Category: Mass

In its simplicity, the Lord’s Prayer is the greatest Christian prayer. Jesus taught it to the disciples when they asked Him to teach them how to pray. The apostles must have been fascinated to see Jesus’ prayer, his intimacy with the Father. Out of this admiration sprang his plea: “Rabbi, teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1).¹

At the end of the Eucharistic prayer, the priest celebrant invites the assembly to pray together with him, the prayer that our Lord Jesus Christ left us, for which the priest celebrant extends his hands (GIRM 152), he does this gesture because he is the one appointed by God and the Church to pray officially in the name of the whole Body of Christ, that is, us gathered in the Eucharist.

While we all pray at Mass, we don’t all have the same role. The priest has the responsibility to offer prayers and sacrifices in union with Christ’s sacrifice at Mass.

When the priest raises his hands and prays the Lord’s Prayer, he is speaking to God on our behalf. It is the priest who is offering our prayer to God. ²

This is why only the priest celebrant is the one who raises his hands during this prayer, “the non-ordained members of the faithful may not pronounce prayers, or any other parts of the liturgy reserved to the celebrant priest or use gestures or actions which are proper to the same priest celebrant.” (Pontifical Council for the Laity, 1997)³

At the conclusion of the Lord’s Prayer, the priest continues in prayer, expressing the desire of the assembled Church for the glorious coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, thus establishing a continuous Advent, where the Church enjoys the presence of Christ, but longs for his triumphant return.

Finally, let the people conclude the prayer with a doxology, which echoes the heavenly liturgy: “For yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory, now and forever “ (cf Revelation 1:6; 4:11; 5:13)

Let us pray with faith and humility the prayer that Jesus Christ himself taught us, with folded hands, so that the praises, glorification and supplications of such a beautiful prayer may be channeled to God through the priest celebrant, and thus we be worthy to receive the bread of eternal life.

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[1] López, Féliz, “Explanation of the Mass: Our Father”, Home of the Mother, accessed 21 May 2024, https://www.homeofthemother.org/en/resources/eucharist/549-explanation-of-the-mass/2383-our-father

[2] Keller, Paul, “At Mass, only priest raises hands during ‘Our Father’”, Catholic Times Columbus, 18 July 2023, https://catholictimescolumbus.org/news/father-paul-keller-op-s-t-d/at-mass-only-priest-raises-hands-during-our-father

[3] Castrillón, Hoyos et al, “Instruction: On certain questions regarding the collaboration of the non-ordained faithful in the Sacred Ministry of Priest”, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Vatican City 1997, https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/laity/documents/rc_con_interdic_doc_15081997_en.html

The entire celebration of the Mass has the function of praise, blessing, glorification. But the Eucharistic prayer is the heart of this liturgy. The prayer begins with the preface, lifting hearts to the Father. It continues with the Sanctus, proclaiming God’s holiness and his glory that fills the universe. At the end of the Eucharistic prayer, the priest recites this concluding doxology, praise of the Trinity. In it, the priest lifts up the sacred Victim and, holding it aloft, above all temporal realities, says:

“Through him, and with him, and in him, O God, almighty Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours, forever and ever.”. (GIRM 151)

The Church confesses the unique mediation of Christ and his supreme priesthood. Only “through Christ, with Him and in Him” can we reach the Father, “no one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). We know that our works are pleasing to God through the mediation of Christ. Our lives, united to his life, death and resurrection, are the honor and glory of the Trinity.

The Church exists for the glorification of God, and this is precisely why the Christian priestly people have been gathered: to raise to God in the Eucharist the highest possible praise and to draw innumerable material and spiritual goods for the benefit of all humanity. For this reason, it is in the Eucharist that the Church expresses and manifests herself totally.

The Christian people make the Eucharistic prayer their own, and respond to the great Trinitarian doxology by saying: “Amen”. This is the most solemn Amen of the Mass.

The word Amen is possibly the chief liturgical acclamation of the Christian liturgy. The term Amen comes from the Old Covenant: “The Levites shall lift up their voices, and in a loud voice shall say to all the men of Israel… And all the people shall answer, saying, Amen” (Deuteronomy 27:15-26; 1 Chronicles 16:36; Nehemiah 8:6). According to different contexts, Amen means: “This is it, this is the truth, so be it”

Like the whole liturgy, saying Amen has a vital meaning. It is not a mere answer given with the lips, but has a value of adherence to the mystery being celebrated. To say Amen means to unite with Christ, to desire to make our whole life a doxology, that is, a glorification of the Trinity united to the Paschal Mystery of the Redeemer.

