September 12, 2021 - Pastor Message
04/20/2024THE MASS EXPLAINED PART 4: THE PREPARATION OF THE GIFTS
“The day of Unleavened Bread arrived on which it was appointed to sacrifice the paschal lamb. Accordingly, Jesus sent Peter and John off with the instruction, ‘Go and prepare our Passover Supper for us’” (Luke 22:78).
Continuing our reflection on the parts of the Mass, we move now into the second half, from the Liturgy of the Word to the Liturgy of the Eucharist. It is entirely appropriate that the Liturgy of the Eucharist follow the Liturgy of the Word as it is God’s Word that prepares the way for and takes flesh in Christ, which is exactly what happens at Mass. The proclamation of the Scriptures, humbly and attentively received by the people, broken open in the homily, and responded to by the profession of faith and prayers of the faithful, prepares us to humbly and attentively receive the gifts, break them open in the Eucharistic Prayer, and respond by celebrating and receiving Holy Communion as faithful members of Christ’s Body.
The Liturgy of the Eucharist begins with the preparation of the gifts that we will use to make Christ present on the altar and in our community, namely the bread, wine, and offertory. The offertory is normally collected from the gathered community by the ushers and then brought to the altar in procession, a symbol of the people’s lives being offered with Christ to be transformed into his Body through the work of the parish. The bread and wine are also symbols, drawn from the very first Eucharist, the Last Supper of Jesus with his disciples on the night before he died. At that meal, Jesus took ordinary food and drink and used them to serve the extraordinary task of becoming his Body and Blood. Just as he gathered the ordinary people together who shared that meal with him and transformed them into the Church, much like grains of wheat are gathered to make bread and grapes to make wine, so he gathers ordinary people together who share the meal with him today and transforms us into the Church.
The Last Supper was no ordinary meal, though; it was the Passover, the sacrificial meal the Jews celebrated every year to renew their covenant with God who saved them from slavery in Egypt. The food and wine used in that meal required special preparation and prayers. Jesus prepared and prayed over the bread and wine in a new way, changing forever what this meal means, a new Passover for the new covenant by which God saves all people, even creation itself, from slavery to sin and death through the sacrifice of the Lamb of God. All the prayers we pray to prepare the gifts reflect this new meaning, but one in particular, which you as the people normally do not hear, is quietly prayed by the priest or deacon as they prepare the cup. They mingle a small amount of water with the wine, following an ancient custom of watering wine down before drinking it as it was otherwise too strong. At Mass, however, the meaning is reversed. As Jesus changed water into wine at the wedding at Cana, so the water poured into the cup at Mass is to be transformed by the wine, as we pray: “By the mystery of this water and wine may we come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity.” The water, symbolizing humanity, is redeemed and glorified by the wine, symbolizing God’s divinity in which he enables us to share by our Communion with him in Christ, who is both fully human and fully divine and who becomes fully present for us, body, blood, soul, and divinity, through the Eucharist.
Fr. Marc Stockton-
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