In This Issue:
May, 2009
St. Michael the Archangel Catholic Church
100 Oak Dr. South
Lake Jackson, Texas
LIGHT FOR THE WORLD
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In This Issue: |
PARTS OF THE MASS continued
INTRODUCTORY RITES
Entrance Procession
Entrance Song
Veneration of the Altar
Sign of the Cross: Greeting: Introduction
Penitential Rite
Invitation/Silence/Proclamation
Confiteor/Kyrie
(or Sprinkling Rite may take the place of the
Penitential Rite)
Gloria (Glory to God)
Opening Prayer (Collect)
LITURGY OF THE WORD
First Reading
Responsorial Psalm
Second Reading
Gospel Acclamation
Gospel
Homily
Profession of Faith
General Intercessions
LITURGY OF THE EUCHARIST
Preparation of the Altar and the Gifts
Presentation of the Gifts
Offertory Song
Prayers At the Preparation of the Gifts
Mixing of Water and Wine
Lord God, We Ask You…
Incensation
Washing of the Hands
Prayer Over the Gifts and Its Invitation
Eucharistic Prayer
Preface*
Holy, Holy, Holy Lord*
Epiclesis*
Institution Narrative*
(*featured in this issue)
Memorial Acclamation
Anamnesis
Offering
Intercessions
Final Doxology
COMMUNION RITE
Lord’s Prayer
Rite of Peace
Breaking of the Bread
Commingling
Lamb of God (Agnus Dei)
(Private Preparation of Priest and People)
Invitation to Communion
Distribution of the Eucharist
Communion Song
Purification of the Vessels
Silent Prayer/Song of Praise
Prayer After Communion
CONCLUDING RITE
(Announcements)
Greeting and Blessing
Dismissal
Veneration of the Altar
Recessional
*The Eucharistic Prayer as the center and high point of the entire celebration is a summary of what it means for the church to celebrate the Eucharist. A commentary on the four main Eucharistic Prayers has been featured in our past 4 issues. Every Eucharistic prayer however, has several parts, and we continue by looking at the individual parts.
*Preface; a term meaning “proclamation” or “speaking out” before God and his people. Every Eucharistic Prayer begins with the preface, but some are common – they can be used on feast days, liturgical seasons, votive masses, and special occasions. The priest may choose from the common prefaces for one that better focuses attention on a particular mystery or aspect of salvation history.
A proper preface can be provided for the Eucharistic Prayer, as is the case in Prayer II.
Because the thematic development begun by the preface continues beyond the Sanctus in Prayer IV, this preface must always be used with Prayer IV.
The Missal now contains 80 individual prefaces, and all are concise statements of praise addressed to the Father through the Son. The body of the preface is a statement of the special reason for praising God, especially God’s work in creation and redemption.
The priest begins with the words, “Lift up your hearts”, and the assembly is made conscious of its close union with the presiding priest who speaks in the name of all. After the people have responded, the priest continues with the Eucharistic Prayer he has selected from the Roman Missal.
*Holy, Holy, Holy Lord (The Sanctus) was inspired by the vision of Isaiah (6:2-3). It made its way into the Eucharistic Prayer first in the East and by the mid-fifth century was incorporated in the West, and now the whole congregation, joining with the heavenly powers, sings the Sanctus. This is the people’s acclamation of praise concluding the preface of the Eucharistic Prayer. We join the whole communion of saints and all creation in acclaiming the Lord, giving praise to the Father through Christ.
The verse “Blessed is he” is the acclamation used by the people to greet Christ at his solemn entrance into Jerusalem (celebrated on Palm Sunday; see Matthew 21:9). By the mid-sixth century this acclamation was already joined to the Sanctus in Gaul, and a century later, in Rome as well.
*Epiclesis – a calling upon - is a formal petition to the Father to send the Holy Spirit who brings about such fruits of the Eucharist as unity and love among the faithful. Another form of the epiclesis, occurring before the words of institution, requests that God accept the sacrifice, that it be filled with the blessing of the Holy Spirit. This preliminary epiclesis flows from the theme of fullness found in the Sanctus, namely that heaven and earth are full of God’s glory.
