Alfred McBride - Celebrating Mass: A Guide for Understanding and Loving the Mass More Deeply

CELEBRATING THE MASS

A Guide for Understanding and Loving the Mass More Deeply

Alfred McBride, O.Praem.

Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division

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Archbishop of Boston, April 30, 1999

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Scripture excerpts in this work are taken from the New American Bible With Revised New Testament, copyright 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, DC 20017. Used with permission. All rights reserved. No portion of the New American Bible may be reproduced or transmitted by any means without permission in writing from the copyright owner. Excerpts from the English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church for use in the United States of America, copyright 1994, United States Catholic Conference Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Used with permission. The English translation of the Order of Mass from The Roman Missal, copyright 2010, International Committee on English in the Liturgy, Inc. (ICEL); the English translation of the reading from St. Irenaeus of Lyons from The Liturgy of the Hours, copyright 1974, ICEL. All rights reserved. If any copyrighted materials have been inadvertently used in this work without proper credit being given in one manner or another, please notify Our Sunday Visitor in writing so that future printings of this work may be corrected accordingly.

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ISBN 978-0-87973-148-9 (Inventory No. 148)

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Contents

INTRODUCTION

Lets Go to Mass

An anguished cry arises from many of our students today, expressed openly and without fear right in the classroom: Father, I go to Mass and I dont get anything out of it. Why should I keep going? I havent gone in ten years. Its so boring. Since God loves me I wont go to hell, so why bother? Every time I go its the same old thing. You can see a movie and enjoy it. But how many times can you see the same old movie? Father, tell us what you think.
What do we do?

Father Tripole is a professor of Theology at St. Josephs University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He had heard the above questions often, and he finally felt the need to respond. He said to himself, Please, God, help me to do this, and he plunged in, not knowing exactly what he was going to say. In his warm and pastoral response, he made the following five points, summarized here:

(1) Come to Mass with faith, which is a form of knowledge and a lot like love. Faith is a love encounter with Jesus, an experience that occurs most profoundly at Mass.

(2) Try to understand the Mass. Appreciate what is happening. This requires study, prayer, and attentiveness. Faith should move you to understanding.

(3) Frankly admit your sinfulness. You cannot save yourself and seem unable even to be the kind of person you would like to be. Become aware of the destructive power of sin, which can ruin your life and impede your ability to commune with God.

(4) Joyfully realize that redemption from sin and its effects is offered to you when you experience the Life, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus in the Mass. Value the sense of the sacred at Mass, where eternity enters time and God actually touches you with saving power.

(5) Participate in the Mass as a member of the believing community. Faith is a personal act and also a communal one. It is difficult to believe all by yourself. We all need the witness and prayerful presence of other believers to remain firm in faith. The living Jesus comes to us in the living community of faith.

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Why Go To Mass? by Father Martin Tripole, S.J., America Magazine, May 9, 1998, p. 15.

What this good priest shared with his college students can be a lucid guide to all of us struggling to enter into the celebration of the Eucharist with greater awareness, energy, and faith.

This book is offered to you for the same purpose.

The first part of the book gives a description of the Last Supper, a short catechesis on the meaning and background of the Holy Eucharist, and suggested prayers before Mass.

The body of the book offers the texts of the Ordinary of the Mass and the four most used Canons. I have written brief thoughts which are interspersed with the texts and which are intended to help you as you deepen your faith participation in the Eucharist. This is followed by prayers that may be said after Mass.

I taste in you my living Bread

And long to feast upon you still.

I drink of you my Fountainhead

My thirsting soul to quench and fill.

St. Bernard of Clairvaux

What Happened on Holy Thursday?

What did the apostles see and experience when they entered the Upper Room on Holy Thursday night? They saw the table prepared with the traditional foods for a Passover meal. It was as familiar to them as a Thanksgiving feast is for us. They would remember once again how much God loved their people when he delivered them centuries before from slavery in Egypt.

Salad bowls held endive, a tart-tasting herb, to remind them of the bitterness of slavery in Egypt. Plates of unleavened bread rested next to dishes containing a dip made of crushed apples, dates, and nuts flavored with cinnamon, which gave this mix a brick coloring to remind them of the bricks their ancestors were forced to make in the Egyptian slave camps.

Crowning the center of the table was the roast lamb, a portion of which had been sacrificed at the Temple. Four cups of wine stood at each place setting. Jesus and the apostles sat on cushions on the floor around the low table.

Jesus opened the meal with a blessing, praising God for all the gifts of creation and salvation. Then the youngest apostle told the story of the Exodus, stopping at certain points in the narrative so the community could sing hymns of praise for Gods merciful love. At the conclusion of the story, Jesus took the first cup of wine, raised it and toasted God for his love and graces. The group joined him and drank their wine.

As the host of the banquet, Jesus took a platter of unleavened bread, blessed it and broke it. Normally he would have distributed the bread in silence, but he broke with tradition and said these words: Take and eat. This is my Body which will be broken and given for you. Scripture remains silent about their thoughts and feelings as they shared the Bread of Life for the first time in history.

After this the group took the second cup of wine and ate the paschal meal in a spirit of joy and deep community. After the meal Jesus took the third cup of wine, customarily consumed while post dinner conversation continued. Instead he added new words to this moment. Take and drink. This is my Blood which will be poured out for you. Again Scripture preserves no immediate reaction of theirs to this second mysterious event at the Last Supper.