“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.”
It would behoove us to briefly consider the relation between these two events, before delving deeper into some of the special features this prayer attains in the context of the Holy Mass. There were three young Jewish men during the Babylonian Exile, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed'nego, who were sentenced by King Nebuchadnez'zar of Babylon to be burned alive for refusing to serve and worship his gods and the image Nebuchadnez'zar had set up of himself. However, though they were cast into the flames, which were so hot the soldiers who had bound them ended up being devoured and burned by them, the three men were unharmed and walked about in the furnace singing and praying to God (Daniel 3).
We must now consider some of the features of the entire prayer of Abed'nego, which can be found in the third chapter of the Book of Daniel, which our prayer of the Mass is taken from. The prayer proclaims the justice of God and the sinfulness of Israel, in that God was just to smite Jerusalem and make them captives in Babylon, for they had sinned grievously against the Lord God. The deeds of many of the kings of Jerusalem, which can be read about in the Second Book of Kings, were heinous and went so far as human sacrifice.
After the acknowledgment of guilt, though there is an invocation that God remember the promise He swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that He would prosper them and make their descendents as numerous as the stars of the sky (Daniel 3:12-13). The prayer then ends with the acknowledgment that it is impossible for them to worship in the Temple in Jerusalem and to offer the sacrifices prescribed to be offered there. Indeed, it was impossible without any priests or oblations to offer any sort of sacrifice! Nevertheless, they offered their hearts, i.e. their very lives in humility and subjection to God, and trusted that this would be pleasing to God, "as though it were with burnt offerings of rams and bulls, and with tens of thousands of fat lambs (Daniel 3:16)."
This, then, is where we may connect the prayer of Abed'nego to the Prayer of the Priest in the Mass. Our sins have been acknowledged before God in the Penitential Rite, which seems so long ago. We have acknowledged God's providential justice in the Offertory Prayers, where we praised Him for continuing to show us favor by granting us these gifts, even by the sweat of our brow, but we admit here, the true sacrifice God desires from us, as He says through the Prophet Joel, "Return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments (Joel 2:12-13)."
The prayer of the priest, then, is one that acknowledges many things. It acknowledges the inherit insufficiency of our sacrifices; no animal offering will ever be able to satisfy the debt we have incurred to God on account of our sins. Nor does God desire sacrifice like the Pagan gods of old, who needed the sacrifice for their own pleasure and well-being, for God has no need of us. Rather, He loves us purely out of His own Goodness! Like any lover, though He desires our love in return, and this requires us to submit to the truth - we have offended the Lord by sin and depend on God for everything.
True love for God will, consequently, always include contrition of heart and humility. This is why the prayer of the priest begins, "With humble spirit and contrite heart," for this is the manner of making sacrifice the Lord desires, and true humility and contrition towards God can only come out of love for Him, and this may only be obtained by His grace.
From this we may then conclude the sacrifice of our hearts to God may only be accomplished by the grace of God, and this is the great mystery St. Augustine penetrated so well into! We may only come to God by the grace of His call. He is present every moment of our lives, always offering grace, awaiting for us to respond, and when we do it is because He has given us the grace to do so. As Jesus says in the Gospel, "You did not choose me, but I chose you (John 15:16)." As we have repeatedly observed, by God's grace we have been brought to the Sacrifice of the Mass, and His grace will allow us to make it pleasing to Him, as the last line of the prayer begs.
The next thing we should note from this, then, is that our Sacrifice will be found acceptable to God to the extent it is united to the Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross, the reason being that due to God's Limitless Nature, only a Limitless Sacrifice may be pleasing to Him. Thus, the Sacrifice of the Son of God to the Father, in the Holy Spirit, is the Limitless Sacrifice pleasing to God. On account of this being the pleasing Sacrifice, our sacrifices are favorable to the level we are united to Christ, once again accomplished through grace.
We may, now, derive the final reflection on this prayer, from this truth, but first we should note that this prayer is prayed silently by the priest in a bowed posture over the altar. Since it is a prayer prayed in the plural, we may wonder why it is done silently, and the full reason can only be grasped with the above mentioned idea in mind. As we have said previously, those in Holy Orders are ordained to act on behalf of the people, and the priest fulfills this role by offering sacrifice on behalf of the Faithful. Thus, when he says, "we," in the Mass, even when done silently, he prays on our behalf and we pray through him. But the full implication of this shines forth when we realize he is an alter Christus.
