Welcome to Part II of my blog on the Mass! I hope that my first one was helpful; again, I am offering my own thoughts and reflections on things and they should be taken or left as such. My main goal is to try and help those who go to Mass and feel disengaged or have no idea what is going on, or even to help non-Catholics understand the Mass a little better, to try and dispel some of the many myths and misconceptions out there. 

This entry in particular will cover the part of the Mass just before the Liturgy of the Eucharist (part III eventually), so the homily will be mentioned, then the Creed, and the Prayers of the Faithful.

 

 

12. The Homily

This is the part of the Mass that either helps people, or really annoys them! There are many different opinions regarding what a homily should and shouldn’t be (feel free to express your own in the comments!), but for me, I feel that the homily must help to break open the readings of the day, for the benefit of all present. What is the point of reading from Scripture if no one can understand it? Certainly, those who do study their Bible on their own may have their own thoughts and feelings about what they read, but what does the Church teach, the very Church that assembled the Bible, authored the New Testament, has prayed, studied and reflected upon the writings for nearly two thousand years? 

The homily may be seen as a time when the priest finally gets to speak his mind, but I don’t believe this is so. I see the priest during the homily as being in the role of St. Philip in Acts 8:27-40. We can all liken ourselves to the Ethiopian eunuch (not TOO literally though; yikes!) who was in his chariot reading a scroll from the Old Testament:

30. Philip ran up and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and said, “Do you understand what you are reading?”

31. He replied, “How can I, unless someone instructs me?”

What makes St. Philip so qualified to tell this man what the Scripture means? He was an apostle of Jesus Christ; he himself learned what the Scriptures mean from the True Author of them! He also was given authority (as were all the apostles) to teach and proclaim Christ to the world. While there certainly is a role for personal interpretation, inevitably this will lead to division, for Scripture may hold one meaning to one person and something slightly or entirely different to another, and division ensues. But the Body of Christ is meant to be one, and just as our body is one under the head, kept well and in harmony by the will and direction of the soul, the Body of Christ is kept together by Christ the Head, who expresses His will for the Body through those He has chosen to be His instruments, namely the apostles. Only they have the experience and understanding capable of teaching the truth. Even St. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 12:28 that apostles are first in the Church; they have been given the authority to lead so that the people may know what they are being taught is trustworthy (an item of great concern in his first letter to Timothy in which he notes that “Some people have deviated from these and turned to meaningless talk, wanting to be teachers of the law, but without understanding either what they are saying or what they assert with such assurance.” (1 Tim 1:6-7) Note also how often in that letter St. Paul assures Timothy that what he says is trustworthy; Christ has given him the authority as an apostle to speak in His name. 

So I see the priest, who is always ordained by a bishop (successor to the Apostles and thus given authority to teach in the name of Christ) to assist him in his ministry, as part of that apostolic teaching body. When the Church issues a document expressing its teaching on this or that matter, or the local bishop writes a letter explaining something, or when we are all wondering what the prophet X or St. So-and-So means when he writes Y, the priest is responsible for boiling that all down so that we can understand it, and always drawing his own understanding from that of the Church; not merely his own opinion. What an enormous responsibility! It is so sad to come across a priest that takes this lightly! 

This part of the Mass also connects me to the early Church in a deep way. In Acts 2:42 we get a glimpse into the life of the very early Church, which still serves as a description of the Mass in a nutshell: “They devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to the communal life, to the breaking of the bread and to the prayers.” You see, during the Liturgy of the Word we read not only the Scripture (Old Testament) that the Apostles used in teaching (“All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for refutation, for correction, and for training in righteousness…” 2 Tim. 3:16… St. Paul is talking about the Old Testament; the new one wasn’t written yet!!), but we read the trustworthy accounts of Christ’s life as written by those in the apostolic train, as well as some of their own letters. After reading from the teaching of the first apostles, we hear from one of their living successors, and hopefully they responsibly practice their office for the benefit of the People of God and not merely for their own moment in the spotlight!

 

13. The Creed

What did we learn? We have spent part of the morning in the classroom, in the School of the Heart; can we articulate those lessons? Since, like St. Philip, the priest “…opened his mouth and, beginning with this scripture passage, he proclaimed Jesus to [us],” (Acts 8:35), the result is (hopefully) the same: we have come better to understand and know Christ. Christ is the same as He was, is now and will ever be, so let’s proclaim Christ as we know Him! There is so much history about the Creed (the one used most often in the Roman Rite is the Nicene Creed, first used in 325 AD!) which I won’t go into, but every Sunday the Church throughout the world proclaims it in each place’s language, and the meaning has stayed pretty much the same over the past 1700 years or so!

