Sorry this week has been a little hit-and-miss…I’ve had a couple evening meetings for work, and our first Religious Ed class of the year was on Monday. Anyway, we last left off talking about the collection of money that happens during the Preparation of the Gifts phase of the Mass. So while the ushers are passing the baskets around, and the altar is being prepared, the choir has already begun singing a hymn (which we are typically all encouraged to join in with). Once the donations have all been taken up, the ushers compile them all into one large basket which is brought up, along with unleavened bread (bread made without yeast or any other ingredient used to lighten it) and wine, to the priest waiting in the Sanctuary. The priest takes the gifts from those who have brought them up, and brings them to the altar. This is reminiscent of the priests of the Old Testament who God chose to present gifts to Him on behalf of the people (you can find this in the Book of Leviticus…Chapter 4 is a good example).
So the priest first takes the bread and presents it to God with a prayer that will change slightly beginning in Advent 2011 to reflect the literal translation of the traditional Latin:
Current Text:
Blessed are you, Lord, God of all creation. Through your goodness we have this bread to offer, which earth has given and human hands have made. It will become for us the bread of life.
Beginning Advent 2011:
Blessed are you, Lord, God of all creation, for through your goodness we have received the bread we offer you; fruit of the earth and work of human hands, it will become for us the bread of life.
…to which we respond: Blessed be God forever.
Next the priest takes the wine, pours it into a chalice, and pours a small amount of water into it. This practice of “tempering” wine with a little water was a common practice among Jews in Mediterranean culture around the time of Jesus, so we tend to believe that Jesus used wine that had been “cut” by a small bit of water during the Last Supper, even if the Bible doesn’t go into that specific of a detail. The practice of mingling water with wine in Mass is documented as early as the writings of Justin Martyr around the year 150 A.D. St. Cyprian also wrote about this about 100 years later, and St. Thomas Aquinas addressed it in the Summa Theologica, also. Bottom line is: (1) history suggests that Jesus probably used wine mixed with water at the Last Supper, so we simply do what HE did (good enough reason right there, don’t you think?), and (2) there’s a symbolism present of the blood AND water that flowed from his side when the soldiers pierced him with the spear while he hung on the cross. Anyway, when the priest mixes the water into the wine, there’s a little prayer that goes: “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.”
So after the water/wine bit, the priest takes the chalice, and similarly to the bit earlier with the bread, he presents it to God with a little prayer that goes a little like this:
Current Text:
Blessed are you, Lord, God of all creation. Through your goodness we have this wine to offer, fruit of the vine and work of human hands. It will become for us our spiritual drink.
Beginning Advent 2011:
Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation, for through your goodness we have received the wine we offer you; fruit of the vine and work of human hands it will become our spiritual drink.
…to which we also respond: Blessed be God forever.
Then the priest says another short prayer that goes like this:
Current text:
Lord God, we ask you to receive us and be pleased with the sacrifice we offer you with humble and contrite hearts.
Beginning Advent 2011:
With humble spirit and contrite heart may we be accepted by you, o Lord, and may our sacrifice in your sight this day be pleasing to you, Lord God.
The altar servers then bring over the lavabo (from the Latin lavare, meaning “to wash”)—a small pitcher of water together with a basin to collect the water from the pitcher—for the priest to wash his hands. This isn’t done for sanitation purposes…he doesn’t use soap or anything here…it’s merely a symbolic gesture of the priest’s desire to be spiritually cleansed. As you probably have guessed, there is also a little prayer to go along with this that currently goes: “Lord, wash away my iniquity; cleanse me from my sin.” However, beginning in Advent 2011, to be closer to the verbatim translation of the traditional Latin, the priest will say, “Wash me, O Lord, from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.” Not a big change…just more direct from what we said for centuries before the 1960s.
Once all this is done, the priest invites us (typically by a hand gesture) to stand, then says the following invitation to prayer:
Current Text:
Pray, brethren, that our sacrifice may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father.
Beginning Advent 2011:
Pray, brethren (or “brothers and sisters”), that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father.
To this we respond: “May the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands for the praise and glory of his name, for our good, and the good of all his Church.” Beginning in Advent 2011, we’ll put the word “holy” back between “his” and “Church” at the end of our response.
Rounding out the Preparation of the Gifts, the Priest reads the “Prayer Over the Gifts” as prescribed for that day in the Sacramentary (soon to be referred to as the Roman Missal). This prayer is different for each day, and generally reflects some central theme connected with either the readings of the day, or the occasion of the Mass.
So that’s about it for the Preparation of the Gifts. I’d say we’ll start the Eucharistic Prayer tomorrow, but it IS the first preseason game for the Saints, and I have tickets…GOOD tickets…so chances are I won’t be posting tomorrow. I’ll probably see you in a couple days, though—THEN we’ll start to tackle “the biggie” known as the Eucharistic Prayer, which we’ll probably be on for a week or so.
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