The meeting is ‘with God through His Word and the body and blood of Jesus’
By Father Randy Stice
In 2017 and 2018, Pope Francis gave a series of catecheses on the Mass.1 In this column, I want to share our late Holy Father’s insights on the Mass. Pope Francis describes the Mass as both prayer and encounter. “It is prayer par excellence, the loftiest, the most sublime, and at the same time the most ‘concrete,’” “the loving encounter with God through His Word and the body and blood of Jesus. It is an encounter with the Lord.”
The Mass, he says, is like “a ‘symphony,’ in which various tones of voice resonate, including moments of silence, in view of creating ‘harmony’ among all the participants, which is to acknowledge that they are animated by a unique Spirit and for the same aim.” Throughout the Mass, silence “prepares us and accompanies us,” enabling us “to listen to other voices: the one in our heart and, above all, the voice of the Holy Spirit.”
Beginning with the sign of the cross, “the whole prayer moves, so to speak, within the space of the Most Holy Trinity…which is the space of infinite communion; it has as its beginning and end the love of the Triune God, made manifest and given to us in the Cross of Christ.” We then “confess to being sinners both to God and to our brothers and sisters: this helps us understand the dimension of sin which, while separating us from God, also divides us from our brothers and sisters, and vice versa.” As we confess, we strike our chest, personally “acknowledging that I have sinned through my own fault and not that of others.” This “opens our heart to invoke the divine mercy, which transforms and converts.”
In the Liturgy of the Word, we “listen to what God has done and still intends to do for us. It is an experience that occurs ‘live’ and not through hearsay.” It is “live” because it is “living.” “The Word is living, the Word of Jesus that is in the Gospel is alive and touches my heart.” This living Word “makes a pathway within us. We listen to it with our ears, and it passes to our hearts; and from the heart, it passes to the hands, to good deeds.” Silence after the homily “allows the seed received to settle in the soul, so that intentions to heed what the Spirit has suggested to each person may sprout.” The Liturgy of the Word concludes with the Universal Prayer, which “exhorts us to turn our gaze to God, who takes care of all his children.”
The gifts of bread and wine express a profound spirituality. In bringing these gifts to God, “we present to him the offering of our life so that it may be transformed by the Holy Spirit in the sacrifice of Christ and become with Him a single spiritual offering pleasing to the Father.” The Holy Father emphasized the power of this moment: “May the spirituality of self-giving that this moment of Mass teaches us illuminate our days, our relationships with others, the things we do, the suffering we encounter, helping us to build up the earthly city in the light of the Gospel.”
The Eucharistic Prayer, “corresponds to what Jesus Himself did, at the table with the Apostles at the Last Supper, when ‘he gave thanks’ over the bread and then over the cup of wine: His thanksgiving lives again each time we celebrate the Eucharist, joining us to His sacrifice of salvation.” The Eucharistic Prayer “teaches us to cultivate three attitudes: first, learn to give thanks, always and everywhere, and not only on certain occasions, when all is going well; second, to make of our life a gift of love, freely given; third, to build concrete communion, in the Church and with everyone. Thus, this central prayer of the Mass teaches us, little by little, to make of our whole life a ‘Eucharist,’ that is, an act of thanksgiving.”
The sign of peace reminds us that “Christ’s peace cannot take root in a heart incapable of experiencing fraternity and of restoring it after it has been wounded. Peace is granted by the Lord: He grants us the grace to forgive those who have offended us.” The petitions for mercy and peace in the Lamb of God “help us to prepare our soul to participate in the eucharistic banquet, the source of communion with God and with our brothers and sisters.”
When we come forward to receive Communion, “although we are the ones who stand in procession to receive Communion…in reality it is Christ who comes toward us to assimilate us in Him. There is an encounter with Jesus!” Our “amen” to the words “the body of Christ” means that we “recognize the grace and the commitment involved in becoming the body of Christ. Because when you receive the Eucharist, you become the body of Christ. This is beautiful; it is very beautiful. As it unites us to Christ, tearing us away from our selfishness, Communion opens us and unites us to all those who are a single thing in Him. This is the wonder of Communion: we become what we receive!” “After Communion, silence, silent prayer helps us treasure in our hearts the gift which we have received…speaking to Jesus in our hearts, helps us a great deal.”
“We celebrate the Eucharist,” concludes Pope Francis, “to nourish ourselves of Christ who gives Himself both in Word and in the sacrament of the altar, in order to conform us to Him. We celebrate the Eucharist in order to become eucharistic men and women. What does this mean? It means allowing Christ to act within our deeds: that His thoughts may be our thoughts, His feelings our own, His choices our choices, too. And this is holiness: doing as Christ did is Christian holiness.”
1 Pope Francis began this series on Nov. 8, 2017, and concluded it on April 4, 2018. The catecheses given in 2017 can be found at www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/audiences/2017.index.html#audiences, and those given in 2018 at www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/audiences/2018.index.html. All quotes are taken from these sources.
Father Randy Stice is director of the diocesan Office of Worship and Liturgy. He can be reached at frrandy@dioknox.org.