A parish talk covering the sacramental worldview, the structure of the Mass, and the Liturgy of the Word, followed by questions from those in attendance.
Welcome to “The Mass, Part One.” I’m glad you’re here. This is awesome. This is a great crowd. We’re going to go ahead and start with a prayer.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Heavenly Father, we give you thanks for all the gifts that you’ve given us. We thank you for the gift of this evening. We thank you especially for the gift of the Mass. Help us to come to know and love the Mass more deeply. Bless our time together this evening. Bless my words that I may say what you want me to say. Guide all of us so that we can understand what you’re doing in our lives when we come to pray the Mass. And help us all become the saints you created us to be. Mother Mary, we ask for your intercession as we pray.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
This started because I do this for the fifth grade. I’ve done it for the fifth grade every year. Andrea Pore, the principal, sat in on it, and she told Father Wilson, and then Father Wilson said, “You have to do this for the parish now, too.” So here I am.
I added a bunch of material, because you all are not fifth graders. I don’t know how much I added, so this may run long. We’ll see how it goes. My goal is to cover some introductory material and the Liturgy of the Word tonight, and then next weekend to cover the Liturgy of the Eucharist, some of the history of the Eucharistic prayers, and a deeper dive into the Eucharist itself.
The Catholic Sacramental Worldview
There’s a good bit of ground to cover before we get to the Mass itself, and it helps us understand the Mass once we get there.
The first part is understanding the Catholic worldview. We have a sacramental worldview. What do I mean by that? Material reality and our actions have an impact on spiritual reality, and vice versa. Sacramental mostly means that what we do has a sign value that points to what’s going on in spiritual reality, and that what we do physically impacts spiritual reality.
When we pray, it’s not just our minds. It’s not a purely spiritual thing. It’s not just our souls praying. It is the whole human person that prays. And because it’s the whole human person that prays, what we do with our bodies matters. We’re body and soul together. This is one of the most fundamental parts of our anthropology: what we do with our body impacts our soul, and what we do with our soul impacts our body.
For example, if you’ve ever tried to pray with the lights off, lying in bed with your eyes closed, it probably doesn’t go well. You probably fall asleep. As much as I convince myself that that’s a good way to pray sometimes, it doesn’t usually work. And when we’re anxious, you feel that in your gut. You know how your stomach gets all twisted up, or before a sports game you need to run to the bathroom. That anxiety in your soul affects your body. It’s all together.
So the sacraments are made for us. God made them for the human person, to speak to us at the depths of who we are. He made them knowing us perfectly. He made them with this sacramental worldview in mind, this body and soul, spiritual and material realm together.
The stuff of the sacraments points us toward what’s going on in the spiritual realm. In baptism, there’s water. The water points to new life, to washing, to all of that going on in the spiritual realm. But it’s a physical thing that points to the spiritual realm.
But then there’s also the fact that these actions do something. I had four baptisms earlier this afternoon. When I poured water on those kids’ heads and said the words, something happened. It’s not just a sign. Sacraments have a sign value that points us to something, but they’re not merely signs. They’re more than signs. They contain the reality that they’re the sign of. We see this in all the different sacramental rituals.
Some of this idea is also why we have relics. When a saint becomes holy, it’s the whole person that becomes holy. It’s not just their soul. Their body becomes holy. That’s why we have relics. Their bones, their body becomes holy, and it becomes something we can hold onto to ask for God’s grace. It’s super cool.
We Can Actually Become Holy
This sacramental worldview also means that we can actually become holy. This is where the Catholic Church and the Protestant churches differ in their understanding of salvation, grace, and sanctification.
The Catholic Church understands that we can become holy. Yes, we’re sinners, but we can actually become holy. We can actually become like Christ. That’s our goal. Our goal is to become the perfect image of Jesus Christ. That’s a really high goal. That’s a higher goal than anybody else has, that we need to become like God. That’s a big deal.
But we also understand that we’re sinners. That’s why we have the sacrament of confession. We let everybody in. You go to confession, you’re in. You’re good. Yes, you’re going to sin, you need to go back in the box, and then you do it again. But the goal we have is the highest goal.
This is different from the Protestant understanding of salvation. In that understanding, you are justified, but you’re not actually made holy. Instead of looking at you and your sinfulness, God turns and looks at Jesus Christ on the cross and, in effect, overlooks your sinfulness.
Martin Luther used the image of a pile of manure to describe this, and it pretty much holds true for most Protestant denominations today, though some are a little different. He said the human person is just this pile of dung. We’re just terrible, horrible sinners. And then Jesus Christ died on the cross for us, opened up the gates of heaven, and it was like a nice white blanket of snow was laid across this pile of dung. It’s still just a pile of dung, but it looks nice. It looks like snow.
The Catholic Church, going back and forth with Martin Luther, said, “All right. You want to start with the pile of dung? Great. We’ll start there.” Jesus Christ dying on the cross plants a seed in it, and that grows into a beautiful rosebush. That’s the Catholic understanding. The grace of Jesus Christ actually makes us holy. It doesn’t just gloss over our imperfections. We can actually become holy, and we do that through the sacraments.
What the Mass Fundamentally Is
The next thing to talk about is what the Mass fundamentally is. What is it all about?
The Mass is a re-presentation of Jesus Christ’s death on Calvary and of the Last Supper. The Mass, the Last Supper, and Jesus on the cross are all one and the same moment. It’s this one same sacrifice.
Without the Last Supper, Jesus’s death on the cross is just a bloody execution. You needed that institution of the Mass, that explanation of it by Jesus as a sacrifice, for it to be something other than just a bloody execution.
St. Anselm talks about salvation, and he says that Jesus Christ offers this infinite gift of love on our behalf, and this is what allows us to win salvation.
When we sin, we offend an infinite love. God loves us infinitely, and when you offend an infinite love, it’s an infinite hurt. The more you love someone, the greater the hurt is when they do something that wounds you. If somebody off the street says, “You’re a weirdo,” that really doesn’t mean anything to you. You just think, “Well, that’s a weird guy.” But if it’s somebody you love, somebody in your family, who says, “You weirdo,” that hurts. There’s love there, so the wound is greater.
God loves us infinitely. Our sin causes an infinite offense. We are finite beings. We can’t make an infinite recompense. So we need Jesus Christ to become man. Jesus Christ is God. He can make that infinite gift. He becomes man so he can make it on our behalf, and he offers this infinite gift of love to the Father as one of us, to win salvation, to heal that infinite offense. Does that make sense? Hopefully it does. If not, it’s St. Anselm’s theory of salvation. Google it and you’ll find it.