As the priest acts in persona Christi - in the Person of Christ - he also speaks as Jesus Christ, and since it is Christ Who offers the Sacrifice of the Cross to the Father, it is Christ Who offers our sacrifices in union with His own. The priest here begins to exercise his most exalted role! He prays as both the Faithful and as Christ. And for this reason, he bows in humility, for he realizes the great dignity that has been given to him, in spite of his unworthiness. His humble bow both represents the contrition of our hearts and the humility of his own, both who pray as the tax collector, not even lifting up eyes to heaven in view of our unworthiness (Luke 18:13).
Before we conclude, though, we should note within the Extraordinary Form, there is an additional blessing which it is appropriate to mention here, for there is much we can derive from it. While it is, of course, not necessary for the celebration of Mass, and was thus suppressed following the simplification of the Offertory Rites after the Second Vatican Council, that does not mean we should neglect to consider the reasons for its long inclusion in the Mass.
The benediction by the priest is:
It would behoove us to briefly consider the relation between these two events, before delving deeper into some of the special features this prayer attains in the context of the Holy Mass. There were three young Jewish men during the Babylonian Exile, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed'nego, who were sentenced by King Nebuchadnez'zar of Babylon to be burned alive for refusing to serve and worship his gods and the image Nebuchadnez'zar had set up of himself. However, though they were cast into the flames, which were so hot the soldiers who had bound them ended up being devoured and burned by them, the three men were unharmed and walked about in the furnace singing and praying to God (Daniel 3).
We must now consider some of the features of the entire prayer of Abed'nego, which can be found in the third chapter of the Book of Daniel, which our prayer of the Mass is taken from. The prayer proclaims the justice of God and the sinfulness of Israel, in that God was just to smite Jerusalem and make them captives in Babylon, for they had sinned grievously against the Lord God. The deeds of many of the kings of Jerusalem, which can be read about in the Second Book of Kings, were heinous and went so far as human sacrifice.
After the acknowledgment of guilt, though there is an invocation that God remember the promise He swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that He would prosper them and make their descendents as numerous as the stars of the sky (Daniel 3:12-13). The prayer then ends with the acknowledgment that it is impossible for them to worship in the Temple in Jerusalem and to offer the sacrifices prescribed to be offered there. Indeed, it was impossible without any priests or oblations to offer any sort of sacrifice! Nevertheless, they offered their hearts, i.e. their very lives in humility and subjection to God, and trusted that this would be pleasing to God, "as though it were with burnt offerings of rams and bulls, and with tens of thousands of fat lambs (Daniel 3:16)."
This, then, is where we may connect the prayer of Abed'nego to the Prayer of the Priest in the Mass. Our sins have been acknowledged before God in the Penitential Rite, which seems so long ago. We have acknowledged God's providential justice in the Offertory Prayers, where we praised Him for continuing to show us favor by granting us these gifts, even by the sweat of our brow, but we admit here, the true sacrifice God desires from us, as He says through the Prophet Joel, "Return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments (Joel 2:12-13)."
The prayer of the priest, then, is one that acknowledges many things. It acknowledges the inherit insufficiency of our sacrifices; no animal offering will ever be able to satisfy the debt we have incurred to God on account of our sins. Nor does God desire sacrifice like the Pagan gods of old, who needed the sacrifice for their own pleasure and well-being, for God has no need of us. Rather, He loves us purely out of His own Goodness! Like any lover, though He desires our love in return, and this requires us to submit to the truth - we have offended the Lord by sin and depend on God for everything.
True love for God will, consequently, always include contrition of heart and humility. This is why the prayer of the priest begins, "With humble spirit and contrite heart," for this is the manner of making sacrifice the Lord desires, and true humility and contrition towards God can only come out of love for Him, and this may only be obtained by His grace.
From this we may then conclude the sacrifice of our hearts to God may only be accomplished by the grace of God, and this is the great mystery St. Augustine penetrated so well into! We may only come to God by the grace of His call. He is present every moment of our lives, always offering grace, awaiting for us to respond, and when we do it is because He has given us the grace to do so. As Jesus says in the Gospel, "You did not choose me, but I chose you (John 15:16)." As we have repeatedly observed, by God's grace we have been brought to the Sacrifice of the Mass, and His grace will allow us to make it pleasing to Him, as the last line of the prayer begs.
