FRIDAY POTPOURRI: THE POWER OF WORDS

Okay, I lied.

This is one more week of Offertory.  Paragraph 77

*sigh*

The good news is that this is absolutely, positively the last post on it in this series.

Offertory concludes after everything in the previous posts has been completed and the following prayers are said.  The first one used to give me the willies.  It is introduced thusly:

“Pray brethren (brothers and sisters) that my sacrifice and yours may be may be acceptable to God the Almighty Father.”

To which everyone responds:

“May the Lord accept this sacrifice at your hands for the praise and glory of His Name, for our good, and the good of all His holy Church.”

Now, imagine that you are a young guy just ordained, the oils are still wet on your hands, you’ve arrived at your first assignment, the pastor pushes you out on the altar and says, “Go at it kid,” and you hear that prayer.  I remember distinctly when that happened to me.

The year was 1998 and I was assigned to St. Ambrose in Brunswick.  A couple of seminarians showed up to help me with my first Sunday Mass.  The first Mass on Sunday was music free and many people attended that Mass because of that.  I tried to make them sing an opening song which as an absolute disaster and apologized and promised I would never do that to them again.

St. Ambrose is one of the largest parishes in the diocese and the size of the building reflects this  so there were a lot of people of all ages at that Mass.  We got to the prayer above and I hear, “at your hands,” and “for our good,” and had a slight panic attack.  

Just because you are ordained doesn’t mean that you “get” being a priest yet.  I also remember walking past windows as a newly ordained and being surprised to see the Roman collar, or walking into a restaurant and wondering why so many people were looking at you.  “Oh right, I’m a priest.”  So when you first start hearing this prayer you want to shout out, “What are you people thinking?  Are you insane?  Why are you trusting me with this?  Last week I was just a guy from Barberton.”

Even today I don’t listen to that prayer too closely.  In the end, I know it is not ME.  It is the priesthood and Christ.  It is my job to be faithful and let God act.

Alright, most of that was NOT in this paragraph.

But one last thing is:  We have the prayer over the gifts: a petition that God accept our gifts and the work we are about to do.  This is where (once again) the vital role of the priesthood of the faithful comes into play.  By your “Amen” at the end of this prayer, you make its petition your own as part of your offering.  It is not an inconsequential word or a simple nicety.  It is an engagement of your ministry.  It is very much a responsibility.  By it, you are participating in the sacred action, making an offering of your life, prayers, and petitions, and promising to engage in the rest of the Mass and in the life of a Christian.

That “Amen” alone should cause you to pause in much the same way the “for our good” does for your priest.

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: DID YOU GET UNDER THE FINGERNAILS?

Paragraphs 75 & 76

These posts offertory are starting to feel like 7th grade - it just goes on and on and on . . . 

But I an determined to be quit of offertory TODAY.

There are two last things, the second, in my estimation, being more interesting than the first so we will finish with the bang and start with a yawn.

I

I like incense.  If I didn’t like making the distinction between big celebrations and “ordinary time” celebrations so much (since we no longer have high Mass and low Mass) I’d use it all the time (which may certainly be done.)  On St. Sebastian Day, after an entire Christmas season of using incense, a man at the back of the church said, “I’m glad we are going to be done with THAT for awhile!”  

I understand.  I really do.  But I can’t seem to help myself.  Some day I’ll explore all that in a post.

There is a lot of history and symbolism involved with incense, but the reason everyone present (in addition to incensing the altar and the gifts) is thusly clouded in smoke is because of their exalted status in God’s Kingdom.   “The Priest, because of his sacred ministry, and the people, by reason of their baptismal dignity” all relieve this treatment.  (Notice even those in RCIA who are [supposed to be] non-baptized are excused before this point.  If RCIA is being done “according to the book,” baptized non-Catholics need not leave.)

II

Next involves the Lavabo or the washing of the priest hands.  Oh!  This is one of those topics on which we waisted WAY too much precious time in the seminary as a professor justified his reason for dumping the little ritual claiming that it was a left over from medieval days when people would donate animals and vegetables to the priest at offertory and the priest’s hands would be dirty and he needed to wash them.

Now, it is true that this is a ritual that was considered to be dropped, but recent popes including Francis have defended this action while noting that it is both ancient (the formula goes back to apostolic times according to Tertullian which greatly predates the medieval period though it was not practiced universally) and that the symbolic value is just far too great.  Read more HERE from the Vatican website.

At this point in the Mass we are about to head into the holiest action of our lives on earth - the source and summit.  As the water is poured over the fingers that will be touching the host, the priest says, “Lord, wash away my iniquities and cleanse me of my sins.”  

A couple of things to note: that it resembles Pilot’s action, it has no connection whatsoever.  That it is a part of the Seder meal or even that it comes from Psalm 26, “I wash my hands in innocence, and go about your altar, Lord, proclaiming aloud your praise and telling of all your wonderful deeds,” is not officially claimed.  In the end its greatest strength is in the priest’s ardent desire to be purified before acting on behalf of the Body of Christ.