The Mass is that sacrifice, and we become present to it. When you come to Mass, you travel through time. You travel two thousand years back to Calvary, to the foot of the cross. You travel to the evening before that, to the Last Supper. That’s what’s going on here. That’s where we are. And when we’re there, all the angels and saints are there with us. We also participate in the heavenly liturgy. This Mass, this sacrifice, is being offered in heaven as well. It’s all one and the same thing.
Posture
That’s the sacramental worldview and the big picture of what’s going on in the Mass. Now I have a few random items to get through.
Posture is part of the body and soul thing. This is why we do the Catholic calisthenics, the sit, stand, kneel routine at Mass. We’re body and soul.
Sitting is a posture of receptivity, of receiving. That’s why you’re all sitting right now. You’re receiving what I’m saying, and hopefully it’s something good.
Standing is a sign of respect. When the judge walks into the courtroom, everybody stands up. So we stand at Mass as a sign of respect for what’s going on at different points.
And kneeling is adoration, a sign of surrender to something greater than us.
The sit, stand, kneel that we do helps us pray.
What Is a Sacrament?
The Catechism, paragraph 1131, says that a sacrament is an efficacious sign of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is dispensed to us.
An efficacious sign is a sign that is effective. It does something. It brings grace. It gives grace.
Instituted by Christ: you go back and look, and you see the institution of the Mass at the Last Supper. In his baptism, the institution of the sacrament of baptism. Right after the resurrection, when he breathes on the apostles and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven; whose sins you retain are retained,” that’s the institution of the sacrament of confession.
And entrusted to the Church. The Church has care of the sacraments, to continue to celebrate them through the centuries, and also to make the minor changes in them that allow them to be received by the people of that time. Mass is in English now. Not that long ago, Mass was in Latin all the time. The Church is allowed to make some of these changes. You’re not allowed to change what’s been instituted by Christ, but some of the surrounding parts can be changed by the Church.
I’m going to give you a little bit of Latin here. Sacraments work ex opere operato. That’s the fancy Latin term. “From the work worked.” From the very fact of the actions being performed in the right way, the sacrament happens.
It doesn’t depend on how holy the priest is, which is really nice for me. Sometimes it’s nice to go to Mass with a priest who looks really holy, and it can help you pray. And if he’s not a total jerk to you afterward, that can help you pray. But even if the priest is a total jerk, if he’s a terrible person and he celebrates Mass, it’s still the Eucharist. The sacrament still happens.
This also means that what happens at Mass doesn’t depend on how good the homily is, or whether you like the music, or whether the person in front of you is really distracting, or if there’s a kid screaming in the back. The Mass happened. As long as the Mass is prayed with the words the Church gives us, the sacrament happens.
All sacraments have matter and form. Matter is the stuff you need. For the Eucharist, you need bread and wine. For baptism, you need water. For confirmation, you need chrism oil. Form is the words and the actions. For the Eucharist, it’s the words of institution. For baptism, it’s “So-and-so, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” while you’re pouring the water over the person’s head. You need both. Each sacrament has its own matter and form.
The Church Building
Mass is celebrated in a church, if you didn’t know.
Some Catholic churches look pretty different from one another, but for the most part, for centuries, they’ve all looked pretty much the same. Either it’s a basilica style, which is taken from an old Roman building and is basically a long building with the sanctuary on one side and the doors on the other, or it’s a bit more of an Eastern style with the cross shape. Even the medieval churches had a bit of the cross shape to them.
In the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s, we decided to build churches that looked like spaceships and all sorts of weird things. St. Brendan’s in Hilliard was apparently supposed to evoke 2001: A Space Odyssey. Their tabernacle is a concrete pillar that’s supposed to look like the monolith, or whatever it is. I don’t know these things. I think it looks like Lot’s wife, the pillar of salt.
Anyway, the church space. The part outside the doors is called the narthex. Then you have the baptistery, which is set up right there because baptism is the first step in entering the Church. Every time you walk through those doors, every time you walk past the baptismal font, you’re reminded of your own baptism. Every time you enter the church, you’re reminded of your own entry into the Body of Christ. And you come to Mass, and that’s renewed. Your union with Christ is renewed in the reception of the Eucharist. Your union with the whole Body of Christ, the people of God, the Church, is renewed here at the Mass.
Then we have the nave. This is the part we’re in, where the pews are. Then the sanctuary, which here is up the steps. And then, obviously, the altar, the ambo, and the tabernacle.
In older churches, built the way churches were built from sometime in the Middle Ages up until the ’60s, the tabernacle would have been higher. It would have been up three steps, with the altar in front of it, and the priest would have faced that way, with all of us facing God together. It helps convey the flow of the Mass: we come in, we go up to God, our prayers are brought to him, and then he responds by giving us his Son, giving us the Eucharist, and the Eucharist comes down, feeds us, and then we go out into the world. It’s this in and up, and then down and back out into the world. We lose a little of that with the tabernacle not up on the steps, but it’s still back there, so you get some of the same idea.
The Books of the Mass
This is the Roman Missal. It’s not a rocket kind of missile. It’s the book. All the prayers of the Mass are in here. I’m going to leave it up here if you want to come look at it afterward.
Then we have the lectionary. The lectionary comes in multiple volumes: Sunday Mass and weekday Mass.
The lectionary for Sunday is a three-year cycle of readings. Year A, Year B, Year C. Right now we’re in the middle of Year A, so we’re reading the Gospel of Matthew. Year A is Matthew, Year B is Mark, Year C is Luke, and John gets worked in at various other points.
The first reading, the psalm, and the Gospel have been picked to go together. The first reading and the psalm bounce all around scripture to fit what’s being talked about in the Gospel. The second reading is where we march through St. Paul. We don’t hit all of it, but the second reading is not necessarily connected to the first reading, the psalm, or the Gospel. We’re just marching through St. Paul’s letters, because he wrote a significant amount of the New Testament, and it’s about how to live as a Christian. So we make sure we get through it in three years. You hear most of St. Paul, at least his main ideas.
I love that we have the lectionary, because people always say Catholics don’t know the Bible. And it’s true, we don’t know chapter and verse. We don’t memorize things that way. But we know the stories. We know the stories way better than a lot of Protestants do.
I remember as a kid there was a clip going around of some Bible quiz show, and somehow they’d let in a group of Catholic nuns, and the nuns won the whole thing. I thought that was funny and probably unexpected. It was like, “Oh, let these Catholics in, we’ll show them.” And they won. But I remember thinking as I watched it that the questions weren’t that hard. At that point I was in middle school or high school, and I hadn’t studied the Bible specifically, but I’d been to Sunday Mass every Sunday, and growing up my family went to daily Mass a fair amount. So I knew the stories. I knew the content of the Bible, even if I didn’t know chapter and verse.
Also, chapter and verse were invented in the 1200s, so they’re a new-fangled invention. I just refuse to acknowledge them.
