In last week’s message, I wrote about the Daily Office, one of three parts of the Christian rule of life, as it has historically manifested itself in the lives of the faithful. The center of that rule, its foundation and source, is the Mass. As an Anglo-Catholic parish, we’re used to talking about “the Mass,” but in most Episcopal parishes, it’s referred to as “the Eucharist.” Both are legitimate ways of naming “the principal act of Christian worship on the Lord's Day and other major Feasts” (Book of Common Prayer, p. 13). If we examine the etymology of these two words—Mass and Eucharist—we learn a great deal about the importance of coming together weekly on the Lord’s Day to share in the breaking of bread and the prayers.
“Eucharist” comes from the Greek word εὐχαριστέω, which means, “I give thanks.” The Eucharist is first and foremost about thanksgiving. It’s no mere “obligation,” although we would do well to drag ourselves to Mass even when the weather is poor and we might prefer to stay at home! The Eucharist starts with our gratefulness to God. Here’s food for thought. When you open your eyes on Sunday, try recalling, first, that you are awake and alive by God’s gracious love. God first loved us, and so, our own love is simply a grateful response to God’s love. Let this love motivate you towards the Mass. This acknowledgment of love is expressed in the first action of the Mass. We bless God. “Blessed be God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,” or during Lent, “Bless the Lord who forgiveth all our sins.” We’re gathered on any given Sunday (or weekday) because God’s love animates our being. God’s love is the reason for our earthly existence. God’s love is how we can get up for yet another day, go to a lifegiving or enervating job, carry on with life’s challenges and joys, and still show up on Sunday to give thanks. The Eucharist is an act of thanksgiving.
In the first part of the Eucharist, The Word of God, we present ourselves before God, all facing east, the historic posture of prayer, and we acknowledge that we’re facing God, “unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid.” We’re laid bare, and stripped of all our pretensions, and we try to open our ears enough to hear God’s word proclaimed in holy Scripture. The one who has ears to hear, let that one hear. We’re given texts chosen not by the priest but by the wider Church, texts that challenge and encourage us and intersect with our own lives. And as we move to the central point of the Mass, our trust in the community of the Church reaches a peak in the singing of the Nicene Creed. This is no litmus test of belief. It’s an act of believing, of praising a God who defies our human descriptions and who is far larger than words can express. And finally, we pray specifically for the needs of the Church and the world. In these prayers, we’re interceding, as Christ does for us in heaven, before the throne of God. Our lives are knit together with all of humanity. These prayers are specific, not sanitized and general. The hurt of someone living in a war zone across the world must be ours, too. The joy of someone in the next pew is ours as well. We then confess our sins because perhaps something in the prayers has moved us to realize the collective shortcomings of humanity. We hear God’s words of forgiveness. And then we turn to our neighbors in the pews, look them in the eyes, and offer the peace of Christ. This is not social hour, but a moment of profound reverence in which the peace that passes all understanding is offered in the Name of the One who reconciles us to God and one another.
At this central point in the Mass, we turn towards the altar. We have arrived at the second part, The Holy Communion. Gifts of bread and wine, the fruits of the earth and work of human hands, are carried to the altar by members of the congregation. Money is brought, too. But something invisible is likewise brought. To that altar, each of us brings the deepest intentions of our hearts. We bring our concerns, our pleadings on behalf of someone dear to us. We bring an awareness of our human limitations. We bring the heaviness of living in a cruel world. And all of that is placed on the altar. Only God can transform human brokenness into wholeness.
In the Eucharistic Prayer, we thank God for all he has done in salvation history, and that grand scope of a narrative narrows down into the Upper Room, where Christ gave thanks to God the Father, blessed bread and wine, broke, and shared it, and then sent the disciples into the world to serve in his Name. We move into God’s (kairos) time, where the past, present, and future meet. The events of Jesus’s final hours are re-presented to us. In God’s time in the Mass, we participate in our own salvation. The priest says Jesus’s very own words, the Words of Institution, and then asks for the Holy Spirit to come upon the gifts of bread and wine to make them the Body and Blood of Christ. The priest also prays that that same Holy Spirit will come upon us and our lives to make them holy. After bells are rung, what once was bread and wine is now Bread and Wine, Christ’s true Body and Blood, a mystery we accept but can’t understand.
After we say the Lord’s Prayer, the priest breaks the Bread so that it can be shared. We receive the Bread and Wine with thanksgiving. With hands outstretched, right over left, the Bread is placed in our palms and brought directly to our mouths, a Gift that can’t be controlled but only received. The Wine is consumed with our hand gently guiding the chalice to our lips—again, a Gift to be consumed, not grasped. We thank God for this Gift, the priest offers God’s blessing, and then we encounter one of the most overlooked but important parts of the Mass. And this brings us to another etymological exploration.
“Mass” comes from the Latin word “missa,” which derives from mittere, which has to do with sending. While it may be tempting to think we have done the most important thing in receiving Christ’s Body and Blood and so we can then quickly depart from the church, we’re indeed missing something profound if we leave the church before the Dismissal. The Dismissal, when the priest sends us out into the world to serve in our Lord’s Name, is crucial to close out the Mass. The Dismissal is about mission. We hear the Lord’s charge to go and make disciples, to go and love our friends and enemies. The Mass is not complete until we hear these words. To leave before we hear these words is to receive a Gift without acknowledging how that Gift makes a demand on our lives. I urge you: after receiving our Lord’s precious Gift, please stay until you hear these words. They are your eternal charge from the God who is mission.
I hope it’s clear to you why the Eucharist/Mass is at the heart of our lives. It has had such primacy in the Anglo-Catholic tradition that many parishes offer daily Masses, not simply to be excessive but as a reminder that every moment of our lives is suffused with God’s gracious gifts. Every moment is one for thanksgiving. This Lent, I encourage you to make attendance at the Eucharist on Sundays an essential part of your lives, and carry that beyond Lent, too. Consider, if you can, coming to one of our quiet, contemplative daily Masses. These Masses are wonderful. On Wednesdays or on Fridays, with often just me and a parishioner present, at midday or in the stillness of the early morning as the world is waking outside, I remember friends and parishioners who are suffering or rejoicing, and my intentions for them are placed on the altar and then rise up to God as incense. A daily Mass may reinforce to you the great power of the Mass, which is always an act of healing. Never underestimate the objective power of the Sacrament. Even when you don’t “feel it,” your reception of God’s gifts at our Lord’s command is healing you and the world. The efficacy of the Mass transcends our incomprehension and our desire to control it.
After the servers and I have processed out of the church on Sundays, we end with this magnificent prayer, and I will end this message with it, too. “Blessed, praised, worshipped, hallowed, and adored be our Lord Jesus Christ on his throne of glory in heaven, in the most holy Sacrament of the altar, and in the hearts of his faithful people.” Indeed. Amen.
Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle