The Catholic Mass Is Way Better Than I Thought
If you’re like me, I bet you find yourself just going through the motions at Mass. You do the things, sing the songs, recite the prayers, and receive the Most Holy Eucharist…but it’s more like a routine as opposed to what the Mass is. I grew up going to Mass every Sunday, and was pretty bored during it. Even as I started going in my 30s, I felt like I was out of place in a distant land.
But, last week’s OCIA class changed all that. It educated me on what the Mass is, what it means, and where we get it.
There are four parts of the Mass:
Introductory Rites
The Liturgy of the Word
The Liturgy of the Eucharist
Concluding Rites
The Introductory Rites prepare us to be nourished by the Word of God, and the Body and Blood of Christ. The priest does this by blessing us with opening prayers and we ask forgiveness for our sins. This cleans up our venial sins - you need to go to Confession to clean up the mortal sins. Once we are prepared in this way, we move to the next phase of the Mass.
The Liturgy of the Word is comprised of a reading from the Old Testament, Psalms, Epistles, and the Gospels. Then, puts them all together in his homily (which is sort of like a sermon in a Protestant church), and blesses us with guidance on how to apply these readings to our lives.
Now, during the Liturgy of the Word, we do not just sit or stand, and listen. We participate by responding with “thanks be to God” or “praise be to you, Lord Jesus Christ.” We are thanking God for nourishing us with His Word.
A cool tidbit I learned is that the readings are chosen over a 3-year span of time. In this time, almost all of Sacred Scripture is shared. And they are proclaimed from a book called a “Lectionary.”
Once we are nourished with the Word, we move on to the heart of the Mass - the sacrifice of Christ. The Liturgy of the Eucharist is when the bread and wine are turned into the Body and Blood of Christ. “At the moment of consecration, the power of the words and actions of Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit, make sacramentally present, under the species of bread and wine, Christ’s Body and Blood, his sacrifice offered on the cross for all.”
The Real Presence of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is then consumed at the Holy Mass. You know, at the moment of the consecration, or transubstantiation, when the priest says the words of Jesus, “This is my body, which is given up for you. Do this in memory of me” and raises the host up high…every time, I am moved to tears. It is odd because I am almost there intellectually when it comes to the Catholic teaching of the Eucharist. But if I am moved to tears when seeing the Host, then my heart is obviously there. My heart knows that Jesus is really present in the Eucharist. What makes it odd is because I’m usually a “head-first” kind of guy. In this case, my heart was first.
Shows me the power of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
Lastly, we have the Concluding Rites. The priest gives us the final blessing, and we are sent out, full of graces of the Mass and the sacraments, and take it out into the world.
So, where does the Mass come from? It comes from the Apostles and the early Church. Almost all the words and prayers are pulled from Scripture. It is that beautiful combination of Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, like everything else I have been learning about in Catholicism. It was not just randomly made up by a guy a couple hundred years ago. It has been a gift from God that has been around for 2,000 years. It is linked back to the very first Christians.
Having a better understanding of what the Mass is, why we do what we do in it, what it means, how we play a part in it, and where we get it from has greatly impacted my love, appreciation, and desire to go.
This certainly is not a thorough explanation of the Mass, but it is the best explanation I have from what I have learned.
Thanks for reading, and God bless!
