The Liturgical Celebration Of The Eucharist

By DON FIER

Part 2

The Liturgical Celebration of the Eucharist, as was pointed out last week, is composed of two main parts — the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist — which “form a fundamental unity” (Catechism of the Catholic Church [CCC], n. 1346). They “are so closely connected with each other,” teach the fathers of the Second Vatican Council, “that they form but one single act of worship” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, n. 56).
As explained elsewhere by the council fathers, the Church “unceasingly receives and offers to the faithful the bread of life from the table both of God’s word and of Christ’s body” (Dei Verbum, n. 21).
Over the centuries there have been, to be sure, many changes in the liturgy and it has branched into various rites. Even within the Western Church, one cannot help but acknowledge conspicuous differences between the Tridentine and Novus Ordo rites. The basic structure of the Mass, however, which has its roots in Jewish liturgy (cf. CCC, 1096), remains quite similar to what St. Justin Martyr described in his First Apology of AD 155 (cf. CCC, n. 1345).
As also described last week, the Liturgy of the Word includes the readings, homily, and general intercessions (cf. CCC, n. 1346). “The purpose of the readings and the homily,” explains Fr. Maynard Kolodziej, OFM, in his excellent little volume entitled Understanding the Mass [UtM], “is to proclaim the word of God, which has power to change our lives. We are not simply to listen, but to respond to what is being proclaimed” (p. 48).
Their objective, in other words, is not so much to inform as to transform us. If we listen carefully and take to heart and make our own what is proclaimed, flames of faith, love, and devotion are enkindled within us. We are thereby prepared to participate more fervently and efficaciously in the Liturgy of the Eucharist; we are able to tap more fully into the bountiful graces of the Sacrifice of the Mass for our personal needs as well as the needs of the universal Church and the world at large.
The Catechism continues its abbreviated journey through the Eucharistic Liturgy with the offertory, the part of the Mass which marks the transition from the Liturgy of the Word to the Liturgy of the Eucharist. Bread and wine, sometimes in procession, are brought to the altar to “be offered by the priest in the name of Christ in the Eucharistic sacrifice in which they will become his body and blood” (CCC, n. 1350).
Early Church father and bishop St. Irenaeus penned the following words in the second century to describe this offering of the first-fruits of God’s own created things: “The Church alone offers this pure oblation to the Creator, offering to Him, with giving of thanks, [the things taken] from His creation” (Adversus Haereses 4, 18, 4).
“The offering of ourselves,” says Fr. Kolodziej, “is made symbolically by the presentation of the bread and wine from the congregation” (UtM, p. 50).
Archbishop Fulton Sheen beautifully expounds on this: “We see all humanity on the paten and in the chalice. As Our Lord obtained the first elements of His own human Body from a woman, so for the Eucharist He takes bread and wine from the earth. . . . Bread has been called the marrow of the earth; wine, its very blood. In giving what has traditionally made our flesh and blood, we are equivalently offering all mankind on the paten and in the chalice” (The Priest Is Not His Own, p. 42).
This offering “takes up the gesture of Melchizedek and commits the Creator’s gifts into the hands of Christ who, in his sacrifice, brings to perfection all human attempts to offer sacrifices” (CCC, n. 1350).
As the gifts are being prepared, it is interesting to note the profound theological significance associated with the admixture of a little bit of water with the wine. The meaning is perhaps best expressed by the prayer that accompanies the rite: “By the mystery of this water and wine may we come to share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity.”
As Dr. Edward Sri explains in A Biblical Walk Through the Mass (BWM), “the wine symbolizes Christ’s divinity and water symbolizes our humanity. The mingling of the water and wine points to the Incarnation: the mystery of God becoming man. It also points to our call to share in Christ’s divine life, to become ‘partakers of the divine nature’ (2 Peter 1:4)” (p. 89).
The offertory concludes with a final act of preparation as the priest turns to the people and says: “Pray, brethren, that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father.” The “my” part of the sacrifice is indicative of Christ’s sacrifice made present through the ordained priest who acts in persona Christi, while the “your” part refers to the Church’s offering of her entire Mystical Body in union with Christ. The people respond by imploring that “the Lord accept the sacrifice . . . for our good and the good of all his holy Church.”
