Eucharist and Gratitude

My mother was big on saying thank you. Most of her gratitude came in the form of baked goods—scrumptious edibles like homemade Easter bread or Italian wedding cookies. She offered these mouthwatering treats to those who constantly showed kindness to us--the family doctor who never took a penny after our father died or the neighbors who plowed our driveway after massive snowfalls. Mom recognized goodness in the hearts of others and was eternally grateful. By focusing on the blessings rather than the pain of life, she often changed those potentially painful moments into moments of thanksgiving. Gratitude shifts our focus and teaches us to hold each moment like a precious stone.   

Like my mother, the Church through the liturgy, continually reminds us to say thank you. In fact, the word Eucharist comes from the Greek word for thanksgiving. At the heart of the liturgy is the thanksgiving offered in the Eucharistic prayer. That prayer begins with a dialogue that starts when the priest says “The Lord be with you,” and the people answer “And with your Spirit.” This dialogue begins what is called the Preface, the prelude to the Eucharistic Prayer. The word Preface comes from the Latin verbs fateor, meaning I speak, and prae, meaning out. The Preface, therefore, is a prayer of utmost importance. There are nearly 100 Prefaces from which to choose, all of them tied to a particular liturgical season or feast. Each Preface begins with a reiteration of the last part of the preface dialogue:

It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere to give you thanks.

If we listen closely, each line of the Preface gives us a reason to say “Thank you, God!”

Here is an example from Preface V of the Sundays in Ordinary Time which focuses on creation:

For you have laid the foundations of the world

and have arranged the changing of times and seasons;

You formed man in your own image

and set humanity over the whole world in all its wonder,

to rule in your name over all you have made and for ever praise you in your might works,

through Christ our Lord.

After naming reasons to give thanks, the presider invites us to join with the angels—indeed the whole company of heaven--in a song of praise and thanksgiving and we sing the Sanctus, (Holy, Holy, Holy). As this part of the Eucharistic Prayer teaches, when we acknowledge all for which we have to give thanks, our only response is to give thanks and praise.

Corpus Christi - Remember and Give Thanks

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Jesus. Once again we will gather to remember the goodness of God and to give thanks.

For our Jewish ancestors, remembering the goodness of God wasn’t just simple recall, it was a way of life. We witness this in the psalms of lament. When the people lamented their present situation, they called upon Yahweh to remember how he had been there for them in the past, as a God who was gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in love and faithfulness. Remembering that God had acted on their behalf in the past lead them to hope that God would act in the same way on their behalf in the present. That lead them to trust that their situation would change and culminated in vows to praise, bless, and give thanks to God. Praising, blessing and giving thanks to God was celebrated in rituals such as meals, festivals and blessings.

Like our Jewish ancestors, our remembering leads to blessing and thanksgiving. We gather in order to ask God to remember us, but we also come together so that we can be reminded about the goodness of God. We are reminded of God’s goodness from the moment we walk into church. When we are warmly welcomed, we are reminded of God’s hospitality. When we bless ourselves with holy water, we are reminded that God has chosen us. When we witness the faith of our fellow parishioners who are struggling, we are reminded that God is living and active. When we listen to the scriptures and hear how God acted in the past, we are reminded that God is faithful. And when we hear the story of the death and resurrection of Jesus, we are reminded that God’s love is beyond our human comprehension.

Trinity Sunday

Do you ever notice how we greet one another? We might look one another in the eye or maybe we smile and utter a friendly “Hello,” “How are you,” or “How’s it going?” In Australia, you will often be greeted with an upbeat “G’day mate, how ya goin’?” In parts of Austria and Southern Germany, you will hear “Grüß Gott.” This common salutation literally means greet God. It is another way of saying “God bless you,” a way to acknowledge that the presence of God is with the person who receives the greeting.

Likewise, at the beginning of the liturgy, we are greeted with words that acknowledge the presence of God with and within us as the guidelines for Mass explain:

Then he (the priest) signifies the presence of the Lord to the community gathered there by means of the Greeting. By this Greeting and the people’s response, the mystery of the Church gathered together is made manifest. General Instruction of the Roman Missal #50.

The Roman Missal gives the priest three greetings from which to choose:

A.    The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.  

B.    Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

C.     The Lord be with you.

All three greetings can be found in Scripture. Greeting A is the only greeting to specifically mention all three persons of the Holy Trinity. It comes from today’s second reading and is the conclusion of St. Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians. But it is more than a simple “good-bye.” Paul reminds the community that they are to live a new existence, one that reflects “the grace of Christ, the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit.” In the same way, this greeting is used at the beginning of our liturgy to remind us that we gather in the name of the triune God who calls us to live in the fellowship and love of the Holy Trinity.

Pentecost

There’s a school cheer that goes like this: 

“We've got spirit, yes we do
we've got spirit, how ‘bout you?”

The word spirit is related to inspire, which comes from the Latin inspirare, which means to breathe upon or into. According to the gospel of John, which is proclaimed on Pentecost Sunday, Jesus breathed his Spirit into the apostles:

He breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Jn. 20:22

The Spirit inspired those first disciples to do amazing things, things like speak and understand other languages. According to the Acts of the Apostles:

Awe came upon everyone, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. Acts 2:43

Notice how the Spirit encouraged them to live with one another:

They devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to the communal life … they would sell their property and possessions and divide them among all according to each one’s need … they ate their meals with exultation and sincerity of heart, praising God and enjoying favor with all the people. Acts 2:42-46

If we, like the first disciples, allow ourselves to be ignited by the Spirit’s fire, we too can live in awe, perform wonders and create communities where no one is in need. Pentecost is a good time to renew our spirits, to consider how the Holy Spirit inspires us and to respond to the continual cheer of the Triune God: “We’ve got spirit, how ‘bout you?”

One Mass, So Many Opinions

As we were preparing for the liturgies of Holy Week, a colleague came up to me and said, “I think the Good Friday liturgy is so boring, I mean how many times can we sing Jesus, Remember Me?” That same week, a parishioner came up to me and said, “I can’t wait until Good Friday. That’s my favorite liturgy! I could sing Jesus Remember Me all night!” I myself have come out of Mass less than satisfied with the particular preaching that day only to hear someone exclaim to the priest or deacon, “Thank you, the words in your homily were exactly what I needed to hear today.”

As this example illustrates, we all perceive sights, sounds, and the very world around us very differently. With this in mind, we often plan liturgies wondering, what moves people? What engages people? How in the world can we become one body when we are so different?

Then I remind myself of the answers. What moves people? The Holy Spirit moves people. What engages people? The Holy Spirit engages people. How can we become one body? The Holy Spirit unites us. This is why we pray to the Spirit during Mass:

            Grant that we, who are nourished by the Body and Blood of your Son

            and filled with his Holy Spirit, may become one body, one spirit in Christ.

                                                                                                 Eucharistic Prayer III

Only the Spirit of God can unite us. The Spirit moves as it wills, mysteriously over and above the grasp of our intellect or imagination. If we are open to it, this kind of unity moves us beyond our own needs to the needs of our brothers and sisters in Christ. So the next time you sing your least favorite song at Mass or think that some element of the liturgy was too dry, too long, too boring, too repetitive, too (fill in the blank). Rejoice and trust that the Spirit is at work.