Within the last post, I discussed more of the overall concept of the greeting at Mass. Within this post, I wanted to look more at the four specific greetings. Three of these are options for a priest to use, when celebrating Mass. The fourth option is used exclusively by a bishop when he presides over the Mass, or celebrates it.
The first option listed in the Roman Missal is, "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all." All of the options have a unique beauty to them, and the one that I love most about this one is that it is a continuation of the sign of the cross, as it directly recalls the Trinity. There is much we can draw from this simple formula.
We have been brought here by the love of God. God created us in love, He sustains us in love, He redeemed us in love. If we lose sight of this simple truth, especially in the context of the Liturgy, we, and our pious acts, risk becoming "a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal (1 Corinthians 13:1)." As St. Paul said, charity and love is necessary for all acts to have any value in the eyes of God. The Sacraments, while being efficacious without charity, cannot perfect us without charity having first disposed us to their graces. The mystery of grace, however, is that we cannot be open to it, without God having first opened us to it, as elaborated often by St. Augustine. For this reason, then, the priest greets us with the invitation that the grace of Jesus be present in us.
The final part of this greeting refers to the communion of the Holy Spirit. This is a prayer for unity, which we will continue to see throughout the Liturgy. It brings up the prayer of Christ, "that they may all be one (John 17: 21)." Through the Sacrament of the Eucharist and the grace of the Holy Spirit we are made one in the Church of Christ, which is His body. The Mass is so integral for this unity, then, since it is only in unity that charity can properly be carried out, for we must be one with God to will what He wills.
The second option for the greeting is, "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." As I mentioned in the previous post, this is the greeting Paul uses at the beginning of all of his letters in the Scriptures. I think this is significant for several reasons. The first is that it asserts the Apostolic Succession within the Mass. The Mass is the same in essence as that celebrated by the Apostles when they gathered together. Although the exterior rites have undergone changes and developments, the essence, i.e. the Sacrament and Sacrifice, are the same as that celebrated by St. Paul.
Additionally, this greeting reminds us that the Mass carries one of the same purposes that Paul's letters carried. They were written to the churches to instruct them and to admonish them, but primarily to remind them of the surpassing love Jesus Christ had for them. Is not this the purpose of the Mass? We are instructed there, we are often admonished, but primarily we encounter the love of Jesus Christ for us. We are brought together as one and all strive for the same ultimate purpose which the Sacrament of the Eucharist can accomplish within us, i.e. to grow in love and be sanctified by Jesus.
As I stated though, the Mass, especially through the liturgical year and many feasts, is the place where we encounter the truths of the Faith in their best setting, in the presence of God. It is only through God's grace we can understand and love these truths, just as it is only through God's grace that we can do anything. I can, therefore, think of no better place to learn than in the church, the house of God. Keep in mind, I'm not speaking of only an intellectual learning, but a learning that penetrates our hearts and souls and leads us to change our lives.
The last option for the priest to use for the greeting at Mass is the simple, "Dominus vobiscum - The Lord be with you." As I stated before, this is the oldest of the greetings and most traditional in the Liturgy. It is used, as Jungmann notes, to signal a change in actions, and to call our attentions specifically to what is about to occur (363-364), and it occurs several times throughout the Liturgy. As it is hard to focus on this greeting historically, since it has undergone so much development, and its location in the Ordinary Form seems to be somewhat unique, I will simply focus on each of the occurrences as they come up.
The Dominus vobiscum at this place requires little further explanation than what I have said above and in the previous posts. This is an invitation for us to gather our thoughts and to remember what is about to occur in our lives and the necessity of the Lord to accompany us by His grace. Instead, what I wish to now comment on, before looking at a bishop's greeting, is our response, "Et cum spiritu tuo. And with your spirit."
This is the response used for all of the possible greetings, and the theology behind it has constantly been stressed to accentuate the sacerdotal nature of the sacred minister. The Lord Jesus is with him in a special way, since whether he is a bishop, priest, or deacon, his soul bears a special seal upon it conforming him to Christ and allowing him to act in persona Christi. For this reason, a special "wish" is made by all that the Lord's grace will support him in the high dignity he is to undertake.
As with the Dominus vobiscum at the various parts of the Mass having both similar and different meanings, I would hold that the Et cum spiritu tuo does as well. The similarity is that the Holy Spirit may be with him in a unique and special way, but the emphasis is on what work he is about to undertake. At this point in the Liturgy, our thoughts should be that the Holy Spirit may be with him throughout the entire Mass, so that he may worthily lead us in prayer. I find it profitable to point out the re-translation of the Mass from 2012, in which "And also with you," was changed to "And with your spirit."
Two things may be deduced from this. The old translation seemed to imply that the Holy Spirit acts both in the priest and in the faithful in the same way. While there are parts that are the same, in the sense that the priest is human and in need of sanctification, within the Mass the priest also acts in a unique way in that it is he who offers the Sacrifice. The exclusion of the word "also," prevents this possible confusion. The second focuses on the word "spirit." The soul of the priest has an "indelible seal" placed upon it which allows him to act in persona Christi, as stated above. It is through this that he is able to confect the Eucharist. This emphasis on his soul, then, helps to remind us of the work he is going to do. He doesn't preside over a meeting in which we bring about the Eucharist, he is the one who brings about the Eucharist and offers the Sacrifice on our behalf. Therefore, while he leads us in prayer, he also prays on our behalf, as both a man, in his own person, and divinely, as the person of Christ.
The final part of the greeting at Mass which I will focus on is the last possible greeting which may be used, but only by a bishop, "Pax vobis. Peace be with you." There is a great deal of mystery surrounding this greeting. While it is a common greeting in the Eastern Rites for both priest and bishop, it is limited to this one spot in the Latin Rite and used only by the bishop. Historically speaking as well, it has been a thing of dispute. It is the greeting give by our Lord to the disciples after his Resurrection (John 20:19, 21, 26). In my opinion, the best explanation for this being reserved to the bishop is that it is he alone who has received the fullness of the priesthood. Therefore, he uses the words of our Lord himself. As a successor of the Apostles, he uses the very words given by our Lord to the Apostles. The Apostles then communicate this message of peace and life to us through their successors, the bishops.
The Pax vobis is the message of the good news of the Resurrection. Christ has conquered sin and death through His glorious Resurrection! This message of hope and love is the primary message of the Apostles. How appropriate it is that their successors continue to proclaim it, and within the Liturgy. Through His Passion, Death, and Resurrection, Christ reconciled the world back to God and brought peace. This is made present to us in the Mass, when the Pascal Mystery is celebrated. The Pax vobis is, then, an invitation to enter into the Pascal Mystery and offer ourselves to God, in union with the Sacrifice of the Cross, made present by the bishop, who acts most perfectly in persona Christi as the great high priest (Antiphon: Ecce Sacerdos Magnus)!
All historical information taken from:
Rev. Joseph A. Jungmann, S.J. The Mass of the Roman Rite: Its Origins and Development. Volume
1. Part III: The Collect. The Inclusion of the Congregation Assembled, 359-372.
Translated by Rev. Francis A. Brunner, C.SS.R. (Christian Classics:
Notre Dame, Indiana, 1951).
No comments:
Post a Comment