To be “to the praise of his glory” is an essential part of the Christian vocation. In the doxology there is a recapitulation of the glory of all creation in Christ. Through His obedience and love unto the cross, Christ has accomplished the perfect glorification of the Father: “Father, glorify your name” (John 12:28) and has attained the perfect glorification of his humanity united to the Word: “Now glorify me, Father, with you, with the glory that I had with you before the world began” (John 17:5). We must unite ourselves, with our lives, to this glorification of the Trinity. Uniting ourselves to Christ, offering our whole life with Him, joys and pains, success and failure, work and everything that we do, we will become praise of the glory of the Trinity “through Him, with Him and in Him.”

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López, Félix “Explanation of the Mass – The Concluding Doxology”, Home of the Mother, Accessed 13 May 2024, https://www.homeofthemother.org/en/resources/eucharist/ 549-explanation-of-the-mass/2440-concluding-doxology

In all Eucharistic Prayers there is a second invocation to the Holy Spirit. This clearly shows us the Church’s awareness that only the Holy Spirit can bring about the transformation of the faithful in a similar way as he does the transformation of gifts.

The Eucharist, which is the very sacrifice of the cross, has a fundamental difference. If on the cross Christ offered himself to the Father alone, on the liturgical altar He now offers himself with his mystical body, the Church.

In every Eucharistic celebration the Church offers and is offered with Christ. In Lumen Gentium we read: The faithful, “Taking part in the Eucharistic sacrifice, which is the fount and apex of the whole Christian life, they offer the Divine Victim to God, and offer themselves along with It” (LG 11).

It is true that this participation in the Church’s offering is not automatic, that is, the physical presence of the faithful in the Eucharistic celebration is not enough. Each person will participate according to his degree of union in charity with Christ.

Eucharistic Prayers ask for three things:

1. We ask God to accept the sacrifice that we offer Him today: “Look with favor on these offerings and accept them” (Eucharistic Prayer I); “Look with favor on your Church’s offering, and see the Victim whose death has reconciled us to yourself” (Eucharistic Prayer III); “Lord look upon this sacrifice which you have given to your Church” (Eucharistic Prayer IV)
2. We ask that through Him we be brought together in the unity of the Church: “May all of us who share in the body and blood of Christ be brought together in unity by the Holy Spirit” (Eucharistic Prayer II); “become one body, one spirit in Christ” (Eucharistic Prayer III); “and by your Holy Spirit, gather all who share this one bread and one cup into the one body of Christ” (Eucharistic Prayer IV).
3. We ask that we may become victims offered with Christ to the Father, by the work of the Holy Spirit, whose action is here implored: “May he make us an everlasting gift to you” (Eucharistic Prayer III), and thus we become in Christ “a living sacrifice of praise” (Eucharistic Prayer IV).

The true participation in the sacrifice of the New Covenant implies this offering of the faithful as victims. According to this, the Christians are in Christ priests and victims, as Christ is, and they continuously offer themselves to the Father on the Eucharistic altar, during the Mass, and on the altar of their own daily life, day by day. Therefore, they are in Christ, through Him and with Him, “lambs of God”, accepting the will of God, unconditionally and without resistance, unto death. Like Christ, they sacrifice, which means to say, they “make sacred” their whole life in an unceasing spiritual movement, finding in the Eucharist their constant origin and impulse.

This is how the whole life of the Christian becomes a continual Eucharistic sacrifice, glorifier of God and redeemer of men, as the Apostle wanted: “I urge you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship” (Romans 12:1).

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López, Félix “Explanation of the Mass – Second Invocation of the Holy Spirit ”, Home of the Mother, Accessed 6 May 2024, https://www.homeofthemother.org/en/resources/eucharist/549-explanation-of-the-mass/2439-second-invocation

Within the Eucharistic Prayer, after the words of consecration comes the memorial in the Eucharistic Prayers: “Therefore, Father, as we now celebrate the memorial of the saving passion of your Son, of his wonderful resurrection and ascension into heaven.”

Christians, East and West, daily obey Christ’s last will in the Eucharist, “Do this in memory of me” (Luke 22:19). This was the command that the Lord gave us clearly at the Last Supper, that is, “on the eve of his passion, the night on which he was to be betrayed.” And we can fulfill that command, many centuries apart and in many places, precisely because the priesthood of Christ is eternal and heavenly (Hebrews 4:14; 8:1).

Remembrance is the word that ideally links the Eucharist to the Jewish Passover, which was also “a memorial” (Exodus 12:14). It is of such importance that St. Paul, in the account of the institution, repeats twice that command of Jesus; and it further specifies the content of the remembrance to be made of Jesus, saying: “For whenever you eat of this bread and drink of the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord” (1 Corinthians 11:26). The content of this memorial is the death of Christ.

The memorial of the Eucharist is not a mere remembrance of past realities, of events that occurred centuries ago, but it is a “re-presentation”, that is, to make present here and now, in a sacramental and real way, the same mystery that is celebrated: the Paschal Mystery of Christ, his death and resurrection.

In this way the Eucharist remains in the Church as an ever-living heart, which with its beating brings to the whole Mystical Body the life-giving grace which is the blood of Christ, the eternal priest. In fact, “the work of our redemption is accomplished whenever the sacrifice of the cross is celebrated on the altar, through which ‘Christ, our Passover, has been slain’ (1 Corinthians 5:7)” (LG 3).

In a theological sense, the memorial consists in remembering Jesus to the Father, inviting the Father to remember all that Jesus has done for us, and out of his love, to forgive us and to help us. In the Old Testament, in the moments of greatest trial, one would turn to God and exclaim, “Remember Abraham our father, remember Isaac and Jacob” (Exodus 32:13). But now we, the People of the New Covenant, can raise to God a cry infinitely more powerful than this; we can say to him, “Remember Jesus Christ your Son and his sacrifice!”

The Church remembers (anamnesis) these facts, and in this way, thanks to the liturgical action of Christ the Priest, actualizes them, makes them present and active with all their salvific power in our midst.

In this way, every person can experience a personal encounter with the work of salvation that Christ has accomplished. Christ offers it to him personally. Each one must welcome and live that mystery which is part of his own life, allowing himself to be saved by Christ, accepting the communion in his divine life that he offers us. Every man must give his “yes” to Christ’s love in every personal encounter with Him in the Eucharist.

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López, Félix “Explanation of the Mass: The Memorial”, Home of the Mother, Accessed 29 April 2024, https://www.homeofthemother.org/en/resources/eucharist/549-explanation-of-the-mass/2305-memorial

The Second Vatican Council reminded us that in order to understand what the Church is, the concept we have to put at the center is communion. The Church is the People of God united in the same faith, with a communion that is a gift of God and a sign for the world.

The Eucharistic prayer is no stranger to this reality, and by celebrating what is most important to the Church, which is the Eucharist, it expresses that communion, and it does so on three levels.

First of all, it reminds us that we are in communion with all the Christian communities scattered throughout the world that are part of the Church, with whom we share the same faith when we celebrate the Eucharist. Our local community is not isolated from the rest of the Church. That is why we name the whole Church and the Pope in our prayers. We are also aware that our local Church is not only the assembly that has gathered to celebrate the Eucharist, and that is why we pray for the diocesan bishop, all the pastors who help him in his task, and all our brothers and sisters who share in the pilgrimage of faith on this earth. Thus, by celebrating the Eucharist, we are in communion with the Universal Church, which goes on pilgrimage to the Father’s house.

But we are also in communion with the deceased, who continue to belong to the ecclesial community, and that is why we remember them in the Eucharist, interceding for them. Communion is not broken by death, and in this way those who have already departed and may need the help of our prayer, by virtue of the communion of saints, are also recipients of our prayer. It is an expression of our communion with the deceased who are purifying their lack of love in the hope of enjoying the fullness of eternal life.

And we lack the third dimension of that communion: that which refers to the Church triumphant, to the saints. If what we do with the deceased is to intercede and ask the saints, who already enjoy the fullness of heaven, we ask them to intercede for us: the Virgin Mary in the first place, the apostles, the martyrs, all the saints… We are in communion with the blessed, we who walk in the hope of eternal beatitude.

And so, every day, in each of the celebrations of the Eucharist, we make communion with the Church. Not only enclosed in the small reality of our parish or our group, but open to the great richness of the mystery of communion that Christ wanted his Church to be, to bring his Word of life to the ends of the earth, until he returns.

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Navarro, Ramón, “La Plegaria Eucarística, en el corazón de la celebración”, Diocese of Cartagena, Accessed 1 April 2024, https://diocesisdecartagena.org/formacion/la-plegaria-eucaristica-corazon-la-celebracion/

The Eucharistic Prayer is first and foremost that: a prayer, a prayer. It is located at the very center of the celebration, not because of chronology, but because of importance. It is a prayer that the celebrant proclaims, but in doing so he does so in the name of the whole assembly: it is not a personal or individual prayer of his own.

It is a prayer of thanksgiving, but it is also a prayer of consecration. In it the Holy Spirit is asked to transform the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of the Lord, and also to transform those who are to receive it, so that they may obtain a precious gift from God: unity, communion, being one body and one spirit.

In the Eucharist we find a moment of solemn petition of the Holy Spirit. In fact, there are two moments, and both are related to each other. Both are present in the Eucharistic Prayer.

Just before the consecration, the priest, by laying on his hands, invokes the gift of the Spirit upon the bread and wine. It is not a human action that transforms the gifts into the Body and Blood of Christ, but the action of the Spirit, which is solemnly invoked. It is God who saves, He is the one who transforms the bread and wine.

The Church wanted to highlight this double moment of epiclesis and consecration by asking us for a gesture of prayer and adoration, which is to kneel: from the moment the priest lays his hands on the offerings until the consecration of the chalice is over.