The Roman Canon has the equivalent of an epiclesis in the request that the Father “accept and bless these gifts” and that they become “…. an offering in spirit and in truth, the body and blood of Jesus Christ.” After the words of institution, there is also a petition that the sacrifice be borne to the heavenly altar by the hand of the angel and that those participating in the Eucharist “be filled with every grace and blessing.” In neither case, however, is there an explicit mention of the Holy Spirit.
To compensate for this lack, the new Eucharistic Prayers contain an explicit epiclesis requesting the Spirit to come. It follows a split pattern. It is a petition that the Father send the Holy Spirit to “make holy” (II, III) or “sanctify” (IV) the gifts so that they may become the body and blood of the Lord. As the priest makes this petition, he extends his hands over the bread and wine in the ancient gesture signifying the giving of the Spirit (as a laying on of hands gesture).
Following the institution narrative, the acclamation, and the memorial-offering, the priest again explicitly invokes the Spirit and asks that all “be brought together in unity” (II), “become one body, one spirit in Christ” (III), and that “all who share this bread and wine” be gathered “into the one Body of Christ, a living sacrifice of praise” (IV).
Just as bread and wine are transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ, so by sharing the loaf and the chalice, we are also transformed, we are to become the body of Christ, paradoxically something we already are through Baptism.
Institution Narrative
The words of institution or consecration are essential to the Eucharistic Prayer. “In the words and actions of Christ, the sacrifice he instituted at the Last Supper is celebrated, when under the appearances of bread and wine he offered his body and blood, gave them to his Apostles to eat and drink, and commanded them to carry on this mystery.” (G.I.R.M 54d)
Just as the Eucharistic Prayer is part of a continuous action extending from the preparation of the gifts to the communion, so the words of institution are part of the Eucharistic Prayer which is a consecratory, thanksgiving prayer of praise. All that God has accomplished in creation and salvation history is fulfilled, signified and made present in the person of the crucified and risen Christ.
EPICLESIS. Greek, epiklesis (Latin Invacatio - meaning invocation)
The epiclesis is that part of the anaphora, or Eucharistic Prayer, by which the priest invokes the Holy Spirit (or the power of His blessing). To sanctify is a role properly attributed to the Holy Spirit, who completes and brings to fullness the work of the Father and the Son.
Although the prayer for the consecration is addressed to the Father, it is through the power of
the Spirit - who integrates the gifts of the people into the offering of Christ - that the Church presents the memorial of the Son to the Father, and efficaciously repeats the words of institution. It is also through the Holy Spirit that the Church constantly becomes the body of Christ, nourished and fortified by his presence in the spirit.
QUIZ
(TRUE/FALSE)
Q. The priest may change the words of fixed prayers in the Mass upon
approval from his Bishop.
(Click here for answers, or scroll down)
That during the Middle Ages attempts at pinpointing when and how the consecration occurred became a point of bitter controversy between the East and West?
For centuries, the Eucharistic Prayer was considered as a unified whole, and the church was not overly concerned with the exact point at which the transformation of the bread and wine took place. And yet, two theological traditions developed. Theologians in the West, starting with St. Ambrose (340-397), stressed the importance of the words of institution. The Greeks, reacting to certain heretical tendencies which attacked the divinity of the Third Person of the Trinity, placed emphasis on the action of the Holy Spirit as sanctifying both the gifts and the people.
These different explanations had caused no difficulties until the Middle Ages, and recent theological reflection calls attention to the dynamic and unified character of the Eucharistic Prayer – the entire prayer is consecratory.
