Language in the liturgy

Posted by Jeffrey Pinyan at 9:58 AM

I just finished reading one of my Christmas gifts, Beyond Smells and Bells: The Wonder and Power of Christian Liturgy by Mark Galli.  The final chapter, "Words of Living W-A-T-E-R," discusses the use of a particular form of language in the liturgy.  I think these paragraphs are apropos to the conversations, debates, and arguments surrounding the new English translation of the Roman Missal:

In a media age, words come at us from all directions, like arrows from a thousand bows.  Most of these arrows are marketing words, advertising words, words designed to manipulate us, to sell us something. [...] For these reasons, among others, we distrust words, especially words that have been fashioned and shaped for the occasion by Madison or Pennsylvania Avenue.

So it's not surprising that many are put off by the words of the liturgy.  Surely, if we're trying to worship sincerely, praise a God who loves us as a father loves his children, we want to use language is "authentic."  What child uses formal speech to communicate with their "daddy"?  We want nothing to do with pretension, stuffiness, and any rhetoric that prevents us from being real.

In our desire to be real, we start thinking that authenticity is another word for spontaneity, as if everything we say at the spur of the moment is more true, more sincere than words we craft carefully.  For many, the Freudian slip is considered more authentic than the measured reply.

Indeed, sometimes what we blurt out thoughtlessly is actually what we mean and feel.  But more often than not, what we blurt out is ill-considered and something we either need to quality or apologize for.

The liturgy's answer to crafted language that deceives or manipulates is not to abandon crafted language but to shape it so that it reveals reality.  The most carefully crafted language in our culture tends to be poetry.  And poetry at its finest moments subverts our best attempts at hiding from reality. [...] The poetry of liturgy has just this power.  The liturgy contains words that have been shaped and crafted over the centuries.  It is formal speech.  It is public poetry.  As such it reaches into us to reveal not only the unnamed reality of our lives but the God who created us.  "In worship the voice of the Church calls up thoughts and feelings often far beyond us," wrote one liturgical theologian, "yet to which something in us faintly but firmly responds." (pp. 113-114)
I liked this book a great deal.  It's written by an Episcopalian, so it doesn't always portray a view of liturgy (and certain liturgical actions) that coincides with the Catholic view, but it is an excellent book about what the liturgy has that attracts us to it.

I might share a few other quotes from this book.  It will certainly be in the bibliography of Praying the Mass: The Prayers of the Priest.  (I'll need to read it again with a highlighter and a notepad handy, though!)

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2nd Edition in review

Posted by Jeffrey Pinyan at 10:08 AM

I am currently awaiting the proof copy of the second edition of Praying the Mass: The Prayers of the People.  If all goes well, the second edition will be available for purchase by the end of this week.  There are about a dozen pages of additional content, but the price of the book remains the same:  $12.

The outline below is a brief summary of the changes and new content, and each section has a link to a post on  www.PrayingTheMass.com for the benefit of those who already have the first edition and would rather not purchase the second edition as well.  You can also download a PDF (also free) of all the changes as one document; this PDF includes two whole chapters ("Preparing for Prayer" and "Offertory Prayers").

  • Introduction
  • Chapter 1 - Preparing for Prayer
    • Re-structured with major sections on "Personal Prayer", "Reading the Bible", "The Eucharistic Fast", "Sacramental Confession", "Silence and Stillness",
    • Section on "Personal Prayer"
      • Quotes from Vatican II documents
      • Emphasis on how to develop a personal habit of prayer
    • Section on "Reading the Bible"
      • Included more online resources for Scripture meditations and reflections
      • Included a reference to Vatican II on the Liturgy of the Hours (i.e. Divine Office)
    • Section on "Silence and Stillness"
      • Included quotes from Scripture on silence and stillness in prayer
    • Questions
      • Added a question about the importance of Scripture in a personal prayer life
  • Chapter 7 - Profession of Faith
  • Chapter 9 - Offertory Prayers
    • Added major section "Offertory Procession", rearranged content
    • Section on "Offertory Procession"
      • Explanation of the rite and its meaning
      • Inclusion of quote from Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen's Calvary and the Mass
    • Section on "Blessed be God forever."
      • Explanation of bread and wine as sacramentals
    • Section on "May the Lord accept..."
      • Explanation about the physical, spiritual, and substantial likeness of the bread and wine to the sacrifice of Christ
      • Inclusion of a quote from Archbishop Charles Chaput
      • Inclusion of a quote from a sermon of St. Peter Chrysologus on the baptismal priesthood
    • Conclusion
      • Inclusion of another quote the sermon of St. Peter Chrysologus
    • Questions
      • Added question about the heart being an altar
  • Chapter 11 - Communion Rite
    • Section "Lamb of God"
      • Added explanation of the title "Lamb of God"

I also made some general language corrections to the text:
  • I use "old" and "new" throughout to refer to the two English translations, avoiding words like "current" and "future".
  • I use "internal" and "external" when referring to participation, instead of mixing interior/internal and exterior/external.

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Lamb of God

Posted by Jeffrey Pinyan at 10:07 AM

This is new content in the second edition of Praying the Mass: The Prayers of the People, Chapter 11, "Communion Rite".


We first called Christ the “Lamb of God” in the Gloria.  This title is deeply significant and ancient in its origin, reaching back to Abraham, the first of the Patriarchs of Israel.  God tested Abraham, asking him to offer his only son Isaac as a sacrifice.  Isaac, bearing the wood for the sacrifice on his back as he and Abraham walked up the mountain, asked his father where the lamb to be offered was; Abraham replied “God will provide himself the lamb.” (Gen. 22:8)  What Abraham found was no lamb, but a ram with its horns caught in a thicket.[1]  From that time on, God’s people sought the “lamb of God.”
To commemorate His liberating the Hebrews from Egypt, God instituted the feast of Passover at which every family was to take a pure, unblemished lamb and kill it, marking their doorposts with its blood and roasting and eating its flesh. (cf. Ex. 12)  In time, Jerusalem maintained a sacrificial flock of Temple lambs so that families on pilgrimage for the Passover could be sure to have a pure and unblemished lamb (rather than bringing one with them on the journey).  Still, these lambs were not God’s lamb, but each family’s lambs.[2]
It was not until St. John the Baptist cried out, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” (John 1:29, 36) that the fulfillment of this ancient promise was made known.  This title, which might sound peculiar and obscure to our modern ears, would have rung loud and clear in the ears of the Jews to whom St. John spoke.  And he was not the only one to make such a clear connection between Christ and the Passover lamb.  St. Paul, writing to the Corinthians, announced that “Christ, our paschal lamb, has been sacrificed.” (1 Cor. 5:7)[3]  St. Peter wrote that we have been ransomed “with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.” (1 Pet. 1:19)  And St. John the Apostle and Evangelist, in his book of Revelation, refers to Jesus as “the Lamb” nearly thirty times, most notably describing His appearance as “a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain.” (Rev. 5:6)
It is this Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, Who “takes away the sin of the world” by His self-sacrifice. (John 1:29)  Every time we say that Jesus “take[s] away the sins of the world,” we should be aware that we are speaking in the present tense, not the past tense.  This is a reminder that Christ’s work of redemption did not conclude with His death, but is continual and ongoing:  the Mass is offered for the expiation of our sins.

[1] This scene is rich in Christological symbolism:  Christ, like Isaac, bore the wood for His own sacrifice on His back, and He wore a crown of thorns, prefigured by the ram whose horns were caught in a thorn-bush.
[2] The ritual of the Passover also points to Christ:  He, like the lamb, is pure and without blemish, and His bones were not broken when He was sacrificed.
[3] “Paschal” (as in “Paschal mystery”) comes from the Greek word pascha, which comes from the Hebrew word pesach, which means “Passover.”

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New Question from Chapter 9

Posted by Jeffrey Pinyan at 10:05 AM

This is new content in the second edition of Praying the Mass: The Prayers of the People, Chapter 9, "Offertory Prayers".


5)      Relate:  If your heart is your spiritual altar, as described by St. Peter Chrysologus in his sermon, consider the significance of the words of the priest in the Preface which follows the Offertory:  “Lift up your hearts.”  What are you placing on the altar of your heart, and what does it mean to bring that altar and its offering into the presence of the Lord?