After the account of the institution, the priest again asks for the Spirit. This time he does not invoke it over the gifts, but on the assembly, on those who are going to receive those consecrated gifts. The Spirit transforms the bread and wine, and he also transforms the Christian community, “those of us who are going to partake of the Body and Blood of Christ.”

In the Eucharist we celebrate the memorial of Christ’s death and resurrection, and we do so with the signs He left us for this purpose at the Last Supper.

To celebrate this memorial is first and foremost to celebrate a presence in the “now” in which we live: the presence of Christ, of his salvation. Without repeating the events of our salvation, the grace that is poured out from them comes to us, because Christ is present in the liturgy of the Church. It is not a mere memory. It’s a presence; and an effective presence, which calls us to an encounter that changes our lives.

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Navarro, Ramón, “La Plegaria Eucarística, en el corazón de la celebración”, Diócesis de Cartagena, Accessed 1 April 2024, https://diocesisdecartagena.org/formacion/la-plegaria-eucaristica-corazon-la-celebracion/

The “Holy” or Sanctus has been an integral part of the Eucharistic Prayer in both the East and the West since before the year 400. With it concludes the variable part of the prayer called the preface. Its text is composed of two sections, both inspired by Scripture and both conclude with the phrase, “Hosanna in the Highest”.

The juxtaposition of the two parts underscores two very different aspects of God. In the first part, the amazement and awe of the divine majesty stand out, and in the second, the humility of Jesus, God made man.

Holy is the very name of God, and more than a moral quality of God, it designates the very infinite quality of the divine being: He alone is the Holy One (Leviticus 11:44), and at the same time He is the only “source of all holiness” (Eucharistic Prayer II).

The first section of this prayer evokes the image of the transcendent God seated on his throne and the incessant liturgy that surrounds him, as described in the book of the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 6:1-5) and in the book of Revelations (Revelation 4:2-8)

The second part of the Sanctus has its origin in Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The account describes the startling image of a humble God arriving in the Holy City on a donkey amid the acclamations of the people who rejoiced at the coming of salvation (Matthew 21:1-9).

The apparent contradiction in the portrayal of God in the two sections of the Sanctus is due to the prophetic nature of the first and the eschatological nature of the second. Jesus appears as the humble prophet who arrives in a city that will reject him and execute him. But he is also the spokesman for God who heralds the new time, and who tears the cosmos apart by destroying the distinction between the pure and the impure. He enters the Temple and drives out the coin changers who had turned God’s house into a den of bandits.

Let us join the heavenly choir by singing with praise the Sanctus during the celebration of the Eucharist, the sacramental memorial of the Lord’s Death, as Christian people let us proclaim to Jesus the same acclamations that the people addressed to him when he entered Jerusalem.

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López, Félix “Explanation of the Mass – The Sanctus” Home of the Mother, accessed 19 March 2024 https://www.homeofthemother.org/en/resources/eucharist/549-explanation-of-the-mass/2413-the-sanctus

“Eucharist” means “thanksgiving” and this thanksgiving is expressed very clearly in the Preface. In it, the priest, in the name of the holy people, glorifies God the Father and gives Him thanks for the work of salvation or for one of these aspects in particular. 

The preface consists of four parts:

1. The initial dialogue, always the same, of very ancient origin, beginning with: “The Lord be with you…”, and ending with the response of the assembly “… it is right and just” that from the beginning binds the people to the priest’s prayer, and at the same time lifts up their hearts to God (Colossians 3:1-2).
2. The elevation to the Father takes up the last words of the assembly, “it is right and just “, and with slight variations, raises the prayer of the Church to the heavenly Father. In this way the preface, and with it the whole Eucharistic prayer, addresses the prayer of the Church precisely to the Father. Thus, we do Christ’s will: “When you pray, say Father” (Luke 11:2).
3. The central part, the most variable in its contents, depending on the different days and feasts, joyfully proclaims the fundamental motives of thanksgiving, which always revolve around creation and redemption.
4. The end of the preface, which is a prologue to the Sanctus that follows, associates the Eucharistic prayer of the Church on earth with the worship of the heavenly liturgy, making the former an echo of the latter: “Therefore, with the angels and the saints, we proclaim your glory, by saying…”

The purpose of the preface is to thank and praise the greatness of God for all the gifts, all the benefits that throughout salvation history he has granted us, since this thanksgiving and praise are “right and just”.

Let us lift our hearts to the Lord not only as a ritual response, but as an expression of what is happening in this heart that rises and drags others upwards. Let us try to live always remembering the great benefits that the Lord has done for us.

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López, Félix “Explanation of the Mass: The Preface”, Home of the Mother, Accessed 16 March 2024, https://www.homeofthemother.org/en/resources/eucharist/549-explanation-of-the-mass/2385-preface