The next thing we should note from this, then, is that our Sacrifice will be found acceptable to God to the extent it is united to the Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross, the reason being that due to God's Limitless Nature, only a Limitless Sacrifice may be pleasing to Him. Thus, the Sacrifice of the Son of God to the Father, in the Holy Spirit, is the Limitless Sacrifice pleasing to God. On account of this being the pleasing Sacrifice, our sacrifices are favorable to the level we are united to Christ, once again accomplished through grace.
We may, now, derive the final reflection on this prayer, from this truth, but first we should note that this prayer is prayed silently by the priest in a bowed posture over the altar. Since it is a prayer prayed in the plural, we may wonder why it is done silently, and the full reason can only be grasped with the above mentioned idea in mind. As we have said previously, those in Holy Orders are ordained to act on behalf of the people, and the priest fulfills this role by offering sacrifice on behalf of the Faithful. Thus, when he says, "we," in the Mass, even when done silently, he prays on our behalf and we pray through him. But the full implication of this shines forth when we realize he is an alter Christus.
As the priest acts in persona Christi - in the Person of Christ - he also speaks as Jesus Christ, and since it is Christ Who offers the Sacrifice of the Cross to the Father, it is Christ Who offers our sacrifices in union with His own. The priest here begins to exercise his most exalted role! He prays as both the Faithful and as Christ. And for this reason, he bows in humility, for he realizes the great dignity that has been given to him, in spite of his unworthiness. His humble bow both represents the contrition of our hearts and the humility of his own, both who pray as the tax collector, not even lifting up eyes to heaven in view of our unworthiness (Luke 18:13).
Before we conclude, though, we should note within the Extraordinary Form, there is an additional blessing which it is appropriate to mention here, for there is much we can derive from it. While it is, of course, not necessary for the celebration of Mass, and was thus suppressed following the simplification of the Offertory Rites after the Second Vatican Council, that does not mean we should neglect to consider the reasons for its long inclusion in the Mass.
The benediction by the priest is:
Jungmann notes the reason for this blessing being, "The later Middle Ages were a thriving era for blessings. All of the products of nature and all the objects of human use were recipients of the Church's benedictions. No wonder, then, that a blessing was bestowed here . . . on all the . . . gifts which were destined for so exalted a purpose (65)."
The blessing is obviously an invocation of the Holy Spirit, Who will be invoked again immediately before the Consecration in what is known as the Epiklesis of the Mass. It would appear that for this reason this prayer was omitted in the Reform following Vatican II, since its function occurs again later. Nevertheless, we may still benefit from reflecting upon what it means. The Holy Spirit is the One through Whom the Consecration is accomplished, and we say the Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross is the offering of the Son to the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit.
Let us begin our brief reflection with the words of Gueranger:
"As it is the Holy Ghost Himself Who operates the change of the Bread and Wine into the Body and Blood of Our Lord, in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, it is right that this Divine Spirit should be mentioned in the course of the Sacrifice. . . . Bless, says she, this Sacrifice, that is to say, make it fruitful, so that it may be pleasing to the Divine Majesty (The Holy Mass, Section: The Offertory)."
We have often mentioned what is about to occur is the Sacrifice of the Son to the Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, however, we may fail to see the significance of the Holy Spirit in this Sacrifice. While it is easy to note the role of the Son as the Victim and Priest, and the Father as the Recipient of the Sacrifice, the role of the Spirit is not as obvious. While we shall explore the Third Person of the Trinity's significance throughout the rest of these meditations, let us note a few brief points here.
First, we may note the teaching of St. Augustine, that the Holy Spirit is the communion of the Father and the Son, also called the Love between the Two (De Trinitate). Thus, as the Son offers Himself to the Father, He must do so through the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is also the One Who acts through the Church to unite all Her members as one in the one Body of Christ. In the Sacrifice of the Mass, then, it is by the power of the Holy Spirit that our sacrifices are made one with the Sacrifice of Christ, and thus, in the Holy Spirit that both are offered to the Father. The invocation of the Holy Spirit here was to invoke His aid in helping the priest and the Faithful to perfectly unite themselves with Christ so that the great action about to occur may work for God's glory!
All historical information taken from:
Rev. Joseph A. Jungmann, S.J. The Mass of the Roman Rite: Its Origins and Development. Volume 2. Part IV: The Matter for the Sacrifice, 31-41; Laying the Offerings on the Altar. The Accompanying Prayers, 41-70. Translated by Rev. Francis A. Brunner, C.SS.R. (Christian Classics: Notre Dame, Indiana, 1951).
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