For daily Mass, the first reading and the psalm are on a two-year cycle. Right now we’re in Year One. In one year you go through more Old Testament material, and in the other you go through a bit more of St. Paul. I forget which is which, which is terrible. I should know that. The Gospel at daily Mass is a one-year cycle. That sometimes leads to funny situations where you’ll have the same Gospel on Saturday and Sunday, because the daily cycle is disconnected from the three-year Sunday cycle.
The other book that helps with the celebration of Mass is the GIRM, the General Instruction of the Roman Missal. We don’t have it here, but it’s the rules for how to say Mass. It’s what you study in seminary. It’s all “you do this, this way, and then you do this, this way, and then you hold your hands like that.” It’s all the instructions. You can find it online for free.
There are a number of other Church documents with teachings about the Mass. From Vatican II, Sacrosanctum Concilium is the document on the liturgy. That’s the one that allowed the change from Latin only to the vernacular. There’s a document from the Vatican called Musicam Sacram about sacred music, especially music at Mass. And the USCCB, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, has documents about how to celebrate Mass in the United States.
One thing I forgot to mention: in the missal, some of the words are in black and some are in red. The black words are the words I say. Those are the words you pray at Mass. The red words are the instructions: now you bow, now you move your hands, now you do this. Somebody got me a mug when I was ordained that said, “Say the black, do the red.” Sometimes, if priests or seminarians are hanging out and somebody says out loud something that was supposed to stay an inside thought, we say, “Oops, said the red.”
The Three Languages of the Mass
There are three languages primarily used at Mass, in addition to whatever the vernacular language is. Who can guess what these three languages are, and maybe what their significance is?
Latin. Greek. Hebrew. Yes: Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.
Why do we use those? Because in the inscription above the cross it said “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews” in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek. Those are the three languages of the Mass.
Latin: Agnus Dei, Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus. We use Latin periodically in different parts of the Mass.
Greek: Kyrie eleison. Christe eleison. Kyrie eleison. That’s Greek.
Hebrew we use throughout the Mass, and I think we don’t even realize it. “Amen” is a Hebrew word. “Alleluia.” “Hosanna.” Those are all Hebrew words we’ve maintained from our Jewish ancestry, that have found and kept their place in the liturgy.
Something interesting: when the Second Vatican Council changed to the vernacular, I think we jumped a little too far. If you go back and read Sacrosanctum Concilium, we’re actually supposed to know the Latin for most of it. The readings and the prayers that change Sunday by Sunday should be in the vernacular, in English. But the prayers that are the same every time should still be in Latin, or at least people should be familiar with the Latin of them. So we should all know the Creed, the Gloria, the Our Father, the Agnus Dei, and the Sanctus. We’re familiar with some of them, but some we’ve kind of lost.
I’m really happy that Father Wilson is bringing back some of this Latin, and I hope we can continue to grow in that, to stay faithful to what the Church has set out for us.
Here’s the line: “Steps should be taken so that the faithful may be able to say or sing together in Latin those parts of the Ordinary of the Mass which pertain to them.” The Ordinary of the Mass is the parts that don’t change. Those things we say at every Mass, we should be able to know in Latin. We got away from that as a Church, and I think we’re starting slowly to get back to it.
It’s a change to do something in a different language, but Latin is the universal language of the Church, and it’s really cool to be able to go to another country and know what’s going on at Mass, to be able to participate and say the responses even if you don’t know the language of the place.
Singing at Mass
Musicam Sacram talks about three levels of things to sing at Mass, broken down by degrees of solemnity, by how big a feast day a particular Mass is.
If you’re going to sing anything, you have to do everything in the first group. Once you’re doing everything in the first group, you’re allowed to add things from the second group. And if you’re doing that, you can add things from the third group. We’ve gotten away from this as well. I try to observe it at daily Mass. This is why I don’t sing the Agnus Dei, the Lamb of God, at daily Mass.
The first degree is the greeting of the priest, “The Lord be with you”; the collect; the acclamations at the Gospel, “A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew”; the prayer over the offerings; the preface; the Sanctus; the final doxology; the prayer after communion; and the dismissal.
The second degree is the Kyrie, the Gloria, the Agnus Dei, the Creed, and the prayers of the faithful.
The third degree is the entrance and exit hymns, the psalm, the alleluia before the Gospel, a song at the offertory, and the readings.
We almost seem to have flipped that. If we’re going to sing anything, we sing an opening hymn. That isn’t quite what the Church has asked us to do, but it’s where we’re at, and some of the things we’re doing here at St. Paul’s are starting to get back toward it.
Active Participation
Active participation became a big idea, and I think we’ve understood it as, “That means you need to make sure you sing real loud.” That’s not what it means. Yes, you should sing, especially if you have a good voice. I don’t. So I sing, but I feel bad about it sometimes.
Active participation means praying the Mass well. It doesn’t mean you have to belt everything out. You should sing, and that’s part of it. But active participation is participating in the sacrifice of Christ that’s offered to the Father. It’s participating in that offering.
That means bringing a sacrifice to Mass, bringing something that you’re offering to God. When the gifts are brought forward at Sunday Mass, that’s symbolic of all the things we bring being brought forward and united to the Body of Christ, united to Christ on the cross. We’re bringing all our little crosses and tacking them onto his, joining them to his. That’s what active participation is.
St. Paul says, “Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice.” That’s what we do at Mass. We offer ourselves, our whole selves. He says, “I make up in my body what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ.” That’s his participation in it. That’s what the Mass allows us to do. It allows us to participate in the sacrifice that saves the world, for our own salvation and for the good of others.
What the Priest Wears
Now, pre-Mass. I’m going to go through what I wear at Mass, because I get vested where people don’t really see it. You only see the outside layer.
The first thing I wear is called an amice. This is what it looks like. The amice is symbolic of the helmet of salvation that St. Paul talks about. As I put it on, I pray, “Lord, set the helmet of salvation on my head, to fend off all the assaults of the devil.” You put it on like this, flop it down a little, and tuck it into the collar.
Then there’s the alb. “Alb” just means white. It’s partly symbolic of our baptismal gown, and partly it’s the priest disappearing, so that it’s Christ who’s celebrating the Mass. I’m not going to put this one on. I’m already getting hot, and I’ll sweat a lot if I do. As I put on the alb, I pray, “Purify me, Lord, and cleanse my heart, so that, washed in the blood of the Lamb, I may enjoy eternal bliss.”
Then there’s the cincture, the cord that goes around the waist. When you put on the cincture, you pray, “Gird me with the cincture of purity, and extinguish my fleshly desires, that the virtue of continence and chastity may abide within me.”
Then the stole. The stole is symbolic of the authority of the priesthood of Jesus Christ, of his priestly ministry. That’s why, when a priest is celebrating pretty much any sacrament, he wears a stole. The purple stole for confession. It’s putting on the priesthood of Jesus Christ. When you put on the stole, you pray, “Lord, restore the stole of immortality, which I lost through the collusion of our first parents, and unworthy as I am to approach thy sacred mysteries, may I gain eternal joy.”
