During this series of bulletin articles, I’ve been going through the sacraments one by one, beginning with the sacrament par excellence, the Eucharist. I will continue through Baptism and Confirmation, completing the Sacraments of Initiation, then Confession and Anointing of the Sick (the Sacraments of Healing), and finally the Sacraments of Service, Holy Matrimony and Holy Orders. However, I’m only giving an overview of each sacrament. If you want to go more in depth, there are many, many resources out there to help you.
A very good book on the Mass is The Mass Explained: An Introduction to the New Roman Missal by Monsignor James P. Moroney. When the new translation of the Mass came out six years ago, many people remembered the confusion and chaos of all the liturgical changes that happened right after the Second Vatican Council. They wanted to avoid the same problems this time by explaining what the changes were and why they were being made. Msgr. Moroney contributed to this effort by writing a book on the Mass.
In his book, he explains the history of the Mass, why we do certain things at Mass, the parts of the Mass, and the roles of the priest, deacon, and people in the Mass. At only 159 pages, it’s a short book, so it can’t explain everything about the Mass, but it can give you a good foundation. Then, understanding more about the Mass, you can begin to appreciate the Mass more, and get more out of it. Everything that we do at Mass means something, and this book will help you begin exploring that meaning.
Pay attention to all of the little things that we do at Mass, and the things the priest does. When we do something over and over again, we tend to do it without paying much attention to it, and when you’ve gone to Mass a few thousand, or tens of thousands, of times, there’s a lot that we might take for granted. For example, when you enter the Church you probably bless yourself with the holy water by making the Sign of the Cross. This does at least three things. First, you’re reminding yourself that you’re entering a place of prayer, a sacred place, so you invoke God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Second, you’re reminding yourself of your baptism. At Baptism your sins were forgiven, so blessing yourself with holy water when you enter the Church is asking God to purify you to enter His house. Third, making the sign of the Cross reminds us that Christ saved us through the Cross, and we must take up our own crosses and follow after Him.
You may also be wondering why I do certain things at during Mass, as well. I do a lot of things to ensure that I’m treating the Most Blessed Sacrament, the Eucharist, with care and reverence. After I’ve touched the host, which I usually only touch with the thumb and pointer finger of each hand, I hold those two fingers together until I’ve had a chance to wipe them on the corporal or cleanse them with water. This is to ensure that I don’t drop any crumbs of the Blessed Sacrament, because each particle is still the Eucharist, the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of the Lord. That’s why we’re so careful to purify the Sacred Vessels with water after Communion, why I pure water over my fingers into the chalice, and why we keep a special cloth, the corporal, under the chalice and ciboria. The linens used at mass, like the corporal and purificator, are carefully cleaned by a volunteer each week.
All of this helps to emphasize the reverence that we owe to the Eucharist, and it shows that everything we do in Mass means something and can be made into a prayer. When we begin to pray the Mass, and not just attend Mass, then we open ourselves to all of the graces that God wants to give us in each Mass. In the Mass Jesus Christ makes a gift of Himself to us; we are called to make a gift of ourselves to Him.