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Exploring
the Mass... In the time of St. Justin, after the presider had offered the great prayer of thanksgiving, the people would simply approach the altar to receive communion. But quite soon rites began to develop to solemnize this moment, to step back, as it were, and prepare for the communion procession. These rites include moments for private preparation, and prayers that remind us that communion is also a community act. In receiving the body of Christ, we become the body of Christ. The Lord’s Prayer is said or sung almost every time the Church gathers for prayer: it is said at morning and evening prayer in the Liturgy of the Hours, at communion services and at liturgies of the word outside of Mass. When communion is taken to the sick, the brief prayers accompanying the rite always include the Lord’s Prayer. And it is prayed at every Mass, where it marks the beginning of the Communion Rite. The Lord’s Prayer is a prayer for the coming of the kingdom, an “Advent” prayer, as it were, continuing the eschatological movement of the Eucharistic Prayer, which (as we have seen) leads us straight to heaven. But it is also a community prayer for reconciliation and forgiveness. When Jesus taught us to pray, he taught us to pray together: “we,” not “I.” He taught us to look, as a community, to the coming of the kingdom, without neglecting to ask for “our daily bread.” And he taught us to seek forgiveness, not only from God but from each other: “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” For St. Augustine, these words of forgiveness had special importance when the prayer was said at Mass: “As a result of these words we approach the altar with clean faces; with clean faces we share in the body and blood of Christ.” At Mass, we pray the Lord’s Prayer somewhat differently from any other time. Following the last petition, “deliver us from evil,” comes a prayer said by the presider alone, called the “embolism.” This short prayer continues the final petition and adds a plea for peace and tranquility: “Deliver us, Lord, from every evil, and grant us peace in our day… keep us free from sin and protect us from all anxiety.” After the embolism, the people conclude the prayer with another doxology, an acclamation of praise. This added petition for peace leads us straight to the sign of peace. The Sign of Peace “generated perhaps more opposition and controversy than any of the changes in the liturgy after the Second Vatican Council” (Champlin). Shaking hands in church?! And yet it is an ancient practice, vouched for by none other than St. Paul himself, who told the Romans to “greet one another with a holy kiss” (16:16). Tertullian called the kiss of peace “a seal set upon the prayer.” In the early Church, the peace was exchanged before the gifts procession, in remembrance of Christ’s words: “if you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift” (Matt 5:23-24). In some contemporary rites—for example, that of Zaire—it still takes place at that moment. But in the Roman Rite, as early as the time of St. Augustine, this sign had been moved to follow the Lord’s Prayer, and it flows naturally out of the plea for reconciliation and peace at the end of the Our Father. The peace is a ritual moment, not “a greeting or a welcome, but rather a sign and vehicle of reconciliation” (Champlin). As we exchange the sign of peace with those around us, we come face to face with Christ’s presence in the assembly of which we are a part, a presence which can be harder to grasp, at times, than his presence under the veil of a sacrament in bread and wine. In the words of the great Holy Thursday hymn, Ubi caritas:
We must, while we are gathered here as one, It is, I think, quite wonderful that the Church provides no specific words and no specific sign for this moment. This rite is celebrated by the faithful, and every community is free to pray this moment of reconciliation in its own way. Agnus Dei/The Breaking of the Bread “Christ’s gesture of breaking bread at the Last Supper… gave the entire Eucharistic Action its name in apostolic times” (GIRM 83). The breaking of bread was central to St. Paul’s understanding of the church itself: “Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf” (I Cor 10:17). In the early Church, this was a significant, even a colorful moment, as the consecrated bread and wine were divided by the priests and deacons for distribution to the faithful. In later centuries, as the faithful began to receive less often, and the cup was reserved to the priest, this rite became largely symbolic, as the priest’s host was the only one broken, and the people were most often given communion from reserved hosts in the ciborium (sometimes communion was even delayed until after the dismissal!). In the reformed liturgy, an effort has been made to restore the ancient meaning to this rite. The hosts are divided into plates, the consecrated wine is poured into cups. As the bread is broken, we pray