And then the chasuble. This is the one you see on the outside of everything. The prayer is, “O Lord, who hast said, ‘My yoke is sweet and my burden light,’ grant that I may carry it so as to merit thy grace.”
There are different styles of chasuble. Mine has slightly shorter sleeves. This is called a Philip Neri style vestment. Father Girardi wears the Roman style, which has no sleeves. That’s the tank top. Mine is the T-shirt. The St. Paul’s ones are the long-sleeve shirts. Those are the Gothic ones.
Liturgical Colors
The colors of the liturgical year are purple, green, red, white, and black.
Purple we wear during penitential seasons, Advent and Lent.
Green is Ordinary Time. “Ordinary” doesn’t mean boring. It’s just “through the year.” It’s the here we are, we’re growing, we’re persevering, we’re hanging in there.
Red is for martyrs, and for the Holy Spirit. Pentecost, fire. One of my classmates in seminary, Father Ty Carter, is bi-ritual, so he can celebrate the Roman Rite of Mass and also the Melkite Rite. He’s at Holy Redeemer, off of 71 and Morse Road. They wear green at Pentecost, because the Holy Spirit brings new life. That’s their symbolism. We think of the Holy Spirit and we think of fire, the tongues of flame over the apostles, so we wear red. Those are some of the human traditions emphasizing different aspects of what’s going on.
Black is for funerals and for All Souls’ Day. White is for celebrations, saints, Christmas, Easter, that kind of thing.
The Priest’s Prayers Before Mass
The last thing the priest prays before Mass is the formula of intent. This is where he makes it very clear: I intend to celebrate Mass. I intend to confect the Eucharist, to celebrate this sacrament. The prayer goes:
“My intention is to celebrate Mass and to consecrate the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the rite of the Holy Roman Church, to the praise of Almighty God and all the Church Triumphant, for my good and that of all the Church Militant, for all who have commended themselves to my prayers in general and in particular, and for the welfare of the Holy Roman Church. May the almighty and merciful Lord grant us joy with peace, amendment of life, room for true repentance, the grace and consolation of the Holy Spirit, and perseverance in good works. Amen.”
There’s also a prayer to the Blessed Mother that I really like, so I pray that one too:
“O most Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of tenderness and mercy, I, a miserable and unworthy sinner, fly to you with all the affection of my heart, and I beseech your motherly love, that as you stood by your most dear Son while he hung on the cross, so in your kindness you may be pleased to stand by me, a poor sinner, and all priests who today are offering the sacrifice here and throughout the entire Holy Church, so that with your gracious help we may offer a worthy and acceptable oblation in the sight of the most high and undivided Trinity. Amen.”
The Beginning of Mass
Now we’ve reached the beginning of Mass. We ring the bell and process in.
The first thing the priest does is kiss the altar. In our altar we have four relics. The altar is supposed to have relics in it. This comes from the early Church, when Mass was celebrated in the Roman catacombs, on the tombs of the saints, because that’s where they could go without getting killed or captured by the Romans. So we still do it.
Our relics are St. Aurelius, a martyr from around the year 850. We don’t know much about him, but he’s cool. St. Florentia, from the 300s, and we don’t really know much about her either. A relic of St. Francis of Assisi, the founder of the Franciscans, a really famous guy. That’s part of why he’s on our mural right next to the Blessed Mother. He’s got that place of prominence because his relic is in our altar. And then a second-class relic of St. Paul, because this is St. Paul’s Church.
The Sign of the Cross
The first thing that really begins the Mass is the Sign of the Cross. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
It’s a prayer we do all the time, and I think we lose some of the meaning of it. It becomes so second nature that we don’t really think about what’s going on.
Look to the scriptures. Jesus tells us, “Baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” That’s the name, the sign, that we’ve been baptized in. Then look at the sign in Ezekiel, the mark placed on the foreheads of those who believe.
When we say “in the name of,” there are different things that can mean. It could be authority: “Open up, in the name of the law.” On the authority of. So we begin something in the Sign of the Cross, beginning it with the authority of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Holy Trinity. It could be the basis or the motivation for something. Or possession, belonging to. We’re calling all of these to mind as we make the Sign of the Cross: that we’re doing this with the authority of God, motivated by God, and because we belong to God, whatever it is that comes after that Sign of the Cross.
Why do we do the Sign of the Cross? Because we desire to be set apart. Sacred means set apart. When we make the sign over our whole bodies, we’re claiming our whole self for Christ, to be set apart, to be holy, separate from the rest of the world. A desire to be set apart from corruption and sin.
We’re also invoking God’s presence. There’s power in a name. In exorcisms, part of it is getting the name of the demon, and once you have the name, you have power over the demon. Throughout history, names have been understood this way: when you know someone’s name, you have a certain power over them. You can call them out. If you don’t know their name, it’s “Hey, you over there, weird-looking guy.” If you know their name, it’s “Hey, Fred.” There’s power. You automatically turn when your name is called. So we’re invoking God’s presence. He’s given us the power to call on him, which is incredible, this dignity he’s given us. And we’re invoking God’s protection.
So I challenge you: when you make the Sign of the Cross, do it intentionally. Don’t just let it become that quick swipe. It becomes that sometimes. Let it be a prayer that’s intentional, and it can be powerful.
“The Lord Be With You”
Then the priest says, “The Lord be with you.” And you say, “And with your spirit.”
Whenever two or three are gathered, I am there with you, Jesus tells us. There’s one, there’s two, there’s a bunch of us. We’re gathered here. Jesus is present with us. The greeting recognizes some of that.
In the Old Testament, when someone said “The Lord be with you,” it was a commissioning. We see it with Moses: “The Lord be with you,” and then Moses is commissioned for a mission to free the Israelites. Gideon: the angel says the Lord will be with him, and he goes to fight the Midianites. Mary, when the angel appears: “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you.” She’s about to be commissioned for the greatest mission of all time. Second, I guess, to Jesus on the cross. That’s number one. But she’s very much part of that.
So when we come to Mass, a commissioning is being given. You’re being given a mission: to receive what God is giving you in the Mass, and then to take it with you when you go out.
And when people respond, they say, “And with your spirit.” This points to the sacramental character of the priest. It’s not just “and also with you,” like “Hey, Michael. Hey, Kevin.” It’s the priesthood of Jesus Christ that’s present in the priest in that moment. It’s not just me, it’s Christ through the priest, and the response recognizes that spirit of the priesthood of Jesus Christ.
The Penitential Rite
Then we do the penitential rite. We’ve made the Sign of the Cross, we’ve said “The Lord be with you,” and then we think about our sins, which some people might find a little strange.
