who sleep in hope of the
resurrection, the souls in purgatory. Then, remembering his own
sinfulness, the priest asks on behalf of the people that the LORD will
remember all sinners and grant them entrance into the heavenly Kingdom.
After Christ died, the centurion beat his breast and said, Truly, this
is the Son of God and the priest does likewise, showing forth the
humility of the sinner before the great sacrifice of Christ which he has
just witnessed by touching his heart with a sign of repentance.
The Canon ended, the sacrifice is over. At this moment the Church dare
not invent a prayer as she stands beneath the Cross of Jesus. Her sins
taken away by the Passion and Death of Christ just re-presented, all the
Church can do is pray the words that her LORD taught her to pray: Our
Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name. This LORD’s Prayer
contains seven petitions, and symbolises the seventh day of the week,
when Jesus rested in the tomb. The priest prays the Embolism, Deliver
us, LORD, from every evil, afterwards; in the Extraordinary Form it is
prayed in the silence of the sepulcher. The Church awaits the
Resurrection.
Explanation of the Ceremonies of Holy Mass, Part 5: Communion and Dismissal
No one was there when Jesus rose from the dead. But he appeared on the
evening of His Resurrection to two disciples walking on the Road to
Emmaus. They do not recognize Him until He breaks bread with them. In
the Mass, no one sees the Resurrection, even in symbol, for no symbol
could ever do it justice. But the priest breaks the consecrated bread
so that we may recognize the presence of the Crucified and Risen Christ
in the Eucharist as surely as the disciples knew Him in the breaking of
the bread. Just as the angel, removes the stone from the tomb, the
deacon removes the pall from the chalice. The priest breaks the host
into three parts, signifying that Christ was in three parts: His body
was in the tomb, His Blood poured out upon the earth, and His soul was
freeing the just from hell. The priest places one section of the three
into the chalice. Jesus’ Body and Blood are reunited in the
Resurrection and this commingling of Body and Blood is the eloquent and
simple sign of that Resurrection.
All the while, the choir and people sing, Agnus Dei, Lamb of God, who
takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us. The priest raises
the Host, the sacrificed Lamb, and exclaims in the words of John the
Baptist when he sees Jesus: Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the
sins of the world! The people respond with some of the same words as
the Centurion said to Jesus when asking Him to heal his sick child:
LORD, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say
the word and my soul shall be healed.
The priest consummates the sacrifice by reverently consuming the Host
and the Precious Blood, couching that moment of union with his God by
preparation and thanksgiving. The sacrifice has been made and
consummated. Now the fruits of that sacrifice can be shared with those
who have participated in that sacrifice, who have been witnesses to it
in faith. The fruits of the sacrifice of redemption are shared in the
sacrament of Holy Communion. Baptized faithful who have been taught the
faith and are in communion with the Church can approach the altar to
commune, become one, with God, through this great sacrament.
The faithful who have mystically participated in the teaching and
ministry of Christ in the Liturgy of the Word, in his Passion and Death
in the Liturgy of the Eucharist, in his Resurrection through their
prayerful and reverent preparation for Communion, now come forward to
consummate their union with Christ in the sacrament of Holy Communion.
While all of the rites and ceremonies of the Church are now open to all,
while all may gaze upon them and participate in them, Holy Communion is
not for every one. The Church has always had a strict discipline for
who is to be admitted to Holy Communion. Saint Paul admonishes
believers, Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the LORD in an
unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning he body and blood of the
LORD. Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of
the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body
eats and drinks judgment upon himself.
Sacramental communion with God presupposes two things: union with Christ
through grace and union with Christ’s Body through the Church. Only
baptized and practicing Catholics who are not in the state of mortal sin
may approach Communion, and then only if they have been fasting for at
least one hour. It is not something to be taken lightly, for it is like
passing through fire – a fire which purifies some and makes them shine
and which destroys others and compounds their misery.
Just as the priest is consecrated from among men to offer the sacrifice,
he is also deputed to administer the sacrament. At ordination his
hands are anointed with sacred chrism to set them apart for blessing,
consecrating, and administering the mysteries of God. He is the
ordinary minister of the Eucharist, and others administer Holy Communion
only when licensed by the Bishop to do so in cases where priests are
lacking for Communion to be distributed in a timely and reverent manner.
The preferred method for receiving the Host is directly on the tongue.
Just as birds open wide their mouths to receive from their mothers all
they need to sustain life, the faithful reverently open their mouths and
receive the Bread of Life from Christ. For much of history, Christians
in the West have received Communion kneeling, that profound symbol of
humility and adoration. Where Communion is received standing or in the
hand, by the Church’s permission but not by her preference or tradition,
care must be taken that no one approaching the sacrament does so out of
a sense of right or that it is due to them. We should always approach
the altar not like the Pharisee, proudly standing, assured of our own
righteousness, but meekly kneeling, beating our breast like the
publican, LORD, have mercy on me, a sinner.
When the distribution of Holy Communion is finished, the priest
consolidates what is left of the consecrated bread and places it in the
tabernacle of the church, that receptacle which recalls the Ark of the
Covenant where God’s presence dwelt with the Israelites and in which the
Bread of Heaven is kept so that we may visit and adore the LORD’s
wondrous presence. The vessels are carefully purified so that not even
the slightest particle or drop may remain. The altar is despoiled of
the Missal and the sacred vessels, prepared for another celebration of
the Divine Sacrifice.
We have seen the true light! We have received the heavenly Spirit! We
have found the true Faith! Worshipping the undivided Trinity, who has
saved us. The Eastern rites sing this hymn after Holy Communion. Our
true faith and worship have brought us to celebrate the mysteries of
Christ in the worship of the Trinity. The priest sings a final prayer
and then calls down God’s blessing upon us once again through the sign
of the life-giving Cross. Recalling the descent of the Holy Spirit upon
the Apostles and Mary at Pentecost, the priest in the person of Christ
blesses the faithful disciples in the church gathered at the sacred
assembly. They have had the Holy Spirit poured out upon them at Holy
Mass so that they can go forth from the church into the world, united to
Christ by grace to share what they have witnessed and experienced. The
deacon sings, The Mass is ended, go in peace, sending forth the
baptized faithful into their mission territory, the world. All sing
back to him, Thanks be to God, in one simple phrase summing up the
nature of the Eucharistic celebration itself: giving thanks to God for
His Sacrifice and for giving us the fruits of His Sacrifice in Holy
Mass.
The priest gives a final kiss of gratitude to the altar and genuflects
before the Holy Presence before he and his ministers return to the
sacristy. Going out of the people’s sight, he enters the place where he
vested, just as then Christ ascended into heaven, the clouds took him
from the sight of those who gazed upon Him. And tomorrow, the whole
drama of the LORD’s sacrifice will be repeated once more and God will be
glorified as he has been adored through the Mass at every moment every
day until the last priest says the last Mass and the LORD comes to
proclaim a new heaven and a new earth.
inundado por um mistério de luz que é Deus e N´Ele vi e ouvi -A ponta da lança como chama que se desprende, toca o eixo da terra, – Ela estremece: montanhas, cidades, vilas e aldeias com os seus moradores são sepultados. - O mar, os rios e as nuvens saem dos seus limites, transbordam, inundam e arrastam consigo num redemoinho, moradias e gente em número que não se pode contar , é a purificação do mundo pelo pecado em que se mergulha. - O ódio, a ambição provocam a guerra destruidora! - Depois senti no palpitar acelerado do coração e no meu espírito o eco duma voz suave que dizia: – No tempo, uma só Fé, um só Batismo, uma só Igreja, Santa, Católica, Apostólica: - Na eternidade, o Céu! 