At some point we must remember that we (priests) are called to obedience.  That does not mean that we can’t argue and petition against something, but this is not a democracy, this is not “our” Mass, and we are not free agents.  It is good to remember the passage (Mathew 25:21), “His master said to him, ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant. Since you were faithful in small matters, I will give you great responsibilities. Come, share your master’s joy.’”

If your priest skips this part however, please don’t worry.  The Mass is NOT invalid - illicit perhaps - but not invalid and that is a HUGE difference.  

But it would just be sad to not be able to use this joke anymore:

A server showed up late to serve Mass and the celebrating priest was upset with him because this was not the first time.  The priest pointed to the door and said, “Leave!  If you can’t be on time I’ll just do this myself!”

The server looked up at him and said, “But who will wash away your iniquities and cleanse you of your sins?”

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: YOU PUT YOUR RIGHT FOOT IN, YOU PUT YOUR RIGHT FOOT OUT . . .

So . . .

How much of a rubricist (sp?) are you?  Paragraph 75 says that, after all that was done in the last paragraph, “the bread and wine are then placed on the altar to the accompaniment of the prescribed formulas,” that is, the prayers in the book that you might sometimes hear: “Blessed are you, Lord, God of all creation . . .”

So imagine you are a typical American parish and you have a few hundred people in attendance meaning that you probably have a bevy of extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion.  For them (and we can get into the discussion as to whether we rely to heavily on too many EMHC as some would put forth,) you will need multiple ciboria and chalices.  Now, you could have a very large cereal bowl for the main ciborium and then at the Agnus Dei spend an exorbitant amount of time dividing hosts between six to twelve ciboria.  Not so with the cups not so!  For the practice of consecrating a flagon of wine and then dividing it up between the many cups is now forbidden.  So at a minimum, you will have a very  large cereal bowl and many chalices.

SOOOOO, when the rubric says, “the priest places the bread and wine on the altar”, does he have to place ALL of them on the altar?  Or does this just refer to the gifts brought forward in the procession?  Does this assume that all the bread and wine is brought forward in procession (I’m not keen on 6 cups full of wine being carried up) or one flagon that is then spilled into all of the cups at a painfully long offertory, or can we bring forward just a symbolic bread and wine?  What if the deacon receives the ciborium and places it on the altar while handing the priest a patten with a “priest host” on it (which has not yet been set on the altar.)  Does it matter that the wine is poured into the chalice by the deacon while it is sitting on the altar only to be given to the priest to be placed on the altar?  (A former liturgist of the diocese was very much against this practice.)

These are the things that my priest friends and I love to debate while having a glass of - er - blueberry cool aid.

Here are some possible answers:

1. You MUST allow the priest to place all of the gifts.
2. You MUST allow the priest to place the symbolic gifts.
3. The point is that some of the gifts are offered symbolically so that they are all, in fact. offered.
4. God doesn’t care.
5. You are entirely missing the point.

You might be inclined to ask yourself, “Why is this important?”  I will give you a moment to ask yourself that question.

(pause)

I’m glad you asked.  When something is place on the altar, the altar representing Christ, it is assumed that it becomes part of the sacred action.  It is to be made clear not only to the priest and his fellow ministers, but to the congregation as well (otherwise, why bother turning around the altar?)  Remember, anything not prescribed directly by Christ probably came about because at one point there was some problem, abuse, or scandal that is trying to be corrected.

“What might these be?” you might ask yourself.  I will give you a moment to ask yourself that question.

(pause)

I’m s glad you asked.  Here are just some examples (that did not happen at my current parish) that I have witnessed over the years:

1. A priest is celebrating a Mass at which there are approximately 500 people in attendance.  He is not paying attention to the fact that the servers did not bring over three of the six ciborium that he needed.  He assumed there must be A LOT in the tabernacle.  There was not.  At Communion time, when he realized that he wont have enough hosts for everyone without breaking every host at least in half, can he decide that he intended to consecrate enough hosts and so include the ones that were sitting on the credence table that he did not even know existed as consecrated hosts?  Will the people really receive the Body and Blood of Christ?  (He decided to do this.)
2. A priest leaves the water and wine cruets on the altar during the consecration.  The new sacristan, left alone at the end of Mass, is concerned that the wine left in the cruet may have inadvertently been consecrated and is upset over what she should do.
3. A sacristan is seen putting unconsecrated hosts in the tabernacle.  Asking why he is doing such a thing he says that it makes things easier in the long run and (considering the logic of #1 above) they become consecrated anyway.  Right?

So, my beloved brothers and sisters, rubrics are A LOT like manners.  They may seem arbitrary at times but they are there for a reason.  They are there to serve.  They are there to make things run as smoothly as possible.  They are there to put people at ease.  They are there to try to avoid misunderstandings.  Love your rubrics!