The Jewish temple day began with clearing out the ashes from the sacrifice of the day before. That’s kind of what we’re doing. We’re getting rid of all the gunk we’ve collected over however long it’s been.
In the Old Testament, there’s a fear of the holy, a sense of “I’m not worthy to see God.” There was a fear that if you saw God, you would die. We see this with the Israelites at Mount Sinai. They say, “Moses, you go up. You talk to God. We’re going to stay here, because he’s scary. There’s thunder and lightning and fire, and we’re going to hang out down here.” With King David and the Ark of the Covenant, when it’s being brought to Jerusalem and it starts to tip and a man reaches out to steady it, and he drops dead. Or Joshua and the angel, when the angel appears to tell him what to do at Jericho, and he falls on his face in fear, because he’s seeing what is holy.
This is why I think sometimes the Catholics who sit in the back are actually the most scripturally based. They’re saying, “I’m not worthy. I’m going to sit in the back. Stay away from what’s holy.” No. But we see it with Peter too: “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.”
St. Paul talks in 1 Corinthians about receiving the Eucharist unworthily, and how that brings condemnation on us. If we’re not in a state of grace, it’s worse to receive the Eucharist. We’re better off not receiving Holy Communion. It’s an additional sin to do that. It’s a recognition of the sacredness, the separateness, of what is holy.
The Didache, the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, is a first-century document, a really old one. I recommend you look it up and read it. It’s cool. It says: “Assemble on the Lord’s Day, and break bread, and offer the Eucharist. But first make confession of your faults, so that your sacrifice may be a pure one.”
That’s what we’re doing. We’re doing what the Church has been doing since the very beginning.
When we come to Mass and make this act of contrition, this act of repentance, venial sins are forgiven. Mortal sins we need to go to confession to have forgiven.
So we purify. We come before God, and the first thing we do is recognize our unworthiness, our sinfulness, our need for his mercy. We ask for that mercy, and then we continue on in hope and without fear.
The Gloria
Then we have the Gloria. On Sundays and feast days we do the Gloria.
It’s a joyful response to the begging and pleading of the Kyrie. “Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy.” That’s a kind of begging, pleading. And then the Gloria is the joyful response to God’s mercy. We’ve asked for God’s mercy. We are confident that he gives good things to those who ask and desire what is right, what is in accordance with his will. And then we respond joyfully.
We don’t do it during Advent and Lent, the penitential seasons. We remove some of the joyful things to focus on our sins, on the Catholic guilt, a little more.
The first part of the Gloria is straight out of Luke 2:14, when God was made manifest at Bethlehem. We’re joining the angels in praising God. “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to people of goodwill.” That’s exactly what the angels said to the shepherds in Bethlehem. We’re just saying the same thing. It’s right out of the Bible.
So we praise God. And it recognizes that God is both omnipotent, all-powerful, and that he is Father, he is Abba, he is Daddy. It talks about the Father, then it talks about Jesus, the one who is and the one who is coming. He came to earth, and he’s coming again. It talks about his death, resurrection, and ascension.
“You alone are the Lord.” When we say that, we’re saying God alone has authority over my life. He’s in the driver’s seat. He’s the one who makes the decisions in my life. He has authority. I’m giving him my life. And then it ends with a Trinitarian finish: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The Collect
The next thing is the collect, what people sometimes call the opening prayer.
The collect generally follows the same formula. There’s an invocation, saying essentially, “Hey there.” Then there are the grounds for why we have hope, recalling a mystery, something good God has done. Then a petition. Then it wraps up.
Here’s the collect for today:
“O God, who show the light of your truth to those who go astray, so that they may return to the right path, give all who for the faith they profess are accounted Christians the grace to reject whatever is contrary to the name of Christ and to strive after all that does it honor. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.”
First it starts with “O God.” Hey there. How’s it going? Then we recall something good that God has done: “who show the light of your truth to those who go astray, so that they may return to the right path.” Hey, you show light to people who go astray. When we go the wrong way, you call us back. That’s something you do.
Because you do that, please do this: “give all who for the faith they profess are accounted Christians,” give all Christians, “the grace to reject whatever is contrary to the name of Christ,” reject all sin, “and to strive after all that does it honor,” strive after virtue and holiness. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. That Trinitarian finish at the end.
A lot of the time these prayers go well with the readings. They’ve been crafted to go with the readings. In Ordinary Time they fit a little less closely, but during Advent, Lent, Easter, and Christmas they go right with the readings. Sometimes those prayers highlight the key thing the Church is trying to communicate to us through the readings.
The Orans Position
I also want to talk about the priest’s hand position. Everybody does it a little differently. Father Girardi does something like this. Father Wilson does something more like that. I do this. You put your hands out and freestyle it a bit.
It’s called the orans position. Orans is just Latin for praying, so it’s the prayer position. It’s meant to recall a couple of things.
It’s a position of intercession, of asking. When the Israelites were wandering in the desert and had to fight, Moses went up on a hill and held his staff up above his head. When he held it up, they did well, and when he got tired and brought his arm down, they didn’t. He’s interceding for Israel. That’s why I do mine more like this. It’s Moses holding the staff, interceding for Israel.
It also looks like Christ on the cross. The crucifix we have here has the arms more spread out, but the JP II crucifix is more stretched. It’s a position that looks like Christ interceding for us on the cross.
We also have really old artwork of the desert fathers, and a lot of the artwork shows them praying with their hands out like this. So it’s a position of prayer. Outside of the priest at Mass, we’ve mostly replaced it with folded hands, and I’m glad, because my arms get tired if I hold this position too long. I’m glad that if I’m going to pray, I don’t have to keep my arms up like that.
Most of the time when the priest is in the orans position, he’s speaking to God the Father. There is one point in the Mass where the priest does that and is speaking to Jesus Christ, to the Son. But most of the time the prayer is directed to the Father.
The whole Mass is this prayer. We participate in the sacrifice of Christ, this prayer of Christ offered to the Father, and we participate in it through the Holy Spirit. The Mass is a prayer to the Father, in Christ, through the Holy Spirit.
The Liturgy of the Word
And then we come more specifically to the Liturgy of the Word. We read the Gospels, the Old Testament, the New Testament.
It’s the Word made text. Jesus walking around was the Word made flesh. Here we have the Word made text. The Word, capital W. In the beginning of the Gospel of John: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The logos. The wisdom.
The scriptures are the Word made text. Jesus Christ present to us through these particular words, arranged in this particular order, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, handed down to us.
St. Jerome is the one who translated the Bible from Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek into Latin, the Latin Vulgate. He said that ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ. St. Jerome didn’t have chapter and verse, so we don’t need to know those. You can be ignorant of that and not ignorant of Christ. But ignorance of scripture itself, of what the words are, what the content is, what the stories are, is ignorance of Christ.
