August 29, 2021 - Pastor Message
November 21, 2024THE MASS EXPLAINED PART 2: THE INTRODUCTORY RITES “â€The mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest mountain and raised above the hills. All nations shall stream toward it; many peoples shall come and say, ‘Come, let us climb
THE MASS EXPLAINED PART 2: THE INTRODUCTORY RITES
“”The mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest mountain and raised above the hills. All nations shall stream toward it; many peoples shall come and say, ‘Come, let us climb the Lord’s mountain, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may instruct us in his ways and we may walk in his paths’” (Isaiah 2:23).
Continuing our reflection on the parts of the Mass, begun last week with our personal preparation before Mass, we reflect this week on the beginning of Mass, the Introductory Rites. The primary purpose of the Introductory Rites is to gather us all together from our different lives throughout the week and to reunite us as the Body of Christ to hear God’s Word and to celebrate the sacrament of Christ’s Body, the Eucharist. It recalls for us that the Mass is not just the work of the priest or the ministers on the altar but of the entire gathered community and focuses all of us on our one, shared purpose, to become together what we celebrate and receive at Mass.
We see this from the very beginning of Mass with the entrance procession and gathering hymn. The ministers process up the aisle right through the heart of the gathered community, with Christ, the head of his Body, held high on the cross at the head of the procession. Like a magnet gathering metal shavings, the procession visibly and symbolically pulls us all together into the sanctuary where the principal actions of the Mass will take place. We also typically sing the gathering hymn during the procession. Singing engages our whole self, mind, body, and spirit, in a way merely speaking does not, and by singing the gathering hymn together we unite our whole selves together in our celebration of the Mass.
Once the community has gathered in the sanctuary, visibly symbolized in the ministers, we continue our prayer with the sign of the cross and greeting, recalling that it is God, our one Lord, who gathers us and unites us together by uniting us to himself and that it is in his name that we gather. However, to be fully united, we know that we need to remove from our lives whatever divides us, in particular sin (Matthew 5:23-24). Thus we next celebrate together ERIE the Penitential Rite, calling to mind our sins and entrusting ourselves to God’s mercy, in response to which we sing together the Gloria, praising God for his goodness that heals us and makes us one.
The Introductory Rites conclude with the Opening Prayer. Traditionally, this prayer is referred to as the Collect because its purpose is to collect, or gather together, all our individual prayers and intentions that we bring to the Mass. That is why it is preceded by a brief silence, enabling us to call our own prayers and intentions to mind and offer them to God in union with the prayer offered by the priest on behalf of the whole community. In the Mass, silence is not just downtime between the real actions of the Mass; it is included as a time of prayer and reflection that is just as important as every other part of the Mass. By taking advantage of the silent periods at Mass we internalize the more public actions and make them our own, helping the grace of our celebration sink in and have a fuller effect in our lives and that of our community.
Fr. Marc Stockton
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