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Exploring
the Mass... The old saying, lex orandi, lex credendi, tells us that the way we pray shapes what we believe. If this is so, what does our prayer at the Mass tell us? It acknowledges our need for change. Again and again we ask for greater unity, peace, and holiness, not only for ourselves, but for our Church and our world. We constantly strive to move forward; we do not congratulate ourselves on having in any way arrived. Instead, the closer we approach to the sacrament, the more we acknowledge our weakness, the more earnestly we ask for God’s help. “Look not on our sins, but on the faith of your Church, and grant us your forgiveness.” “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word, and I shall be healed.” After the communion procession, we return to our places; we kneel or sit, and “while waiting for the prayer, give thanks to God who judged [us] worthy of such mysteries” (St. Cyril of Jerusalem). When the communion procession is finished, the ministers carry the vessels to the sacristy, where they are reverently purified by the sacristan; and in the meantime, a period of silence is observed. We have experienced different kinds of silence in the course of the Mass: there are thinking silences and praying silences; solemn silences and reflective silences. This silence after holy communion is a time for adoration and thanksgiving, petition and self-offering. Countless saints have tried to put into words the richness of this silence in which we give thanks to God for the gift of his Son. St. Ignatius prayed: “Soul of Christ, sanctify me. Body of Christ, heal me. Blood of Christ, inebriate me. Water from the side of Christ, wash me. Passion of Christ, strengthen me. Good Jesus, hear me.” At St. James Cathedral, we conclude this period of meditation with a Hymn of Praise. Once again, our singing together expresses the fact that we are a community of faith, and at the same time helps us to become one. The Communion Rite concludes with another prayer. This time, it is not a prayer of thanksgiving; rather, we now ask for the fruits of the Eucharist; we pray that the sacrament may have an effect in our lives. Lord, we pray, may this Eucharist…. Accomplish in your Church the unity and peace it signifies
(11) These prayers, together with the prayers over the gifts we heard just before the Eucharistic Prayer, offer an amazing vision of what the Eucharist can do in our lives and in our communities, if we let it. Sometime, try opening your missal and reading through all the post-communion prayers for the year in sequence. Together, they form a beautiful meditation on the Mass. And you might well be amazed at what we are asking for, Sunday after Sunday! Just as special rites developed around the reception of communion, so rites developed for the conclusion of the Mass. In the liturgy of the 1570 Missal, these rites were quite elaborate. There was “a veneration of the altar, a greeting, a dismissal, a prayer preliminary to the blessing, another veneration of the altar, the blessing itself, and a reading of the prologue of the Gospel according to St. John” (Johnson). After 1884, there were additional prayers to be said, prescribed by Pope Leo XIII, and added to by Pope Saint Pius X, which included a series of Hail Marys, the Hail, Holy Queen, and invocations to Michael the Archangel and to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. And sometimes a long “Thanksgiving after Mass” would come after that! In our restored rite, things are quite a bit simpler. Following the prayer after communion, announcements are made. Believe it or not, the announcements given at Mass have their own ancient heritage. Pope Leo the Great (he died in 461) gave announcements regularly at the conclusion of his homilies, reminding the faithful of fast days and announcing important liturgical celebrations in the coming week. Now, the announcements follow the Prayer after Communion. They should not be seen as an interruption of the liturgy, but rather as flowing directly out of it: in our last prayer, we have asked for the strength to put the Eucharist in action, and the announcements of events in the life of the parish often suggest ways we can carry our faith into a brand-new week. Greeting and Blessing The Lord be with you. And with your spirit. Every time we’ve heard these words, something important has been about to happen. We heard them at the beginning of Mass; at the beginning of the Gospel; at the beginning of the Eucharistic Prayer. Why do we hear them again now? Isn’t this the ending? Not at all! It’s the beginning of the next part of the Mass, the part that lasts the longest: the part where we put what we have heard and received into action in our daily lives, the part where we “declare the wonderful deeds of God who has called us out of darkness into wonderful light.” Luke’s Gospel concludes with the account of the commissioning of the apostles and Christ’s ascension into heaven. “As he blessed them he parted from them and was taken up to heaven. They did him homage and then returned to Jerusalem with great joy” (Luke 24: 51-52). The end of the Mass follows the same pattern. The priest gives the blessing, and we all make the sign of the cross. We are blessed and sent. Indeed, in Latin the words of the dismissal are “Ite, missa est,” which literally means, go, you are sent. “The people are now sent forth to carry out the mission of the church, a mission of healing, justice, and proclamation. All liturgy has a social dimension” (Johnson). We accept this commission as a gift, with words of gratitude that echo our responses elsewhere in the Mass: “Thanks be to God!” The Mass is our greatest prayer; as Father Driscoll says, the Church “exists to pray it, and she comes into being by praying it.” And yet it is what we do outside of Mass which will determine the genuineness of the offering we make at the altar each Sunday. “We cannot delude ourselves: by our mutual love and, in particular, by our concern for those in need we will be recognized as true followers of Christ. This will be the criterion by which the authenticity of our Eucharistic celebrations is judged” (Pope John Paul II, Mane Nobiscum Domine). All who are called to the Lord’s table are called to be peacemakers, and not only on the grand scale, but in the ordinary encounters of our daily lives. In the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, the term “recessional” is never used. Recessional implies that we simply go back where we started. And that’s exactly what we don’t want to do after our celebration of the Eucharist! We have prayed that the celebration will transform us, and not only us, but the world we live in. And so it’s good that we always process: we always go forward. Led by the cross, the ministers go out of the church, and then, the entire assembly joins that procession. We stream out to live the word we have heard, and the sacrament we have received, in a thousand different places and a thousand different ways. The priest brings up the rear in the procession of the ministers; and before he departs he reverences the altar once again. This time, it is a gesture of farewell. “The farewell kiss looks back to the Eucharist which has just concluded and anticipates the next occasion when the community will assemble at the table of the Lord” (Johnson). The liturgy of Antioch included a wonderful prayer which the priest would say privately at this moment; and it’s one which we can join in, in spirit at least, as we leave the Cathedral each Sunday: “Rest in peace, holy altar of the Lord.... May the Lord grant me to see you in the assembly of the firstborn which is in heaven; in this covenant, I place my trust…. Rest in peace, holy altar, table of life, and beseech our Lord Jesus Christ for me so that I may not cease to think of you henceforth and for ever and ever. Amen.”
Corinna
Laughlin
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