We have now come to the point of the Mass which the Catechism calls “the heart and summit of the celebration” (CCC, n. 1352): the eucharistic prayer (anaphora in Greek), which contains the prayer of thanksgiving and consecration.
In his Basic Catholic Catechism Course (BCCC), Fr. John A. Hardon, SJ, lists the common essential elements shared by each of the eucharistic prayers contained in the Roman Missal (liturgical book which contains all the texts, norms, and rubrics for the offering of Holy Mass): “preface, thanksgiving, acclamation, epiclesis, institution narrative, consecration, anamnesis, offering, intercessions, and final doxology” (p. 145).
The eucharistic prayer begins with the preface during which “the Church gives thanks to the Father, through Christ, in the Holy Spirit, for all his works: creation, redemption, and sanctification” (CCC, n. 1352). The entire congregation joins together in lifting up their hearts and humbly offering thanks to the Lord our God for His manifold gifts. In the Sanctus (Latin for “holy”), everyone who is present “joins in the unending praise that the Church in heaven, the angels and all the saints, sing to the thrice-holy God” (CCC, n. 1352).
Important to note is that we are repeating the very words, originally from Psalm 118, with which the crowds greeted Jesus as He triumphantly entered Jerusalem a few days before His redemptive sacrifice: “Hosanna in the highest” and “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” (see Matt. 21:9).
In the prayer known as the epiclesis (meaning “invocation upon”), the priest asks for “the Father to send his Holy Spirit (or the power of his blessing) on the bread and wine, so that by his power they may become the body and blood of Jesus Christ” (CCC, n. 1353).
For example, in eucharistic prayer II, the prayer of the priest is: “Make holy, therefore, these gifts, we pray, by sending down your Spirit upon them like the dewfall, so that they may become for us the Body and Blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ.”
During the institution narrative and the consecration, the Last Supper of the Lord where the Eucharist was instituted is recalled and the words spoken by Jesus are repeated by the ordained priest: “This is my Body. . . . This is the chalice of my Blood.” A breathtaking miracle takes place at this instant: Christ makes Himself sacramentally present under the species of bread and wine.
“The moment the priest pronounces the words of institution,” explains Fr. Hardon, “the bloody Sacrifice of Calvary is renewed in an unbloody manner on the altar” (BCCC, p. 145). The supreme moment of the Mass has arrived. The faithful join the priest’s wonder of this “mystery of faith”: “We proclaim your Death, O Lord, and profess your Resurrection, until you come again” (there are two other options which may be proclaimed).
The anamnesis (Greek for “remembrance,” or “in memory of”) follows. It is a prayer which identifies what is happening at the Mass: “The Church calls to mind the Passion, resurrection, and glorious return of Christ Jesus” (CCC, n. 1354).
Its profound meaning is that “the mystery of the transubstantiation, just completed, is the most perfect, permanent, and continuously living memorial of the mystery of faith,” explains Fr. Hardon. “The very reality of Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary is made present here and now” (BCCC, p. 145).
The anamnesis also serves as the basis for a second prayer known as the offering, “which expresses how in the Mass we have the awesome privilege of offering what Jesus offered on Good Friday” (BWM, p. 117).

The Bread Of Heaven

In the intercessions that follow, “the Church indicates that the Eucharist is celebrated in communion with the whole Church in heaven and on earth, the living and the dead” (CCC, n. 1354). It is an echo of the words of St. Paul: “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread” (1 Cor. 10:17). Included are prayers for the Pope, the local bishop, and all the faithful, living and dead. The eucharistic prayer concludes with a final doxology, a prayer of praise to God.
We have now reached the Communion Rite: “Preceded by the Lord’s Prayer and the breaking of the bread, [in Holy Communion] the faithful receive ‘the bread of heaven’ and ‘the cup of salvation,’ the body and blood of Christ who offered himself ‘for the life of the world’” (CCC, n. 1355).
Much more will be said of this in subsequent columns.

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(Don Fier serves on the board of directors for The Catholic Servant, a Minneapolis-based monthly publication. He and his wife are the parents of seven children. Fier is a 2009 graduate of Ave Maria University’s Institute for Pastoral Theology. He is doing research for writing a definitive biography of Fr. John A. Hardon, SJ.)