 

We believe in one God,

the Father, the Almighty

maker of heaven and earth,

of all that is seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,

the only Son of God,

eternally begotten of the Father,

God from God, Light from Light,

true God from true God,

begotten, not made,

one in Being with the Father.

Through him all things were made.

For us men and for our salvation

he came down from heaven

by the power of the Holy Spirit

he was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man. (during this line many people bow their heads in honor of the Incarnation)

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;

he suffered, died, and was buried.

On the third day he rose again

in fulfillment of the Scriptures;

he ascended into heaven

and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,

and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of Life,

who proceeds from the Father and the Son.

With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.

He has spoken through the Prophets.

We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. (There’s that word again!)

We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

We look for the resurrection of the dead,

and the life of the world to come. Amen.

 

Did you remember all of that? Do you believe it? A+! Yes, this is the faith that hundreds of thousands of our brothers and sisters died for and suffered terribly for. When we look at a mosaic of some young Roman virgin who was slaughtered for refusing to renounce her faith, when we see mug shots of Blessed Rupert Meyer, or the last photos of Blessed Miguel Pro and wonder, “What does this mean?” we need merely remember the Creed and we begin to understand what their martyrdom (from the Greek word for “witness”) means.

For a more in-depth study of the creed, the Catechism of the Catholic Church does a beautiful job of breaking it down statement-by-statement.

 

14. We Pray to the Lord

Next we transition into the Prayers of the Faithful. The formula is normally such that one of the lectors, the deacon, a concelebrating priest or the presider will offer a prayer, like “We pray that all those who find themselves in need will be cared for by the God who loves them…” or something along those lines. At the end of it is said, “We pray to the Lord…” to which all present respond, “Lord, hear our prayer.” I personally find this so profound; to think that I am present not only to offer my own prayers and concerns, but here I am participating in the priesthood of Christ (which is shared with all of us through our baptism) by lifting up the prayers of the entire Church and all present. To hear the assembled Body of Christ, whether it is a small rural parish of a few dozen or a packed cathedral of over a thousand, say in one voice, “Lord, hear our prayer.” Our prayer. During Daily Mass here at my community, where there may be less than ten people, we often will open the time after the “formal” prayers are offered to the prayers of anyone present. You might here, “My father is having surgery today, so I pray that it is successful and that he heals quickly. We  pray to the Lord…” Even the individual prayer of one person becomes the prayer of the entire Church; that is part of what Catholic means, what it means to be part of a unified Body.

This universal reality of prayer, this priesthood of all the baptized, is further reflected in a tradition called the Liturgy of the Hours, which is prayed every hour of the day in every part of the world by every priest and religious, that the Body of Christ may indeed pray without ceasing (1 Thess. 5:17). The prayers of each member of the Body are swept up into the One Heart of the Church, the very Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ, and all of this through the Eucharist. Whoever you are, wherever and however you are, Catholic or not, the Church is praying for you every moment of every day, “on earth as it is in heaven!” Whenever you feel like God is distant or has abandoned you, whenever you feel alone and that no one cares, remember this truth. For Christ is alive and He is in the world not only spiritually, but physically in His Church, especially through the Eucharist. That same Eucharist, His living Body and Blood, is embodied in the Church, whose mission it is not only to teach the world about Christ, but to evidence His presence. As He is constantly interceding for us at the right hand of God, so the Church is constantly praying for the whole world and interceding for each person and whispering its every prayer into the wound at Christ’s side that they may enter directly into His Heart. I suppose, then, I will stop here for now by telling all of you, Catholic or not, that the Church loves you!

 

So here we are, gathered in the Upper Room with a member (or more!) of the Apostolic body, with the myriad disciples of Christ, devoting ourselves to the teaching of the Apostles (who have received their teaching from Christ Himself), and now we await the breaking of the bread as we continue to pray (without ceasing!). Do you find yourselves hungry, the yearning of your souls listening to the Word of God and sympathizing with the woman at the well in thinking, “Give me some of this of which you speak!” Well I would repeat the words of the prophet Isaiah and tell you, “You who have no money, come, receive grain and eat; Come, without paying and without cost, drink wine and milk! Why spend your money for what is not bread; your wages for what fails to satisfy? Heed me, and you shall eat well, you shall delight in rich fare. Come to me heedfully, listen, that you may have life. I will renew with you the everlasting covenant, the benefits assured to David.” (Isaiah 55:1-3) This is what Christ is telling us throughout the whole Liturgy of the Word, for we know that “man does not live on bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” (Matt. 4:4, Deut. 8:3) Is not Christ the Living Bread come down from Heaven (John 6:51) and also the living Word of God (John 1:14)? Yes indeed, and by the end of the Prayers of the Faithful, I am starving!

Anyone who knows me (and probably those who look at my profile pic!) knows or can at least guess that I absolutely love my Catholic faith. The source and summit of this faith is Jesus Christ, especially as He deigns to come to all mankind (even me!) in the Eucharist. My primary encounter with the Eucharistic Christ, then, always will be the Mass. What I hope to do in this post and the next (and possibly a third) is to share some of my thoughts and reflections on the Mass, sort of my own non-musical version of a “few of my favorite things.” For the sake of simplicity I will be referring mainly to the ordinary Sunday Mass, though I may on occasion point out characteristics of other liturgies.

1. “The Announcement”

The Catholic person who attends Mass regularly, at least those most familiar with the Roman Rite, probably will be nodding their head with almost everything I point out. While my name for things may not always coincide with their name for it, they will know we are on the same page. The Announcement, I call it, is innocent enough and varies from parish to parish, and sometimes does not occur at all and things start at #2. The Processional Hymn.

The Announcement happens when a member of the parish, sometimes the cantor but almost always a very sweet lady, welcomes the people to such-and-such parish, usually announces the particular feast day or the whatever Sunday of Ordinary Time, and may even remind people to turn off or silence cell phones, watch alarms and pagers. The hymn is often announced at this time as well.

Really, though, the only reason I even bother mentioning The Announcement is because even this tiny little experience of the Mass can be a crucial one. For instance my mother, at the very wise age of 12 (or thereabouts), attended Mass with her Catholic friend (my mother was raised Southern Baptist). My little mother, though she would indeed grow to raise quite a bit of hell, remembers her experience of being Baptist as quite sad, and even at so young an age she was convinced that hell was her final destination, and no amount of going to church ever changed that. 

So there she was with her friend, standing in the pew as some lady announced, “Welcome to the celebration of the Mass!” “Celebration?” my young mother thought. Sure enough, there was a celebration, with candles and music, with reading from the Bible and sung psalms, with a loving message, with a beautiful communion service…everything she longed for in her own church. When she got home however, my grandparents quickly dashed her hopes of becoming Catholic! Fortunately she married one later, after a certain blogger (me!) came along. It is so strange to think of my mother back then, longing to celebrate her faith in Christ and looking to her own church for that but finding only fear and condemnation, then coming to the Catholic Church with its ancient traditions, its touch of solemnity and all else and realizing that these strange folk she’d been warned about were celebrating the life, death and resurrection of Jesus not just every Sunday, but every single day of the week! Now her whole week is spent waiting for Sunday to celebrate the gift of Christ to the world, to her, and to receive Him personally in the Eucharist, to unite herself to the Lord she loves. So even this technical little step is super important!

2. “The Processional Hymn”

When I think of the beginning of the Mass, that short moment of silence when the Announcer is silent and before the organ/piano/choir begins, after everyone has stood up, I can smell the burning scent of charcoal and the faint traces of incense already being carried on the breeze. Children’s eyes are darting everywhere, trying to figure out what is about to happen. Sunlight streams in through stained glass. I imagine God’s first words in Genesis, “Let there be light!” And just as the angel’s surely sang and rejoiced in that first light, so the whole church erupts in song. Soon comes the thurifer, usually a young man swinging the thurible full of incense (though not every parish uses incense). I love the smell of incense, and it is wonderful to imagine the ancient days of the Temple in Jerusalem, when incense was offered to God daily and to connect the Temple of God of those days with the Living Temple of God today.

Then comes the man or woman bearing the Processional Cross, a crucifix of some kind, reminding us all that we are here first and foremost because of His sacrifice, and we are all called to follow Him to that Cross. Our attention and our hearts are led by the Cross to the sanctuary (the front where the altar is) as the Procession continues. Sometimes the cross bearer is led, flanked, and/or followed by people bearing candles, and I think of how Christ is our light.

Next often comes a man or woman bearing the Book of the Gospels from which the Gospel reading will come. I think of John 1:1- “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” You can almost imagine the creation of the world: the haze of the formless waste in the smoke of the incense and the sweet promise borne upon the wind, the light of the candles being like the first light of creation, and the Book of the Gospels reminding us of that Living Word there present at the beginning of time.

Then come any other altar servers, deacons, priests, and finally the celebrant/presider (usually the pastor of the parish, a visitor, or a bishop), all of them in their various liturgical garb, colors and designs depending upon the season: purple for Advent and Lent (and a different shade for each), rose for Gaudete and Latare Sundays during the aforementioned seasons, white for the highest celebrations (Easter!!!!!) and some saints/events (Transfiguration, Mary, St. Joseph, etc.), green for Ordinary Time (though the Mass is HARDLY ordinary!), and red for martyrs or certain “sad” occasions, such as Good Friday. Altar servers often wear a black cassock (a robe-like outfit) with a surplice (a white thing that looks like the top half of a robe). 

The Procession enters the sanctuary, reverences the altar with a bow, and assumes their places, again depending on their liturgical role. The celebrant usually incenses the altar, blessing it and preparing it for the sacrifice that will come later. Once the hymn is completed, there is another period of anticipatory silence.

3. “Context”

The Catholic Mass, as also with most devotions and prayers in the Church, always always always begin the same: “In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.” This is SO important, for what is about to take place cannot be done in any other name! Then the celebrant says, “The Lord be with you,” to which the congregation replies, “And also with you.” There sometimes follows a short message about the day’s feast, the readings, or some other kind of brief welcome, before an invitation for everyone present to reflect on their sins.

4. “The Penitential Rite”

A let down after so lovely a start? Not so! I am always reminded of the advice of St. Paul in 1 Cor. 11:27-28- “Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord. A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup.” Here the Church offers us all a chance to follow the teaching of the Apostle and consider our sins. Then we follow the advice of yet another Apostle, James, who says in his letter (5:16)- “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed,” when we say aloud:

“I confess to almighty God,
and to you, my brothers and sisters,
that I have sinned through my own fault,
in my thoughts and in my words,
in what I have done,
and in what I have failed to do;
and I ask blessed Mary, ever virgin,
all the angels and saints,
and you, my brothers and sisters,
to pray for me to the Lord, our God.”

The celebrant says, “May almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us our sins, and bring us to everlasting life,” to which the people reply, “Amen!” Oftentimes there will be a spoken or sung call-and-response of “Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.” If you are super blessed (which you are anyways just being at Mass!) you might even get to speak it or say it in the ancient, ancient Greek, the last remnant of when the whole Mass was in that language: Kyrie eleison. Christe eleison. Kyrie eleison. Some musical arrangements of this part of the Mass are incredibly somber, and sometimes (especially if you’d been particularly sinful, but not so much so that you should have gone to confession before Mass!) you are feeling pretty down on yourself.

5. “Gloria!”

Turn that frown upside down, for Christ forgives you! For Christ gave authority over sin to His Apostles (His first priests!) when He breathed the Holy Spirit upon them and said “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained. (John 20:23)” Now, what should any soul say after being forgiven of their sins? Why say anything when you can sing:

Glory to God in the highest, 
and peace to his people on earth. (Luke 2:14)
Lord God, heavenly King,  almighty God and Father,
we worship you, we give you thanks, we praise you for your glory.
Lord Jesus Christ, only Son of the Father, 
Lord God, Lamb of God,
you take away the sin of the world:  have mercy on us;
you are seated at the right hand of the Father:  receive our prayer.
For you alone are the Holy One,  you alone are the Lord,
You alone are the Most High,  Jesus Christ,
with the Holy Spirit,  in the glory of God the Father.  Amen.

Not only is the Gloria just a wonderful, exultant song of praise, but especially with the opening line we are reminded by the very words of the angels that our God, for the forgiveness of our sins, deigned to descend from heaven and “emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:7-8)” We have come out of the Old Testament desert of sin and sorrow and receive our first glimpse of God’s promise fulfilled!

6. “Let us pray”

After this beautiful and very ancient hymn there is another brief silence before the celebrant invites everyone to prayer. He then offers the particular prayer for that day, and each day of the year is different, often incorporating some theme relating to the feast/occasion/Gospel for the day. After an “amen” from the people, everyone is seated.

7. “The Liturgy of the Word”

Then is proclaimed the First Reading, most often from the Old Testament, though during the Easter Season it is taken from the Acts of the Apostles. Notice I used the word “proclaimed” and not “recited,” “read,” “reenacted” or otherwise related. The way I understand it, Jesus Christ is the Living Word of God; He is not the letters on a page, He is not a wrote recitation of said text, nor is He something to be memorized and repeated to an audience. Rather, and this can be tricky for many lectors, one must lend their powers of speech to the purpose of God, permitting the Living Word to become incarnate in your very body. You become not merely a messenger, but more like an instrument upon which the Song of Salvation is played. So the book with the readings is always present; one never memorizes the reading (you are not offering YOUR word, but the Word of God which is for everyone!). This is what proclamation is for me, just like in ancient days when a man went out into the center of town with a scroll containing the words of the king, crying out in a large voice what are not his own words, but the very word of the ruler, with all the power and authority of that man as though he were there proclaiming his will in person. 

Thus not only should one proclaim and do so as humbly as possible, but “whoever has ears to hear ought to hear! (Mark 4:9)” I also love how the First Reading always takes us back to our ancestry, to the first workings of God as He lay the foundation for our salvation.

At the end of the reading the lector says, “The Word of the Lord,” after which the people say, “Thanks be to God!”

8. “The Psalm”

Next is the psalm, which is always sung antiphonally. The cantor intones the antiphon, usually a line or an adaptation of a line from the psalm itself, and then invites the congregation to repeat it. Then the cantor sings a verse, everyone sings the antiphon, and this continues until the psalm ends. We thus join in the tradition of King David, the author of the psalms, who constantly sang to God.

9. “Second Reading”

This reading always comes from one of the Epistles of the New Testament, teaching us, encouraging us and helping us to put our faith into practice. Here we are taught by the very Apostles who were taught by Jesus Christ, the same teaching preserved by the Church and taught to her people to this day. The same “The Word of the Lord/Thanks be to God” is offered here.

10. “ALLELUIA!”

Then there is a great alleluia sung by the cantor, which is repeated by the congregation as they . During this time the celebrant or a deacon/concelebrant (whoever is about to read the Gospel) picks up the Book of the Gospels from the altar, and sometimes two altar servers bearing candles will flank him and stand on either side while he reads. If incense was used in the procession, it will often be used again to bless the book. This alleluia is a cry of joy, for the Word of God is among us, to teach us and nourish us. For myself (and I imagine for many Catholics) part of this joy comes too from knowing that He will feed us not only by His Word…

11. “The Gospel”

“The Lord be with you,” says the reader. “And also with you,” the people say. “A reading from the Gospel according to (one of the four),” the reader continues, making a large cross with his thumb upon the page and then upon his own forehead (that he may understand the Word), his lips (that he may speak it) and over his heart (that he may love it and live it). The congregation does the same while saying, “Glory to you, O Lord.” Then the Gospel is proclaimed, followed by, “The Gospel of the Lord,” after which the people say, “Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.”

This reminds me again of the importance of proclamation as opposed to mere reading or recitation, for when a person proclaims the Gospel it is merely His instrument; we do not hear the man, but Jesus Christ through the man. Thus when we honor Christ with “Praise to you…” we needn’t worry about that praise going to the reader!

 

So here we are! We’ve assembled to praise and worship God and to honor His Son, we do so in His name, we offer our sins and confess our sinfulness before everyone present, here on earth and in heaven, be glorify God for His mercy, and then we sit while our Beloved Rabboni teaches us from the Scripture, both Old and New Testament. If you go to Mass every Sunday and weekday for three years, I think you will have proclaimed to you between 70-80% of the entire Bible. This is NO EXCUSE not to study and read it on your own, however!!!!!

Anyways, my final reflection before I wrap up my post is this: The Liturgy of the Word precedes the Liturgy of the Eucharist, and when I look at the Mass as a whole I see reflected there the overall reality of our salvation. Just as John says in chapter 1 of his Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word…and the Word became flesh.” In the first part of the Mass, the part I have blogged about just now, we have Christ as the Word of God, the Great Promise. In the next part of the Mass that Word becomes Flesh and comes to dwell among us. That is one reason why the Eucharist is so important and central to the Mass and Catholic life; what is the Old Testament anyways if there was no Incarnation? Likewise, why proclaim the Word of God and remind us of His promise if we do not live to see it? The Mass is the combined experience of the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation (as we’ll see next time I hope!). 

And as far as charges of the Mass not being biblical, look at all the Bible we’ve covered already! God bless you all and please feel free to ask questions or offer your own reflections!