The Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time Liturgy Catechesis August 26, 2018
Fr. Albert St. Peter’s, New Iberia
Today we come to the last part of our walk through of the Mass. Once the Eucharistic prayer concludes with the Doxology and the Great Amen, we begin to prepare ourselves to receive Holy Communion.
Notice how the Our Father is introduced: “At our savior’s command and formed by divine teaching, we dare to say.” To us, calling God “Father” seems like no big deal, but it is. Before Jesus Christ, expressing that kind of intimacy was seen as dangerous because being to close to the divine reality could kill you. Through baptism we are made true children of God in a way that the unbaptized are not. Plus, we have the command of Jesus, so we utter this prayer with confidence.
Just a word about a common practice that sprung up in recent decades: holding hands. The Church does not tell people to hold hands during the Our Father. What happened was that people started imitating the priest, who holds his hands out and that kind of flowed into joining hands. People like to emphasize the “our” in “Our Father.” I’m sure most people do it in good faith because it’s what they’ve always known. Some people were told they are supposed to do it. That’s not true.
The thing is, the priest and the congregation play two complimentary but different roles in the Mass. The congregation is not supposed to imitate the hand gestures of the priest. Also, the Our Father is a moment of focusing on God the Father, but over-emphasizing the horizontal dimension and the hand-holding can distract us from that. Beside we are just about to exchange the sign of peace, which is a better moment to focus on that horizontal dimension. It’s not really a big deal or anything, but since we are learning what the Church teaches about Mass, it’s worth saying that holding hands during the Our Father is not originally part of the Mass and it’s certainly not required.
The Our Father culminates in what we call an “embolism,” which is a prayer that kind of “breaks out” or springs from what we’ve said. The priest elaborates on the closing words of the Our Father, specifying what kind of evil we want to be delivered from. From there we together proclaim that the glory is Gods before moving onto peace.
Now that Jesus Christ is present, now that we have directly addressed God the Father, we recall that our relationship with God is meant to lead to peace in our relationships with each other. Hence, we offer the sign of peace here to make the connection between the Body of Christ on the Altar and the Body of Christ present in the members of the Church. This is a liturgical moment, a symbolic act, so we don’t need to literally shake every hand or wave to every person. It should be simple, prayerful, sincere, and not too distracting from still being at Mass.
From there, we yet again ask for mercy as we dare to approach this sacred reality. While the congregation sings or says the Lamb of God, the priest prays his private prayer asking for the grace and mercy to receive the Eucharist worthily. Then, the priest and people together “behold the Lamb of God” and outright say “Lord, I am not worthy.” This is a reference to the centurion in scripture who acknowledges both that Jesus is holy and that he is unworthy. Yet, with the same faith, we know that God calls us anyway and that it His desire to make us worthy.
Finally, the priest receives the body and blood of Jesus Christ. This is actually a very important moment in the Mass. Until the priest receives communion under both kinds, the sacrifice of the Mass, the offering is not completed. When the priest receives, it is a mystical moment of completing the re-presentation of Christ on the Cross to the Father.
Then we distribute communion to everyone disposed to receive. After lifting up our offerings, our hopes and fears, prayers and pain, after having them transformed by the power of God, all that we gave now comes back to us transformed and united to Christ. The second reading speaks of a married couple becoming one flesh. In an even deeper way, the reception of communion is a profound moment of union with Jesus Christ. Even if you can’t actually receive communion at this moment, you can pray for a spiritual communion as a way of participating in this amazing reality that is meant to strengthen us and make us holy.
There are two practical things I want to address here. First, the reception of communion just under the appearance of bread. Every crumb of the host and every drop of the precious blood contains the whole Jesus Christ, body, blood, soul, and divinity. To receive even a single crumb gives you the exact same amount of grace as if you were to eat a bowl full and drink a gallon. I get that people like to receive under both kinds, but it is not necessary, and it doesn’t make any objective difference in the spiritual reality taking place. Besides, the Church gives specific guidelines on when to do both kinds, and those guidelines are a lot more reserved that people seem to think. There are times when it should be done, but the Church has never taught that it should be always and everywhere. So, please don’t hold it against me or other priests when we don’t distribute communion from the chalice. You still get the same amount of Jesus.
The other thing is blessings. Communion is supposed to be about the Eucharist. But, not too long ago, someone suggested we give blessings to people who can’t receive. So, that’s the common practice and it’s great. But, it’s also not necessary – everyone gets a blessing at the end of Mass a few minutes later. It is perfectly okay to stay in your pew and pray if you want.
If you do come up for a blessing, though, only a priest or deacon should give that blessing. We are still in the liturgy, which is the official public prayer of the Church. Only priests and deacons are empowered to give blessings on behalf of the Church during a liturgy. It’s not that we don’t love our Extraordinary ministers of communion or that we don’t love the people who can’t receive for whatever reason. It’s just that we don’t want to confuse the important diversity of the Church. Laity and clergy are important parts of the same Church, but they have different roles. What we do in Mass should reflect that.
After communion, the priest and deacon purify the sacred vessels that touched the Eucharist. We want to make sure every crumb and every drop are treated with reverence and consumed or stored properly, which is why we take our time “doing the dishes.”
Then comes the prayer after communion. Until we pray that prayer, communion isn’t over. Sometimes we follow it with announcements or special topics, like we will today, but typically that prayer flows directly into the blessing, which is a great symbol. We’ve just offered the most important prayer in the world, we’ve just received God himself. When Jesus ascends into heaven in the Gospel of Luke, he tells the Apostles to evangelize the whole world. Then, while he is ascending, he gives them a blessing. That blessing is a sending forth, it is the promise of God’s grace, of the Holy Spirit that is with us as we go back into the world, to ordinary life, to bring God to them and to hopefully bring them with us back to God at the next Mass.
Now that we’ve given an overview of the whole Mass, it is my prayer that you will be able to enter more fully into this sacred mystery, to let it form your hearts and minds as week-by-week we anticipate the eternal liturgy in heaven.