Joel Aliligay

RE 106 THE MASS AS THE SOURCE AND SUMMIT OF OUR CHRISTIAN LIVES

1. The Mass is a Meal. Altar or Table? While Jesus was eating with his disciples, he took some bread and later he took a cup of wine. (Mk. 14:22-23) What we have over the centuries come to call an altar was originally in the first centuries of Christianity a table. The Mass originally was a MEAL celebrated around a TABLE, not a sacrifice performed on an altar. The first Masses were community meals celebrated joyfully around tables in houses where groups of Christians gathered, not sacrifices in temples performed by priests at altars (1Cor. 11:17-34). Gathering for a Meal Together The Mass begins with the GATHERING of the people. This is the first stage of the Mass and starts from the time the people leave their homes, continues as they come to the place where the Mass will be, meet one another and gather together, and concludes when the one who is to preside (not the commentator) formally welcomes all to the meal. We need to give more attention to this first stage of the Mass as a GATHERING. Once people come to realize they are gathering for a meal, they will instinctively know from their own culture what to do and how to behave. Lay persons, especially the ushers and those in the choir, have as leading role to play at this stage of the Mass before the priest appears.

Those Who Serve At any meal there are those who eat and those who serve. At the Mass the priest, the one who says the Mass, is meant to serve. As the one presiding at the COMMUNITY MEAL the priest is meant to be the first among those who serve at the table just as Christ was the first to serve at the Last Meal he took with his disciples (Jn. 13:1-15). Besides the priest there are many others called to serve in particular ways at this COMMUNITY MEAL which the Mass is meant to be. There are the readers, the singers, the ushers, the servers, the ministers at communion, those who prepare the table and those who prepare the place where the community gathers. In fact everyone present is meant to be attentive and ready to serve one another, as friends do at the meal together. 1. The Mass is a Mystery. The Real Presence The Mass is something God does. It is the invisible action of God made visible to us in the actions of the Mass with the eyes of faith. The Mass is the action of God giving life, healing brokenness and reconciling disagreement and divisions in the world. Above all, the Mass is a challenge to us to recognize and welcome into our lives as a community and individually this initiative of God. It is God doing to us here and now what he once did for Christ when he raised him from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit. The real presence of this Mystery is not limited to the Bread and the Cup, which we normally call the Sacrament, but is in the total action of the community gathered around the table to eat and drink together. 2. Symbol of the Mystery When Jesus at the Last Supper said this is my body and this is my blood, what did he mean? Notice in Marks Gospel how Jesus said This is my body after the disciples had drunk from the cup (14:23-24). We usually think of this as the meaning of the bread or the cup, but it is likely that Jesus intended the whole situation- this eating and this drinking together with him as a community! The whole Mass and not only particular

moments at the consecration or at the communion visibly signify and make present in varying ways the real presence of Christ. Tabernacle or Table Where is Christ sacramentally present during the Mass? Most of us still instinctively look at the tabernacle as the sacrament of the real presence of God acting in Christ. Yet why has the Church after the Vatican II removed the tabernacle from the altar, or the table as it really is? Even if the tabernacle is still placed close to the table, our focus of attention once the community has gathered for the Mass is meant to be the real presence of Christ in that community. When two or three are gathered in my name, I am there in the midst of them (Mt. 18:20). The table, around which the community gathers, becomes the natural symbol of this real presence of Christ in the community. Once the Mass has commenced, our bows and other acts of reverence should be directed to the table not the tabernacle. It is the same Christ, but he is more visibly shown in the community gathered around the table. Centering on the Mystery After the people have gathered and have been welcomed by the priest who presides, the first action of the Mass is a turning to God and a centering on his mysterious action. The penance rite expressing our turning fro sin, or the sprinkling of water recalling the Spirit first given to us at Baptism, are meant to help us center on the Mystery of God acting in the Mass. 3. The Mass is a Thanksgiving Thanksgiving Prayer The Mass is also called the Eucharist and this word, which comes from the Greek language, the language of the first Christians, means Thanksgiving. Since the Mass is firstly what God is doing, our first awareness of this should stir within us the feelings of thanksgiving and joyful gratitude. The central prayer of the Mass, which begins with the Preface and ends with the Great Amen before the Our Father, is called the Eucharistic Prayer, the

Prayer of Thanksgiving. At Mass we are meant to thank, praise, and bless God, words which really mean the same thing, for what God does in the world. Our eating and drinking together at the moment of Holy Communion is a Thanksgiving Meal. The Story of God In the Eucharistic prayer, which the presiding priest prays in the name of all, we have a thankful recalling of the story of God. We tell again the story of what God has done for us in the past, is doing for us now, and will continue to do for us in the future. We tell the story of God giving life to all as Creator, of God bringing healing and freedom from brokenness and self-inflicted wounds as our Redeemer, and of God reconciling our divisions by giving harmony to the world as our Savior. God does this through Christ and by the power of the Spirit, as the ending Of the Eucharistic prayer explicitly says. That is why also the life, death and rising of Christ and the invocation of the Spirit upon the community are meant to be conspicuous parts of every Eucharistic Prayer used at the Mass. The praying of the Eucharistic prayer is really a solemn proclamation of the Gospel. The Gifts We Bring It is not only the Eucharistic Prayer and at the time of Holy Communion, which form the core of the Mass that we thank, bless, and praise God for his deed. At the time of the Offertory, when the people offer gifts for the Community Meal, the bread and the wine and anything else that they may wish to give to the community, thanksgiving again is central. After the priest has received the bread and the wine from the community, before placing them upon the table, he holds them for a short time above the table and thanks God for these gifts of bread and wine and for all the gifts. The Gloria Hymn The Gloria, which is sung at the beginning of Mass, is also a song of thanksgiving in which we praise and bless God for what he has done in Christ. From the beginning, as we dispose ourselves by turning to God and centering on his action in the world, thanksgiving is meant to be felt in the heart.