How to Understand Scripture
One of the Vatican II documents is on divine revelation. It’s called Dei Verbum. It’s pretty dense. It’s good, but it may take you a while to work through.
It talks about how inspiration is not divine dictation. The human authors were truly the authors of scripture. They weren’t just a pencil in God’s hand, with no input of their own. When you’re writing something, the pencil doesn’t have any input on what you’re doing. Inspiration is not divine dictation.
Dei Verbum says: “The books of scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully, and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation.”
So what we need to know for the sake of salvation has been put into scripture truly, faithfully, solidly, without error.
Does that mean we take everything in the Bible literally? No. When the psalmist says, “God is my rock,” he’s not saying God is his pet rock. Nobody thinks that. There’s literary style. When you’re reading a book of the Bible, you have to understand what the style is in that book.
A lot of the time numbers are symbolic. When I say, “I’ve got a million things to do today,” what I’m saying is that I’m really busy. I don’t actually have a million things to do. Nobody takes that literally. In scripture, numbers can be symbolic. A thousand means “a lot.” Seven is a sign of completion. Six is a sign of imperfection, because it’s one short of completion.
So there are literary and cultural elements in the scriptures that we need to understand in order to understand what’s going on. Some of this is obvious, like the parable of the sower we heard in the Gospel today. I had a garden with my parents growing up, but I don’t know that we ever sowed seed by grabbing a bag and just chucking it around. We don’t do that anymore. There are big trucks, and most of us really aren’t farmers. So we’re aware of some of that cultural disconnect. But there are other things where we have to work to understand what the author intends to say. When he says, “God is my rock,” he means God is solid and sure, that you can base your life on him, that he’s trustworthy.
Another thing is that scripture must be read as a unified whole, along with the whole tradition of the Church. Scripture is one part of tradition. The table of contents was not handed to us by God. The Church decided what was in and what was out, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Scripture is really part of the tradition of the Church.
And it has to be read as a unified whole. You can’t just pull one verse out of context and hold to it to the exclusion of everything else. It depends on what verse you get. Take “And Judas went out and hanged himself.” If you pull that out and decide it’s the most important verse in the Bible, you’re going to end up with a weird life and a weird interpretation of scripture. You have to read it all as a unified whole.
Scripture speaks to the audience the human author intended it for, but it also speaks to us today, equally so. The human author had a very specific audience in mind, but God intended it for me, for you. Scripture was written as a letter from God to you. So read it that way.
Why do we go through Old Testament, New Testament, and then the Gospels? St. Augustine said the New Testament lies hidden in the Old, and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New. It’s the same story, the same message from God, understood at different points in salvation history.
The Readings
So then we have the readings. The first reading, usually the Old Testament. Then the psalm. The psalm is back and forth, and the whole Mass is like that. The whole Mass is a conversation of prayer. The Book of Revelation depicts heaven this way, as this back and forth of prayer.
Then the second reading, from the New Testament, which explains how to live as a Christian. That’s the lectionary cycle through St. Paul that I mentioned.
The Gospel and the Homily
The Gospel holds a special place. We stand for the Gospel to show respect for it. The priest kisses the Book of the Gospels when he’s finished reading from it. We show greater reverence to the Gospels because they are specifically about the life of Christ. It’s Jesus speaking directly. It’s his words directly to us, to each one of us.
We’re not spectators in this. We’re involved in it. It’s part of our life. Jesus is speaking to us in the same way he was speaking to the people who were standing around him.
And then we have the homily. “Homily” is a Greek word for explanation. The homily is the least important part of the Mass. If there’s a terrible homily, big whoop. Jesus still shows up. I try to give good homilies, and when I listen to Father Wilson’s and Father Girardi’s especially, I always learn something and I’m inspired. But it is the least important part of the Mass.
The Creed
Then we have the Creed. The Creed is a response to everything that’s gone on so far. We show up, we say sorry for our sins, we praise God for his mercy, we hear his word, we receive his word. The homily is just helping with the reception of the readings. And then we respond with the Creed, the statement of faith.
“I believe.” And that doesn’t just mean “I acknowledge that this is true,” the way I acknowledge that two plus two is four. “I believe” means “I am basing my life on this. I am living this. This changes every aspect of my life. This permeates everything that I am and all that I do.”
The Creed goes through the whole of salvation history, in short, concrete form.
The Creed we say at Mass is the Nicene Creed, written at the Council of Nicaea in 325. Nicaea was convoked to combat Arianism, a heresy that said Jesus wasn’t fully God and wasn’t fully man, that he was some kind of Superman or demigod. That’s why so much of the Creed talks about how Jesus is distinct from the Father but equal to the Father. God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God. It’s talking about the distinction and the relationship between the Father and the Son, because that was the error the Church was combating at that moment.
There are other creeds out there. This one is the Creed. If somebody doesn’t believe part of this, they’re not really Christian. This is the basic content of Christian belief.
The Prayers of the Faithful
Then we have the prayers of the faithful. We offer up our prayers for the needs of the whole Church.
That’s the end of the Liturgy of the Word, the first half of the Mass.
How to Pray the Mass Well
A few things about praying the Mass well.
Bring an offering. Bring something you’re offering to God. Don’t just show up. Whether it’s something good you’ve done, a penance you’ve offered, or your weaknesses and your sins. “All right, Lord, this is all I’ve got to offer. I’m sorry it’s kind of a terrible offering, but here it is. This is what I have. Help me not do this anymore. I’m offering this to you.” Bring your whole self. Bring an offering. And know that whatever you bring, united to Christ and offered to the Father, is a beautiful gift.
Bring a petition. Bring a gift, and ask for something. Somebody once described these petitions we bring to Mass as putting a sticky tab on the cross. “Father, remember this too. I know you see everything, but when you look at your Son on the cross, remember this too. Remember this person I love who’s suffering. Remember this.” Whatever your petition is, put a little sticky tab on the cross.
Prepare for Mass. The easiest, most basic thing is to ask the Holy Spirit to help you pray the Mass well. If you’re running late, showing up right as the bell rings, “Holy Spirit, help me pray this Mass well.” Quick. Gets you there.
If you have more time, quiet your heart. Spend time pushing away the distractions and the busyness of your life.
Pray one of the prayers before Mass. There were cards with some of them in the pews a while back. I don’t know if they’re still around. There are a couple of famous ones, one by St. Thomas Aquinas and one from St. Ambrose. They’re beautiful prayers. I really like this kind of prayer, because I don’t have to come up with the words. Somebody who is a lot better with words wrote them, and they speak to what’s going on in my heart. They express what I want to express but don’t have the words for. We get to benefit from the whole Body of Christ praying when we pray these prayers. Just because somebody else wrote it doesn’t mean we can’t make it our own.
