Transcript

The liturgy of the Eucharist begins at the altar.

So now the emphasis goes from the ambo, where the word was being proclaimed, to the altar.

And the focus is on the altar, that Jesus, again, is the priest, the altar, and the lamb of sacrifice.

So there's a lot of symbolism at work in, uh, in the different parts and the, and the pieces that are used at the altar.

But after the priest has set up the altar, he will, uh, go down to receive the gifts.

Now, the gifts are, are processed up, usually a ciborium, um, a golden container, uh, with the bread, and also a cruet of the wine.

Now, this is symbolic of the people's offering, because in the early church, the people, when they attended the liturgy, they would bring whatever was their trade or whatever was their crop.

And so someone might bring, um, some of the, of the crops that they had grown.

And, um...

And this goes all the way back to remind us that just as the bread comes from many grains and the wine comes from many grapes that are crushed, so also our sacrifices collectively, um, are brought up and presented to the Lord.

It was about the 11th century that a mi- a monetary or a financial collection was taken up, um, and that was the symbolic way of the people bringing their gifts, uh, to be presented to God.

The offertory prayers, um, are a Jewish blessing, and these, these are found in the Didache, the teaching of the 12 Apostles, and they're really rooted in Jewish blessings.

So blessed are You, Lord God of all creation.

Uh, and it has a three-fold idea.

First, that the bread and the wine are products of the earth and symbolize our earth and our life, that they are gifts from God.

Secondly, they signify the work of our hands and our daily labor.

And thirdly, they are offered here as the material matter or disguise for what will become the body and the blood of Christ.

There's a splash of, uh, a drop of, of water that is poured into the wine, and we call this the commingling of the, of the water and the wine.

In the early, early, uh, days of Christianity, the wine was very dense, and so they would cut it with some water.

And so even today, we pour just a drop of, of water into the wine.

But really, this symbolizes the divinity and the humanity of Christ, that once those two are joined together, they can never be separated.

And so the priest prays silently, a, a, a short prayer.

"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." So we also are, uh, invited to share in the divinity of Christ, because He became one of us in order to make us divine.

After the offering of the chalice, there is, uh, the washing of the hands, that the priest is washing his hands just like in the early, uh, the earliest priests.

Aaron, before...

the brother of Moses, before he became, uh, a priest and before he entered into sacrifice, he was washed.

And so the priest washes his hands, uh, to remind himself that, that, um, he needs that interior purity in order to offer the sacrifice.

He then...

The priest then invites the people to pray.

"Pray, brothers and sisters, that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God, the Almighty Father." And so it's really a command to pray, not only on the behalf of the priest who is about to offer the sacrifice, but also to join and to unite all of our prayers, uh, with those of the priest and ultimately, with those of Christ.

We then proceed into the Eucharistic prayer, which has several different parts, but it begins with the preface.

And the preface goes back to the, the earliest times of Christianity, including the dialogue, "The Lord be with you and with your spirit.

Lift up your hearts.

We lift them up to the Lord." This was kind of like in the Book of Revelation.

John is told, "Come up here," and we are called to come up, come up into the realms of Heaven.

And so we're called to lift up our hearts into the very, uh, throne room of God.

The preface ends always with a, a reminder of the angels, the angels and saints who are present, and we ask them to, to share in our, uh, praise of God, because they do a much better job than we do.

And, and then we c- continue into the Sanctus, or the holy, holy, holy.

This goes back to the Book of Isaiah, and also the Palm Sunday when the people cried out with great joy and acclamation, "Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord." At this point, the people kneel as a sign of reverence, as a sign of, of littleness before God, and the posture of kneeling, uh, will proceed throughout the rest of the Eucharistic prayer.

The priest begins with the, um, the prayers, usually a, a prayer of, of, again, adoration or praise before God, and then he will continue with the epiclesis.

Now, the epiclesis, the calling down of the Holy Spirit, the priest will extend his hands over the, uh, chalice and over the ciborium and all the br- the bread and the wine, um, calling down the Holy Spirit, that just as the Holy Spirit overshadowed the temple in the Old Testament, so too the priest, uh, is calling down the Holy Spirit to make holy the gifts.

The very center, uh, the most important part of the Eucharistic prayer are the words of consecration.

We also call it the institution narrative, that we are, uh, recalling, and not just recalling, but again, making present the last supper and the words that Jesus said.

And so after the words of consecration, of course, the bread and the wine are consecrated separately as a symbol of death, because whenever we separate body from blood, there is a death that takes place.

But after the consecration of both, we have truly the body and the blood of Christ present on the altar, and we call this mystery, this miracle, we call it transubstantiation, that the substance-...

what it is of the body, of the bread and the wine, become the body and the blood of Christ.

It still looks like bread, it still tastes like bread, it has the accidents of bread and wine, but through the words of Christ, the power of the Holy Spirit, it truly becomes something different.

There's also a shift in tense that we have the, uh, the priest takes on the very words of Christ, "This is my body.

This is my blood." So he's speaking in the first person, speaking the words of Jesus.

But it's really the offering of the son to the father in a perfect sacrifice.

We sometimes use incense at the consecration to show the, um, the mystery that is taking place.

But again, there's a practical reason, because incense was used to overshadow, uh, the smell of blood.

When animals were offered in the temple, there was a lot of blood that was there and so the incense is really used to, to help to, um, push the, uh, the smell of blood away.

After the consecration, we have the memorial acclamation, which is really a brief recitation of the Gospel, salvation history in one sentence.

"We proclaim your death, oh, Lord, profess your resurrection until you come again." After that we have the, what we call the anamnesis, which is the remembering.

Now again, this is not remembering just a past event that took place.

This is making present that past event right here and now.

And so in the Jewish mind, they would celebrate the Passover every single year.

In fact, they were required to, lest they forget the good things that God had done for them.

So even today, we have this remembering.

Again, not remembering a past event simply, but making that past event present, the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.

Usually, the Eucharistic prayer ends with petitions on behalf of the living and on behalf of the deceased, because again, this prayer is the most important prayer that we have, and we are reminded of the efficacy of the prayers of Jesus as we bring our living and our deceased loved ones into the presence of the Lord.

The Eucharistic prayer ends with what we call the doxology, through him, with him, and in him.

Uh, we are praying, again, through Christ, with Christ, and in Christ to the praise of God the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit.

After the Eucharistic prayer has ended, all the people stand as we pray the Our Father, which was placed here in the mass by Pope Gregory the Great around the year 600, uh, as the perfect way to begin, uh, to prepare to receive Holy Communion, the prayer that Jesus taught us.

After this, we have what's called the fraction that the, uh, the priest breaks the host, again, symbolic of, of the body of Christ being broken for our salvation.

It symbolizes Christ's passion, but also it's a, a union with the, uh, the early church.

Because in the early church, the bishop, when he was offering mass, would break a small piece of the host and he would send it to all the different churches in his area and his diocese that the mass was being offered.

And so even today, uh, the priest breaks a small piece of the host, reminding us of the union with the bishop and the pope, and also he places that, uh, fragment or that, that particle into the chalice.

And again, when body and blood are united, that's life, that's resurrection.

And so it's a reminder that we are going to be receiving the living body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus.

And so as the priest places the particle into the chalice, he prays a short prayer, "May this mingling of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ bring eternal life to us who receive it." And so this commingling, the reunification of body and blood symbolizes the resurrection.

We then have the exchange of peace, and this goes all the way back to the third century.

Originally, it, it took place after the liturgy of the word, but it's a reminder of Jesus' command that he says, "If you're offering your gift and you have something against your brother, first go and make peace with your brother and then come back and offer the gift." And so today, we have an exchange of peace with, with those around us.

Ultimately, Jesus, who is the source of our peace, He brings us the peace that only He can bring, but we are called to be united as brothers and sisters before the Lord before we receive Holy Communion.

The lamb of God, which is again lifted right out of scripture and is said three times, uh, is again that Trinitarian formula, um, and as the lamb of God is being prayed, the priest says a, a short prayer.

He bows low before Jesus on the altar and prays a short prayer, uh, to prepare himself to receive the Holy Eucharist.

Now, when we think back to the Passover, it wasn't enough simply to, um, sprinkle the blood on the doorpost or simply to kill the lamb.

The people, in order to fulfill the Passover meal, had to eat the flesh of the lamb.

And so today, this, this Eucharistic Passover that is taking place, the paschal mystery, Jesus is the lamb of God.

He takes away the sins of the world through the shedding of His blood and through our receiving Him in Holy Communion.

And that's why we pray that prayer, again lifted directly from scripture, the prayer of the centurion, "Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof." But we say, "But only say the word and my soul shall be healed." So again, we're recognizing our humility before God, but also of His desire for union with us and He calls us to, um, to receive Him.

The word amen or amen is the word that means I believe or it is true.

And so when we come forward to receive the Eucharist and the priest or the minister says, "The body of Christ," uh, and the communicant, the person says, "Amen," he's saying amen to everything.

I believe, not just that this is the body of Christ, but that everything that the church teaches as being revealed by God, I believe, because I believe in the words of Jesus.

And so right after we receive Holy Communion, we become a living tabernacle, that we are living tabernacles and so we should go back to our pew and really to pause and to reflect on the great gift that God has given to us, the gift of Himself in the Eucharist.

We become living tabernacles.

There's a story that Saint Philip Neri once saw someone who left mass early and he immediately called two of his altar boys and told them to get candles and to run after the person.

And the person stopped and said, "Why are you following me, me with those candles?" And the altar boy said, "You carry within you the presence of Jesus, and wherever Jesus goes, we need to follow with the candles." And so it's a good reminder that, that we shouldn't be, you know, in a hurry to get out of mass, but really to remember that, that Jesus is present with us and we should pause to reflect on the great mystery that we have received.

After all the people have received Holy Communion, the priest returns to the altar for what's called the ablutions or kind of the cleaning.

Now this is far more important than simply doing the dishes.

Rather, it goes back to the words of Jesus.

Jesus said after he had multiplied the, the bread and the, uh, and the fish to feed the crowd, he said, "Collect the fragments lest anything be lost." And so every fragment, every particle of the host, and every drop of the precious blood is truly Jesus.

And so the priest, uh, or the deacon will spend a little bit of time kind of cleaning, uh, the, the vessels and, uh, collecting the fragments and placing the hosts back in the tabernacle.