a litany: “Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world: have mercy on us…. Grant us peace.” This litany has a different function from the Kyrie with which the Mass began, and which it echoes. As Father Champlin observes, “the word ‘mercy’ means more than our customary English ‘forgiveness’ or ‘compassion.’” It would be a mistake to hear this as a plea to a just judge—a plea not to be punished. Rather, in asking Jesus the Lamb to “have mercy on us,” we are imploring “all of God’s blessings” (Champlin). In calling on Jesus as Lamb of God, we again evoke the imagery of the heavenly liturgy in Revelation, where Jesus is the Lamb who “seemed to have been slain” and yet lives (5:6). We join our prayer to that of the countless angels who “cried out in a loud voice: Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches, wisdom and strength, honor and glory and blessing” (5: 11-12). At this moment, as we wait to come forward to receive the body and blood of Christ, we are also, in a sense, waiting for the culmination of all things, the marriage supper of the Lamb. The bread is broken; the wine is poured. The priest takes the broken host and raises it, with the chalice, for all to see. And then he invites the people to communion in words that echo the litany just prayed, and the words of the angel to Saint John in Revelation 19: 9: “This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Happy are those who are called to his supper.” And the people, with the priest, respond, “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed.” This prayer, based on the Centurion’s prayer in Matthew 8:9, is a powerful expression of humility; and it is also an expression of faith. Remember the rest of the Centurion’s words to Jesus: “For I too am a person subject to authority, with soldiers subject to me. And I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come here,’ and he comes; and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” The Centurion’s powerful faith knows that nothing is impossible for God: Jesus can save his servant at a distance, as it were, with a word; and we who receive Jesus under the veil of the sacrament need to be reminded of faith like his: “Signs, not things, are all we see” (St. Thomas Aquinas). Jesus granted the prayer of the Centurion, saying, “Amen, I say to you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith” (8:10). In the Orthodox churches, the dialogue at this moment is equally beautiful, but quite different. The priest exclaims, “holy things to the holy!” It is a reminder that the assembly, too, is holy, the dwelling-place of the Spirit; and it is a challenge as well, for only the holy may approach the sacrament. Lest that invitation prove too intimidating, the people’s response reminds us, “One alone is holy, one alone is Lord, Jesus Christ, to the glory of God the Father.” Holiness is not something we can earn. Holiness, too, is a gift from God. From the Gospels, we know that the Last Supper was anything but a passive event. Jesus washed the feet of his disciples; they prayed together as he broke the bread; and when he foretold his betrayal, “they began to be distressed and to say to him, one by one, ‘Surely it is not I?’” (Mark 14: 19). For us, too, communion is a moment of decision and action, a moment when we let Jesus serve us, and when we are challenged to declare our faith in him. Communion is not brought to us where we are; we do not pass a plate along each row. No, we move, we stand up, we go forward to the altar: we make a choice. And we do not receive the body and blood of Christ in silence, but with music and with dialogue. “The body of Christ.” “Amen.” “The blood of Christ.” “Amen.” These simple words “express the presence of Christ in the sacrament, the communicant, and the assembly. Each person actively responds as a mature individual and professes belief in this presence” (Johnson). “That which you receive, that you yourselves are by the grace of the redemption, as you acknowledge when you respond Amen. What you witness here is the sacrament of unity” (St. Augustine). The procession is an expression of community: in it the body of Christ is given under one sign, and formed under another. But at the same time, communion is a private moment, when each Christian individually approaches and, one by one, receives God’s gift of himself. St. Cyril, in his 4th-century instructions to the neophytes of Jerusalem, captures the wonderful mystery and intimacy of this moment: “When you come forward, do not draw near with your hands wide open or with your fingers spread apart; instead, with your left hand make a throne for your right hand, which will receive the King. Receive the Body of Christ in the hollow of your hand and give the response: ‘Amen’…. Draw near also to the cup of his Blood… bow in adoration and respect, and say: ‘Amen’… Then, while waiting for the prayer, give thanks to God who judged you worthy of such mysteries.”
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