Read the readings. If you have time before Mass, read the readings. And don’t just skim them and think, “Oh yeah, I know this Gospel,” and check out. Read it, meditate on it, and let it speak to you. Let the Holy Spirit work through that reading to speak to your heart. And then if the homily is terrible, you know the readings and you’ve got something to think about while Father drones on.
Think about how you dress. We’re body and soul together, so what we do with our body changes how we pray. There’s the whole “dress well, test well” idea. When we dress up for Mass, we’re signaling that we’re doing something special, something important. We dress up for things that are important. Would you go meet the Pope in gym shorts and a T-shirt? Probably not. Well, you’re meeting Jesus. You’re coming here to talk to God, the creator of the universe, the one who loves you. When we dress to reflect that, it helps us pray better.
Pray it like it’s your only Mass. There’s a little sign in a lot of sacristies that says, “O priest of Jesus Christ, celebrate this Mass as if it were your first Mass, as if it were your last Mass, as if it were your only Mass.” I think the same can be said of every time we attend Mass. “O child of God, pray this Mass as if it were your first Mass, as if it were your last Mass, as if it were your only Mass.”
That helps break us out of the routine. Especially if you’re going to Mass every day or every Sunday, it can become routine. That’s normal. We get accustomed to it, and it loses some of its otherness. Remind yourself of its importance. What if this were your only Mass? What if this were your last Mass? How would you want to pray it?
Praise be Jesus Christ.
Okay, I talked at you longer than I meant to. Hopefully I said some good things. Do people have questions?
Questions and Answers
Several questions from the floor were inaudible on the recording. Where possible, they have been reconstructed from the answer given.
Before Father Wilson came, the deacon used to lead “You were sent to heal the contrite of heart.” Now we say the Confiteor, the “I confess.” Is one holier than the other?
Good question. The question is about the Confiteor, the penitential rite, asking for God’s mercy.
There are three options. One of them is hardly ever used. There was one priest in the seminary who wanted to use it all the time, and he’s the only priest I’ve ever known to use that option. The two that actually get used are “You were sent to heal the contrite of heart, Lord, have mercy,” and “I confess to almighty God and to you, my brothers and sisters.”
They’re both good. The “I confess to almighty God” is more similar to what the Mass was before the Second Vatican Council. It’s still not quite a direct translation, but it’s closer, so it keeps a little more of the tradition of the Church. The other one is good too. The Church says we can use it. The sacraments are entrusted to the Church. There’s nothing wrong with it.
At Mass we stop the Our Father after “deliver us from evil,” and the priest says something else before we get to “for the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours.” Protestants say those last lines right at the end of the Our Father. When we pray it at home, are we not supposed to say them?
Why is our Our Father different from the version the Protestants pray? If you look at the Gospel of Matthew, this is what I find hilarious. Protestants claim sola scriptura, scripture alone, and their Our Father isn’t in the Gospels. Those last lines they tack on come from the Catholic Mass. They are not found in scripture.
The Our Father, as it’s written in the Gospel of Matthew, ends with “and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” That’s how it appears in the Gospel. So that’s how we pray it.
You can add the other lines if you want. Go for it. Your private prayer is your private prayer. Talk to God in the way that works for you. But yes, the Protestants kind of just decided to add that in, which I think is really funny.
Why do we include the deuterocanonical books, Maccabees and all that, and the Protestants don’t?
Good question. There are seven books that Catholics have and Protestants don’t. They threw out the Book of Wisdom, which just seems like a bad idea.
Here’s why we have them. In the early Church, everybody spoke Greek. At the time of Jesus, most Jews spoke Greek, not Hebrew. And most of the scriptures had been written only in Hebrew.
When the Babylonian exile happened, the Jews scattered all over the place. A lot went to Babylon. The ones who weren’t taken to Babylon largely went to Egypt, to Alexandria. So you had Jews spread out across that part of the world, all speaking Greek. In Alexandria they translated the scriptures, and that gave us the Septuagint. That Greek translation of the Old Testament is the Old Testament we use. The Catholic Church said, “This is our scripture.” The Septuagint plus the New Testament.
Then the Jews said, “We need to think about this, about what’s in our books and what’s not.” And in part they wanted to be distinct from the Christians. So they asked, “What are the books that can be found in Hebrew? We’re going back to our roots.” They only included the books they could find in Hebrew. Some of those books, like Maccabees, they could only find in Greek. They only had Greek manuscripts.
The Protestants then took the Jewish Old Testament as their own.
Then the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in a cave in the Holy Land, and the manuscripts dated to before the time of Jesus. They’re really old documents, and among them they found these seven books written in Hebrew. So the reason the Jews excluded them no longer really exists. They had them in Hebrew too. They just couldn’t find them a couple hundred years later when they were settling their canon.
What determines whether we say the Nicene Creed or the Apostles’ Creed?
At Mass we say the Nicene Creed. When you pray the rosary, you pray the Apostles’ Creed. Both are good. The Apostles’ Creed is a bit shorter, and that’s probably why people use it for the rosary. It’s just the tradition of it. The Apostles’ Creed is, I believe, a little older than the Nicene Creed.
[Follow-up: At Resurrection Church, they use the Apostles’ Creed at Mass.]
That’s an option. You’re allowed to use the Apostles’ Creed at Mass. It’s one of the options given. It’s just uncommon. That’s one of the things you’ll find about the Mass. There are a lot of places where you can do this or that, and either is fine. The Church has given us these options. The Nicene Creed is just more common, so it’s what most people do. But great question.
There’s a prayer the priest says out loud, right before the Holy, Holy, and it doesn’t seem to be printed in the missalette. What is that?
[The questioner works through it: it comes after “Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation,” and right before the Holy, Holy.]
That is called the preface. It comes between “The Lord be with you,” “And with your spirit,” and “Lift up your hearts.”
There are all kinds of options. There are tons of options. That’s why it’s never the same prayer.
I think most of the time, with something like Magnificat, there are so many options that they pick one so that the text is usable. But there are a lot of options. For Sunday Mass, I think there are six or seven prefaces. For daily Mass, a different six or seven. The Blessed Mother has two. The apostles have two. There are particular ones for Christmas, Easter, Lent, Advent, and so on. That chunk of the missal is thick, so the worship aids just don’t print them all, probably for printing cost reasons.
I’ve seen priests kiss their stole when they put it on or take it off. Is that a personal preference?
Yes, that’s a personal preference. It’s a way of expressing love for the priesthood, the priest kissing the stole as he puts it on and takes it off. It’s a good thing to do. I try to do it most of the time. Sometimes I forget.
It’s the same idea as kissing the altar, which expresses love for the sacrifice of the Mass. This expresses love and reverence for the priesthood, because the stole is symbolic of the priesthood of Jesus Christ that the priest is putting on to celebrate the sacraments, that priesthood he received through his ordination. Does that make sense?
