Michael Dubruiel - A Pocket Guide to the Mass

A Pocket Guide to

The Mass

A Pocket Guide to

The Mass

Michael
Dubruiel

Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division

Our Sunday Visitor, Inc.

Huntington, Indiana 46750

The Scripture citations contained in this work are taken from the Second Catholic Edition of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible (RSV), copyright 1965, 1966, 2006 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Every reasonable effort has been made to determine copyright holders of excerpted materials and to secure permissions as needed. If any copyrighted materials have been inadvertently used in this work without proper credit being given in one form or another, please notify Our Sunday Visitor in writing so that future printings of this work may be corrected accordingly.

Copyright 2007

by Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division

Our Sunday Visitor, Inc.

Published 2007

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All rights reserved. With the exception of short excerpts for critical reviews, no part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means whatsoever without permission in writing from the publisher. Write:

Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division

Our Sunday Visitor, Inc.

200 Noll Plaza

Huntington, IN 46750

ISBN 978-1-59276-293-4 (Inventory No. T383)

LCCN: 2007921907

Cover design by Tyler Ottinger

Interior design by Sherri L. Hoffman

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
JOHN 6:53

Contents

Introduction

I n a book written before his election as Pope I Benedict XVI, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger wrote of the dangers of the Mass losing its moorings as the worship of God. He compared the present situation to that of the people of Israel, who in the desert, waiting for Moses to come down from the mountain, found God to be distant and aloof, leading them to conceive a ritual that was a celebration of the community alone. He wrote in The Spirit of the Liturgy, Instead of being worship of God, it becomes a circle closed in on itself: eating, drinking, and making merry.

This little book is meant to help you to experience that liberation that freedom from distress that comes when we forget that there is a God and that our very existence has everything to do with worshipping Him.

The way that God has chosen to bring about this encounter with humanity is through His Son Jesus Christ. It is Christ who has revealed God to us and instituted the celebration of the Eucharist as a means of perpetually bringing about this encounter between God and man until Our Lord returns in glory.

In this book you will find the following:

Answers to basic questions about the Mass

Definitions of the lesser-known words used in the Mass

The biblical origins of many of the prayers used in the Mass

How to use the experience of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:1335) as a way to understand the Mass

This book is meant to be a simple guide. For a more in-depth look at the Mass, you might want to read my easy-to-understand books The How-To Book of the Mass and How to Get the Most Out of the Eucharist. For an excellent missal that will give you the Churchs prayers, responses, and readings as they vary throughout the year, I highly recommend the beautiful Daily Roman Missal. All of these publications are available from Our Sunday Visitor publishing.

What Is the Mass?

The Names of the Mass

Catholics call the celebration of the Lords Supper a variety of names:

The Eucharist (a Greek term meaning thanksgiving)

The Liturgy (a word that means work, literally the work of the Lord)

The Holy Sacrifice (after both the sacrifice of Christ and that of the Faithful)

The Offering (referring to Jesus offering to the Father and to His disciples)

The Breaking of the Bread (referring to what Jesus did at the Last Supper)

The Lords Supper (referring to Jesus institution of the Mass)

The Wedding Banquet of the Lord (reflecting the Book of Revelations term for the Mass)

But it is likely that you know it as the Mass.

Why do we call it the Mass?

Mass is an English rendering of the Latin term missa. In Latin, the Mass ends with the words Ite, missa est, which translated into English means, Go forth, you are sent. We get the word dismissal and missal from the Latin word missa. So, even though we gather for the celebration of the Mass, its name implies that we are focused on being sent on a mission by Our Lord.

What are the parts of the Mass?

Traditionally, the Mass had been divided into two parts: The Mass of the Catechumens and The Mass of the Faithful. The catechumens were those who were not fully members of the Church and were dismissed at the end of the Mass of the Catechumens (after the homily). Today this part of the Mass is referred to as the Liturgy of the Word. The faithful are those who have been baptized and would remain until they were sent forth at the end of the second part of the Mass, now referred to as the Liturgy of the Eucharist.

Where does the Mass come from?

Jesus Christ, on the night before he died, celebrated the Jewish Passover meal with his disciples at the Last Supper. In the course of the meal, He gave new meaning to the ritual, declaring the bread that He blessed, broke, and gave to His disciples to be His Body, and the cup filled with wine to be His Blood that was of the New Covenant. Where Moses had taken the blood of a sacrificed bull to ratify the Covenant of Sinai (see Exodus 24:38), Jesus offered Himself by his Passion and Death and offered His Body and Blood under the forms of bread and wine to His disciples to seal the New Covenant. His instruction to His apostles to do it in remembrance of me (1 Corinthians 11:25) continues to be fulfilled every time we gather for Mass.

Where do the prayers of the Mass come from?

The prayers used at Mass have developed over the Churchs history. Many of them are taken directly from the Bible, and one prayer, the Creed, comes from several early Church councils (worldwide gatherings of bishops to discuss Church matters). Throughout this small book, we will look at the Biblical origins of many of the common prayers used at Mass. At every Mass, there are many times when the people gathered and the priest are literally quoting Scripture to each other in their communal worship of God.

Where do the readings we hear at the Mass come from?

The readings we hear proclaimed at the Mass are all from the Bible. The First Reading is either from the Old Testament or the Acts of the Apostles (during the Easter Season). The Responsorial Psalm is from the Book of Psalms. The Second Reading is from one of the New Testament Letters or the Book of Revelation. The Gospel Reading is always from one of the four Gospels.

How is the Mass a sacrifice?

The Mass makes present the one sacrifice of Jesus on the cross at Calvary. All who participate in the Mass join their spiritual sacrifices to the one sacrifice of Christ, and through Him, they are offered to God the Father through the action of the Holy Spirit.

What is the sacrifice I offer at Mass?

Yourself at Baptism we died to ourselves so that we might live in Christ. At the Mass, the Body of Christ gathers as one, acting not individually but as Christ. So at Mass our movements (standing, sitting, kneeling, and so on) are governed by the Church. Our speech is not of our own choosing, but rather we speak the Word of God. We sacrifice our own choices to be one in Christ. We offer the sacrifice of our weaknesses to receive instruction from the Word of the Lord and nourishment from the Body and Blood of Christ so that we can be transformed into Christ.