4. The Mass is a Memorial. Remembering The Mass is a memorial. Both Paul in 56 AD (1 Cor. 11:24-25) and Luke, writing about thirty years later around 85 AD (Luke. 22:19) say this, Jesus wanted his disciples to eat bread and drink a cup together in memory of him, as he had done during his last meal with them. In the Bible remembering does not mean letting our thought o go back to the past. Rather it means letting past events come into the present to be re-lived and to happen again. The Jewish Passover Meal, celebrated each year as memorial of the Exodus of Israelites from the slavery of Egypt to freedom, was meant to be an experience again of that same liberating action of God in the present lives. Likewise, the Eucharist for Christians is meant to be an experience of the past coming into our present. Memorial of Whom? At Mass Christians celebrate together the memory of Christ. We remember with love Jesus in his life on earth and in his death by crucifixion. We remember in faith Jesus as he is now in his mysterious risen life. We look forward with a sure hope to Jesus as he will one day come in the future as the Lord of all at the completion of the world. Jesus has a past, a present and a future. Memorial of What? In the Eucharistic Prayer of every Mass we recall the faithful life of Jesus once lived on this earth, human like us, and remember especially what he did on the night before he was crucified, when during his last meal with his disciples he took some bread and a cup from the table, shared it with them, and asked them to do this in memory of him. We also recall this terrible death by crucifixion which he freely endured. Above all, we recall his resurrection form death to life, when he became human in a new way and even more really present in a bodily manner within our material world. We look forward with a sure hope to the future revelation of Christ as the Lord and Center of all.

Memory for Whom? Paul wrote to the Corinthians that at the Eucharist we announce the death of the risen Lord until he comes (1 Cor. 11:26). Announce to whom? We are reminding God of what he once did for the crucified Jesus. We share a sure hope as Christians that because of Christ God will also raise us, beginning now in this life. To do this in memory of Christ (Luke 22:19) is more than a simple remembering. It is reminding God to do again to us what he once did to Christ. In our remembering of Christ at Mass we experience again in our lives God raising us with Christ. 5. The Mass is a Commitment Mass as Sacrifice At the Mass we commemorate the death of Christ, always in the context of his resurrection by God. Externally, the death of Christ was an execution not a sacrifice. The cross was a cruel instrument designed to torture a man to death. It was not an altar. Christs death symbolized in an external and visible manner his interior desire to give himself totally, or sacrifice himself to the mission he had from God to bring the Gospel into the world, no matter what the cost. Fidelity to this mission eventually led him to a death by crucifixion. By the presence of the risen Christ in the symbolic actions of the Mass, this interior surrender and total submission of Christ, his sacrifice, comes to us. We are invited by Christ to make our surrender in fidelity as he once did by joining our painful decentering of sacrifice with his now joyful surrender to God. The Mass challenges each of us to sacrifice ourselves to God for our salvation and the salvation of the world. 6. The Mass is Communion Union Together The whole of the Mass from the gathering of the community to the final sending froth of the community is meant to be a progressive experience of the communion. Eating and drinking of the Body and Blood of Christ is the focal point of this experience of the Mass as a communion. Communion means a union that is experienced together. That is what com-union means. It is a union of each one with Christ in the Mystery of his living, dying,

and rising. Since each by faith shares this union with Christ, it becomes at the same time a com-union with one another. 7. The Mass is a Mission Mystery that is Mission The Mystery of faith that we confess the Mass to be, when we make our proclamation of faith in every Mass after the words of Jesus at the Last Supper, is the Mystery of Gods hidden action in the world. The mystery is the action of God through Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit which enlivens, heals, and reconciles the whole world. The action of the Mass, therefore, is a missionary movement of God in Christ into the world. The Mass is of its very nature Mission. This, in fact, is the literal meaning of the word Missa or Mass. Disciples, Companions, Apostles Disciples are those who learn from Christ. Companions are those who walk together with Christ, his brothers and sisters in a true sense. Apostles are those sent by Christ to share in his mission to bring the Gospel of God into the world. We cannot be true companions of Jesus unless at the same time we continue to be disciples humbly learning at his feet, and unless we continue to be sent by him through the Church as apostles, that is missionaries, of Christ. The Mass is a special time in the life of the Church to experience again what it means to be disciples, companions and missionaries of Christ Blessing and Sending Actually, the real blessing of the Mass is the whole experience of the Mass, especially during the Eucharistic Prayer, or Prayer of Blessing, and at the same time of Holy Communion. In a sense, the final blessing is the priests personal goodbye and confirmation that Gods blessings goes with us as we leave the Mass. What follows the blessing is more significant, though it is generally not emphasized. The priest does not simply announce that the Mass has ended. He sends us forth into mission.