I thought priests wore black for funerals, but I’ve only ever seen white, or sometimes purple. What’s the deal?
A lot of the time now we wear white, because we don’t like the idea of anybody being in purgatory or suffering after they die. To me that seems a little presumptuous.
You’re still praying for the person. To say “Oh, he died, he goes straight to heaven,” well, maybe. I’m a sinner. You only go straight to heaven if you have no attachment to sin whatsoever. God can work miracles in those last moments of your life. That’s why we pray the Hail Mary: pray for us now and at the hour of our death. In that hour of death, maybe you are detached from your sin. Hopefully so. So we’re not saying this person isn’t going to heaven. But we still need to pray for them. We pray for the dead.
Purple or black is more of a reminder of that prayer. We do wear white as a kind of celebration of a saint, so that’s some of the symbolism there. Traditionally it was always black. Black for mourning. Most people wear black when they come to a funeral. But some people get upset when a priest does, so priests often avoid it.
For All Souls’ Day this past year, which fell on a Sunday in early November, we all wore black, praying for the holy souls in purgatory. Good question.
During the Confiteor, when we say “through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault,” should we be striking our breast?
Yes, the striking of the breast. Three times: “through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault.” It’s a sign of sorrow, of repentance.
I think it probably comes from way back when monks practiced flagellation, taking a whip to their own back. We don’t really do that anymore. That was maybe a little extreme, and it probably got out of hand, and there was probably some pride mixed in with it. But the striking of the breast is still a sign. It’s the body-and-soul thing again.
[Follow-up: Fist or flat hand?]
I’ve heard that technically the proper way is the open hand. I always do the fist, because that’s how I did it growing up. Either one is good.
What’s the most important part of the Mass?
Great question. We’ll talk about this next Sunday.
The most important part of the Mass is when the priest holds up the consecrated Eucharist, the paten and the chalice, and says: “Through him, and with him, and in him, O God, almighty Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours, for ever and ever.”
That’s the moment of offering all of our offerings, united to Christ, to the Father. That’s what the Mass is all about, this offering to the Father. That’s the most important part. That’s why I always sing that part, to set it apart from everything else in the Mass. Great question. I’ll say more about it next week.
You said the orans position is the prayer position. Should we be doing it too, in the pews?
Great question. The Mass is the prayer of Jesus Christ, represented by the priest, that everybody else joins in and participates in. It’s the one prayer of the community. That’s why the priest does it and not everybody.
If you want to do it when you’re praying at home or on your own, go for it. If that helps you pray, that’s awesome. But at Mass, it’s the one prayer together, and that’s symbolized by the one voice of the priest speaking to the Father, the one priest in the orans position. Does that make sense?
You mentioned the Kyrie as the Greek in the Mass. Are there other parts that are still Greek? And is using Greek optional or standard?
It’s optional. You can say it in the vernacular. You don’t have to use the Greek. It’s a traditional thing to do.
I think here we use the Greek at Christmas and Easter, or maybe it’s Advent and Lent. I don’t remember. We make sure to use the Greek at different points throughout the year. But it’s an option. Either way is good. Both are good.
I think the Kyrie is the only Greek in the Mass. I could be wrong, but that’s the only Greek I can remember.
At a high Mass, when you incense the altar, it’s a certain number of swings, one, two, three. Can you explain that symbolism?
I’m going to punt on this one a little, because we’re going to talk about it next week. It gets into the Eucharist and the second half of the Mass.
But incense in general is a reminder of what we’re called to be. The incense is put on the coals and burned for the glory of God. That’s the sacrifice of ourselves that we’re offering, and then this sweet-smelling smoke rises to heaven, to the Father. It’s symbolic of all our prayers. You incense the altar, and all of our prayers are placed on the altar and rise up to the Father.
The three is the Trinity. The numbers have symbolic meanings, and three is for the Trinity. When I incense, I go around the altar and then incense the crucifix. You bow, then incense the crucifix. I do three sets of two. When I incense the Eucharist, like at exposition or benediction, I do three sets of three. When the priest and the people are incensed, it’s three sets of one. It’s a gradation of what’s most important. The Eucharist obviously is the most. We’re the least.
And there are different ways of doing it. Some of the symbolism is optional. That’s what I do, but other people do it differently, and some people have very strong opinions about it. But the Church hasn’t said, “This is how you have to do it.” So we have options. Good question.
I saw something from Father Mark-Mary about the symbolism built into a church building, the lights representing the twelve apostles or the twelve tribes, the steps, and so on. Does our church have that?
Every church is a little different.
Here, if you count the base floor, there are seven steps for the seven sacraments. We have octagons in our church. Eight is the eighth day, which is the resurrection. There are seven days of the week, and there’s this idea that the world was stuck in futility, in the cycle of seven days, and couldn’t get out until the resurrection, when we broke free of that cycle of corruption and entered eternity, the eighth day. That’s why we have the octagons. The ambo is an octagon with one side cut out so you can get in. There’s an octagon on the floor under the altar.
The symbolism varies by church. Some churches have seven pillars going up the side, and in old churches with a communion rail, the third pillar would land at the rail. Each pillar is a sign of one of the sacraments. So you’d receive baptism, then confession, then your first communion, and communion is third, and that’s where the rail is, at the third pillar. Each pillar is symbolic of one of the sacraments.
There are all sorts of symbols. The anchor is a sign of hope. The sunflower is a sign of obedience, because it follows the sun around. The lily is a symbol of chastity, so if a saint is classified as a virgin, they’ll usually be depicted with a lily. The palm branch is a symbol of martyrdom, so a martyr’s paintings or statues usually include a palm branch.
I think the figure over on the right is holding a palm branch. I’m pretty sure he was martyred. I forget who it is. St. Charles Lwanga? I think so. He was a martyr for sure. And St. Paul was martyred, and he’s holding the sword. The sword is the symbol for St. Paul. For St. Peter, it’s the keys.
Different churches put these symbols in different places to help us pray. It goes back to the body-and-soul thing. When you get distracted at Mass, hopefully you get distracted by something that points you to God and reminds you to get back to prayer. The saints all around us remind us that the saints and angels are here praying with us. The scenes from the Gospels remind us of the stories. They’re meant to help us pray, so that our distractions lead us back to prayer.
It’s kind of cool. A community forms the building, and then the building forms them as they pray. What they think is important, the symbolism they choose to include, shapes that building, and then that building, generations down the road, is still forming them in how they pray and how they think.
All right. We’re going to close with a prayer. And if you have more questions, I’ll stick around and I’m happy to answer them.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
The Lord be with you. And with your spirit. May almighty God bless you: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Go in peace. Thanks be to God.