Transcript
Edmund: You know, sometimes it’s really nice to come to church when all the lights are off. I find it really peaceful. It can be a really great opportunity to just pray on your own, have your own personal prayer time. You know, I had this friend once tell me that he didn’t need to go to Mass because he had his own personal prayer time. He could just pray to God himself. And while it’s true that the Mass assumes that you do have a personal prayer life outside of Mass, the Mass is actually where that personal prayer life finds its fulfillment. We’re not supposed to just sit here during mass. We’re supposed to have full, active, conscious participation in the liturgy. The Church actually calls us to attune our minds and our hearts to every word and gesture during Mass. And in this way, we make the liturgy part of our own prayer.
Okay, so think about this to bring this point home a little more. Our personal relationship with Jesus is important at Mass. At the Last Supper, the Apostles are eating with Jesus there. You know, when we go to Mass, it’s like participating in the Last Supper, and the Apostles are there and they’ve lived with Jesus for three years. They know him really well. I mean, think about it. If you go to dinner with a stranger compared to going to dinner with someone you know really well, it’s a different experience. And they’re actively involved in this, in the sense that they’re fully present there. I mean, this is an important event, and the Mass is the same way. It’s built for us to be fully present to it and, and actively participating in it. But what do we mean by active participation? It doesn’t mean that we need to be like, act like active. It means to be fully present and engaged in what we are doing and what is happening. So active participation is first of all, interior. It means that our hearts are really present to the mystery of Christ’s sacrificial love made present in the liturgy of the Eucharist, in the Mass. And secondly, and this can be a really good place to start, it’s also the exterior things. It’s being more aware of the things we are doing and saying during Mass. So if you want to bring more of that personal prayer into Mass, and if you want to experience the Mass in a new way, try being more present and aware and actually mean the gestures, the things that we do during Mass is a great place to start. So let’s walk through some of these gestures so you can think about them differently the next time you’re at Mass. Something we might do as we’re moving throughout the church, but genuflecting or bowing. Genuflecting meaning like putting your knee down and making the sign of the cross or bowing. This shows honor and respect for the altar where Jesus’ sacrifices is made present, where the Eucharist is made present, and also the tabernacle which contains the Eucharist, the presence of Jesus. And when we genuflect or bow in the direction of the tabernacle, we’re giving reverence to Jesus who is present there. So this is to remind us, to help us place our minds and hearts in the right space where we’re saying, this is not just a building, this is a church. Jesus’ presence is here. Next is standing. You know, if you’re sitting somewhere just kind of slouching and then like the President walks in. I mean, you might like stand up. You stand as a sign of respect. But also we stand because we’re, we’re at attention. We’re being attentive to what’s going on. We stand during the Gospel. This is important. We need to stand up and focus our attention. Okay, next, and this is one of my favorite ones to be honest. This is one that sometimes gets kind of emotional for me. If I’m really present to what’s going on in the liturgy, and it’s the beating of our chest, we say these words, “through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault.”
In Luke chapter 18, verse 13 it says, “the tax collector standing far off would not even lift his eyes up to heaven, but beat his breath saying, oh God, be merciful to me a sinner.” This is a sign of repentance, a sign of remorse. We’re remembering the ways leading up to this Mass, this moment in this mass, we’re remembering the ways we’ve fallen short. Another one is kneeling during the Eucharistic Prayer or kneeling throughout the Mass. There are moments where we’re given an opportunity to kneel, to kneel in humble submission to God, to kneel in the presence, in the glory of God. Kneeling is also a sign of penance, shows a spirit of reverence. Like think about it in a movie or a dramatic moment where someone is standing in front of someone else and they’re like, I’m, you know, I’m, I’m begging you. I’m, I’m down on my knees. I’m putting myself in this vulnerable position. I’m, I’m, this is me here in front of you. It’s a really powerful gesture. And again, it can, it can help us focus in on what’s really happening here is important, and it’s true and it’s real, and it’s real and true. We’re also showing adoration and reverence as these gifts of bread and wine are changed into the body and blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ in the Mass. And then also when we go up to receive communion. Whether you receive communion on the hands or on the tongue, this is a powerful moment. This is a powerful gesture of going in front of the priest or the Eucharistic minister and in this moment receiving Jesus. And are we fully present to this gesture? Are we fully present to what, what we’re doing with our bodies, our minds with our soul as we receive Jesus? This is a profound intimate moment during the Mass. The Catechism says in paragraph 1407, “the Eucharist is the heart and summit of the Church’s life. For in it, Christ associates his Church and all her members with his sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving offered once for all on the cross to his Father, by this sacrifice, he pours out the graces of salvation on his Body, which is the Church. The Eucharist is the heart and summit of the Church’s life. The Eucharist should be the heart and summit of our personal prayer. We have personal prayer, we have a personal relationship with Jesus. But then we come to the Mass and that is the summit, the culmination of our personal prayer. It’s where our personal prayer then enters into the communal prayer of the body of Christ and the Church. Jesus in the Eucharist should be the summit, what our personal prayer leads to. So it’s important to note that active participation does not mean that we need to be busy or draw attention to ourselves. We’re not trying to take away from the priest, and we’re also not just worshiping as individuals. We’re worshiping together with the body of Christ. The Mass takes on new meaning when we are building our personal prayer with Jesus outside the Mass. But it also takes on a new meaning when we enter more deeply into these gestures during Mass. And this is why the Mass is the fullest participation in the divine life we can have here on Earth.
