Dear Friends,
We began last week expounding upon the parts of Holy Mass, specifically the Sign of the Cross and the Penitential Act—maybe we will move through more this week! Before resuming where we left off, I think it's good for all of us to be reminded that God meets us at Mass, that His Son Jesus Christ meets us at Mass, and so does the Holy Spirit. Holy Mass is an encounter between God and His people. While there is the necessity of the ritual of Mass, it is more than an empty ritual: it is an encounter with God in which He heals us, redeems us, and sanctifies us.
We begin Holy Mass with the Sign of the Cross and then we admit that we are sinners, repentant and in need of God's mercy. After the Penitential Act, we proclaim the Gloria, which is usually sung (the Gloria is not said or sung in Advent or Lent). The Gloria is done in imitation of the angels proclaiming to the shepherds the good news of the birth of the Savior, found in Luke 2:13-14. It reads, “And suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel, praising God and saying: 'Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.'”
The following words of the Gloria reveal why we're singing it and what we're doing at Mass: “We praise You. We bless You. We adore You. We glorify You. We give You thanks for Your great glory.” It is important for us to sing this. There is a simple spiritual principle, and it is universally applicable: you become like the one or like the thing you worship. This is why God commands our worship—not because He needs our worship, but rather because God wants us to become like Him. We sing the Gloria in praise, adoration, and thanks to God for His goodness, majesty, and glory, and in a sense, this is a proclamation of our focus at Mass. We ask our Lord Jesus Christ to have mercy on us and receive our prayer. Lastly, we affirm that Jesus Christ, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, is the Lord of our lives, which also means that no one or nothing else is to be lord in our lives.
After the Gloria, the priest prays a prayer called the Collect. This prayer is directed usually toward God the Father. In the liturgical seasons of Advent, Lent, Christmas, and Easter, the Collect will be a prayer related to the virtues and themes (for lack of a better word) of the season; on certain feast days, the Collect may remind us of feats or virtues of a saint. Occasionally, the Collect may be related to the Scriptural readings. It is also in the Collect that the priest, on behalf of the people, asks God to grant a specific grace. This is what we hear for the Collect today:
O God, who in the abasement of your Son
have raised up a fallen world,
fill your faithful with holy joy,
for on those you have rescued from slavery to sin
you bestow eternal gladness.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.
In this, we are recognizing that God has renewed and raised a fallen world by His Son who lowered Himself in humility. The priest asks for all of us to be filled with holy joy, flowing from the reality that those rescued from slavery to sin will enjoy eternal gladness, unending joy. This should fill us with joy and hope.
One last word about the Collect. If it wasn't capitalized, it would appear as the common word collect, and this gives us insight. The priest says, “Let us pray (oremus in Latin),” and then pauses in silence before praying aloud. In a sense, the prayers, praise, thanks, and offerings of all present are beginning to be “collected” as part of our collective offering to God.
We are saints under construction, glorifying God in worship at Mass and in our lives.
Happy 4th of July! Have a great week!
In Christ,
Fr. Matt