Why did our Blessed Lord use bread and wine as the elements of this memorial? First of all, because no two substances in nature better symbolize unity than bread and wine. As bread is made from a multiplicity of grains of wheat, and wine is made from a multiplicity of grapes, so the many who believe are one in Christ. Second, no two substances in nature have to suffer more to become what they are than bread and wine. Wheat has to pass through the rigors of winter, be ground beneath the Calvary of a mill, then subjected to purging fire before it can become bread. Grapes in their turn must be subjected to the Gethsemane of the winepress and have their life crushed from them to become wine. Thus do they symbolize the Passion and Sufferings of Christ, and the condition of Salvation, for our Lord said unless we die to ourselves we cannot live in him. A third reason is that there are no two substances in nature which have more traditionally nourished man than bread and wine. In bringing these elements to the altar, men are equivalently bringing themselves. When bread and wine are taken or consumed, they are changed into man’s body and blood. But when He took bread and wine, He changed them into Himself.
Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen
SEASON OF EASTER
During the seasons of Lent and Easter, we celebrate the feasts of Saints in the early Church who were witnesses both by their words and their lives. We have sung the Litany of Saints at the Easter Vigil and kept some of their names alive in the Eucharistic Prayer.
The crown of the Christian year is Easter, and the season of Easter lasts for 50 days. It is a time for joy, for reading the resurrection stories in the Gospels, the stories in Acts of Apostles of early Christian preaching, and the letters of encouragement to the first communities formed by that preaching. The resurrection of Jesus Christ expresses the triumph of God’s love over the powers of sin, evil, and death. The fallen world understands power as the ability to force one’s will on others even if it destroys them in the process. God’s power is the ability to evoke love rather than fear and in the process to give life, not death.
The Sunday readings during the Easter cycle take a different tack than usual, not woven together as we are used to seeing; all three readings deal with the effects of the resurrection, both on the individual believer and on the community as a whole. The first readings for the Sundays of Easter are taken from the Acts of the Apostles instead of the Old Testament. They show the early church, empowered by the Holy Spirit, building up the community of faith in their experience of the risen Lord. The stories show the effect of the death and resurrection on the lives of the disciples, how the gospel spread and how the disciples, under the power and direction of the Holy Spirit, boldly speak and act. It counterbalances the more uncertain groping for meaning found in the Gospel readings. Jesus is no longer a physical body to be touched, but a living Word to be proclaimed.
Feast Days of Saints
MAY 2009
1 Feast of St. Joseph the Worker
2 St. Athanasius
10 Fifth Sunday of Easter and Mother’s Day
13 Our Lady of Fatima
14 St. Matthias
21 Traditional Feast of the Ascension (to be celebrated on Sunday,
24th in the U.S. This feast is a Holy Day of Obligation only on the
day it is celebrated.)
22 St. Rita of Cascia*
26 St. Philip Neri
31 Pentecost
Traditionally, the feast of the Visitation is celebrated on May 31,
but this year, that date is Pentecost Sunday
*St. Rita (1831-1457) was born near Spoleto, Italy to elderly parents and was given in marriage against her will at the age of 12. She had twin sons and after 18 years of an unhappy marriage to a man who treated her cruelly, her husband was killed in a brawl. When her 2 sons died, she tried to enter the Augustinians at Cascia, but was rejected 3 times, as its rules permitted only virgins. She was, however, finally permitted to become a nun there in 1413, and became known for her austerities, penances, and concern for others. She was credited with bringing many back to their religion by her prayers and example.
She experienced visions, and in 1441 suffered a seemingly thorn-
induced wound on her forehead after hearing a sermon on the crown of thorns. She is depicted as holding roses or roses and figs and sometimes with a wound on her forehead.
Several miracles were attributed to her and she was canonized on May 24, 1900 and is venerated as the saint of desperate causes.
ANSWER:
A. False. Changing fixed prayers of the mass is strictly prohibited for any priest, deacon or Bishop. (Code of Canon Law #117)
Featured book of the month
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE LITURGY
Fr. Jean Lebon
BX1970L3513 147 pages paperback
Going back to its essentials, the first part explores the nature of signs and symbols, sacraments and rites from their earliest appearance. The second part then traces the development of Christian liturgy from the first gatherings to the elaboration of places and forms of worship, and the music and dress which goes with them. The third part turns to the Eucharistic Liturgy.
Brought to you monthly by The Envision Priority Area Team:
Understanding The Mass and Eucharist