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Conclusion to Chapter 9

Posted by Jeffrey Pinyan at 10:04 AM

This is new content in the second edition of Praying the Mass: The Prayers of the People, Chapter 9, "Offertory Prayers".

St. Peter Chrysologus ended his sermon with a challenge to live as self-sacrificing priests.  First, he spoke of the preparation necessary:
Each of us is called to be both a sacrifice to God and his priest.  Do not forfeit what divine authority confers on you.  Put on the garment of holiness, gird yourself with the belt of chastity.  Let Christ be your helmet, let the cross on your forehead be your unfailing protection.  Your breastplate should be the knowledge of God that he himself has given you.  Keep burning continually the sweet smelling incense of prayer.  Take up the sword of the Spirit.  Let your heart be an altar.
Once you are prepared, spiritually clothed in priestly attire and standing at the altar of your heart, ready to serve the Lord, then:
with full confidence in God, present your body for sacrifice.  God desires not death, but faith; God thirsts not for blood, but for self-surrender; God is appeased not by slaughter, but by the offering of your free will.
This is the spiritual attitude we must strive to adopt in our daily lives, but especially during the Mass.

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May the Lord accept...

Posted by Jeffrey Pinyan at 10:02 AM

This is new content in the second edition of Praying the Mass: The Prayers of the People, Chapter 9, "Offertory Prayers".


The bread and wine are changed into the Real Presence of Jesus Christ at the consecration of the Eucharistic Prayer, but this presence is hidden under what the Church calls a “sacramental veil,” the remaining appearance of bread and wine.  When we see Christ in Heaven, there will be no veil.  In much the same way, we pray that we may be changed to be more like Christ (“configured” to Christ, in the language of the Church) by receiving Holy Communion.  This configuration to Christ is imperfect while we are on earth, but it will be perfected when our resurrected and glorified bodies enter Heaven.
Just as the bread and wine will be transubstantiated into Christ, what they represent – ourselves, the Church, the Body of Christ – is, in a sense, transubstantiated as well.  By identifying ourselves with the bread and wine, as Archbishop Sheen wrote, we are anticipating the change which will occur in us at the end of time while conforming our lives to the change taking place now.
Because of what the bread and wine will become (once consecrated), the union of our spiritual sacrifices to the bread and wine during the Offertory is a sign of our participation in Christ and His sacrifice.  The bread and wine already have a physical likeness to Christ’s sacrifice, because they are the same elements He used, and the same elements that were offered centuries before Him by Melchizedek. (cf. Gen. 14:18)  When we join our spiritual sacrifices to them in the Offertory, each of us gives them a spiritual likeness to Christ’s sacrifice.  Finally, in the Eucharistic Prayer, this likeness is perfected as they receive a substantial likeness to Christ’s sacrifice.
The bread and wine (and afterwards, the Eucharist) and ourselves are united as one at the hands of the priest:  he offers them physically as we offer them spiritually.  The bread and wine which the priest holds during the words of consecration represent us, since they represent the fruits of our labor.  Then, as the priest offers the Eucharist to God, we join our very lives – all of our worries, cares, sufferings, and prayers – to Christ in the Eucharist.  It is only by joining ourselves to Christ, the perfect sacrifice, that the contribution of our living, spiritual sacrifice can be truly acceptable to the Father. (cf. Rom. 12:1; 1 Pet. 2:5)[1]
Archbishop Charles Chaput, O.F.M. Cap., of Denver, wrote about the Offertory prayers in a weekly column in December 2002:  “This part of the Mass is another invitation for us to offer our lives in a sacrifice of praise to God.  Here the common priesthood actively engages in the sacrifice taking place.”  This common or baptismal priesthood is part of our identity in Christ.  In a sermon from the 5th century, St. Peter Chrysologus, the Bishop of Ravenna (in northern Italy) spoke to his flock about St. Paul’s words in Romans 12:1.
Listen now to what the Apostle urges us to do:  “I appeal to you,” he says, “to present your bodies as a living sacrifice.”  By this exhortation of his, Paul has raised all men to priestly status.
How marvelous is the priesthood of the Christian, for he is both the victim that is offered on his own behalf, and the priest who makes the offering.  He does not need to go beyond himself to seek what he is to immolate to God:  with himself and in himself he brings the sacrifice he is to offer God for himself.
In a Christian’s self-offering to God, he is following the pattern of Christ Who is both priest and victim.

[1] See the Appendix for excerpts from several Church documents (including Mediator Dei of Pope Pius XII) which provide a liturgical spirituality through which we learn to join ourselves to Christ.

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Blessed be God forever

Posted by Jeffrey Pinyan at 10:00 AM

This is new content in the second edition of Praying the Mass: The Prayers of the People, Chapter 9, "Offertory Prayers".


The bread and wine are blessed by these prayers; they are set aside for the Eucharistic Prayer, when they will become the Body and Blood of Christ.  But in that brief time between the Offertory and Consecration, the bread and wine are sacramentals because of the prayer of the priest over them.  A sacramental, such as the bread or wine to be used in the Eucharistic Prayer, or a paten or chalice, is dedicated for a particular use when blessed.  This is not the same as the change that takes place in a sacrament (such as the Eucharist), where bread and wine change ontologically (that is, in their substance).  A sacrament involves a change of being, whereas a sacramental involves a change of purpose.
By uniting our spiritual sacrifices to the bread and wine in the Offertory, we “appropriate” those sacramentals, much in the same way we “appropriate” holy water (another sacramental) by being blessed with it, or we “appropriate” a blessing over a meal by praying it.  We join our spiritual sacrifices to the bread and wine (which represent, physically, those very sacrifices), imbuing them with a greater spiritual significance for each of us and for the Church as a whole.

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Offertory Procession

Posted by Jeffrey Pinyan at 9:59 AM

This is new content in the second edition of Praying the Mass: The Prayers of the People, Chapter 9, "Offertory Prayers".


Offertory Procession

An external act which represents an internal reality is empty unless that internal reality is truly present.  Imagine a man giving his wife a bouquet of roses, a gesture generally recognized as a display of love, without actually caring about her at all.  The roses are real, the wife’s reaction is real, but there is something missing:  the intention.  This analogy can be applied to the Offertory Procession, when bread and wine are brought to the priest.  This external act, often carried out by members of the congregation,[1] is not a mere functional procedure; it is representative of so much more.
In the ancient Church, the bread and wine would often be personally supplied by members of the faithful.  Nowadays, the bread and wine are usually purchased by with parish funds (which ultimately come from the faithful), so they still represent our offering, our presentation to the Lord.    This presentation is an external manifestation of the internal self-offering which we are called to make during the Mass:  the bread and wine are not just the necessary matter for celebrating the Eucharist, they also represent all that we have to offer to God.  Pope John Paul II, in his 1980 letter to Bishops on the Eucharist, explained this rite’s significance:
Although all those who participate in the Eucharist do not confect the sacrifice as [the priest] does, they offer with him, by virtue of the common priesthood, their own spiritual sacrifices represented by the bread and wine from the moment of their presentation at the altar. … The bread and wine become in a sense a symbol of all that the eucharistic assembly brings, on its own part, as an offering to God and offers spiritually. (Dominicae Cenae 9)
Just as the bread and wine are presented to the priest who offers them to God, we offer ourselves to God as a spiritual sacrifice by virtue of our baptismal priesthood.  Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, in his 1936 missal companion Calvary and the Mass, wrote about this self-offering:
We are therefore present at each and every Mass under the appearance of bread and wine, which stand as symbols of our body and blood.  We are not passive spectators as we might be watching a spectacle in a theater, but we are co-offering our Mass with Christ. [We] offer ourselves in union with Him, as a clean oblation to the heavenly Father. (The Offertory)
The only sacrifice that is truly acceptable to God the Father is the Eucharist, which is the very Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.  But God looks on what we offer with fatherly affection.  The bread and wine presented to Him by the priest is deemed acceptable as the means by which He will give us the Eucharist; the bread and wine are gifts from God to begin with.  Because the bread and wine represent our spiritual sacrifices, these too are regarded with a similar love:  God knows what He will make of the bread and wine, and He knows what He will make of our meager sacrifices.
Once the bread and wine have been placed on the altar, the priest prepares them for the Eucharistic Prayer and prays over them.

[1] “It is praiseworthy for the bread and wine to be presented by the faithful.” (GIRM 73)

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