We have just finished
our study of the Consecration. What follows this is a series of prayers to God
the Father telling Him that we are fully aware of what has just transpired
before our very eyes: that we now are in full celebration of the sacrifice just
offered to God: the living and true
sacrifice Jesus made on the Cross, the gift of Himself given freely for all,
and the hope we find in His resurrection for an eternal life in heaven. We
remind God, and ourselves in doing so, that sacrifices have been offered to Him
since the Old Testament, with Abel who gave the best he had, Abraham, who gave
the only son he had, and Melchizedeck , who
gave his bread and wine as a foreshadowing
of what was to come. In Eucharistic
Prayer 1 we ask God to be “pleased to look upon these offerings with a serene
and kindly countenance …” Don’t you love those words? I hope when I face
God He looks at me with a serene and kindly countenance. I remember when my
children were young and they had to tell me something that was a “no no” they
would say, “Mommy, please don’t change your face!” We all know the bliss of a
serene and kindly countenance, and the fear of the scowl. God accepted Abel’s sacrifice
and we ask that He accept ours. He rejected Cain’s, because it was not given
with a sincere and loving heart. May we be able to say of ourselves that we
have truly entered into the mysteries of the Mass so completely, that the
prayers we now offer are expressions of our love and faith in God. Many of us
zone out at this time. Don’t. Listen; join your heart into the prayer, and
pray. The priest no longer uses the pronoun “I” as he did in the consecration,
while operating “In persona Christi” but now uses “we” as this prayer is ours.
Fr. William Saunders
tells us: The anamnesis is the remembrance. The whole Mass in a sense
constitutes an anamnesis, a remembrance of the passion, death and resurrection of
the Lord. This remembering is not just of the past, but a remembering of what
happens now and of the living mystery of the Mass. The faithful also remember
that the Lord will come again in glory. Here specifically the priest recalls
the Lord’s mandate to remember Him, what He did, and His glorious return.
Pope Benedict XVI
tells us: Thus we see how the Eucharist had its origin, what its true
source is. The words of institution alone are not sufficient; the death alone
is not sufficient; and even both together are still insufficient but have to be
complemented by the Resurrection, in which God accepts this death and makes it
the door into a new life. From out of this whole matrix – that he transforms
his death, that irrational event, into an affirmation, into an act of love and
of adoration – emerges his acceptance by God and the possibility of his being
able to share himself in this way. On the Cross, Christ saw love through to the
end. For all the differences there may be between the accounts in the various
Gospels, there is one point in common: Jesus died praying, and in the abyss of
death, he upheld the First Commandment and held onto the presence of God. Out of
such a death springs this sacrament, the Eucharist.
Eucharistic Prayer I:
Therefore, O Lord, as we celebrate the memorial of the blessed Passion, the
Resurrection from the dead, and the glorious Ascension into heaven of Christ,
your Son, our Lord, we, your servants and your holy people, offer to your
glorious majesty from the gifts that you have given us, this pure victim, this
holy victim, this spotless victim, the holy Bread of eternal life and the
Chalice of everlasting salvation. Be pleased to look upon these offerings with
a serene and kindly countenance, and to accept them, as once your were pleased
to accept the gifts of your servant Abel the just, the sacrifice of Abraham,
our father in faith, and offering of your high priest Melchizedek, a holy
sacrifice, a spotless victim. In humble prayer we ask you, almighty God:
command that these gifts be borne by the hands of your holy Angel to your altar
on high, in the sight of your divine majesty, so that all of us, who through
this participation at the altar receive the most holy Body and Blood of your
son, may be filled with every grace and heavenly blessing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T8hNidQqR0
(this is so wonderful because it is taped at an International Mass in Taiwan,
reminding us that all Catholics of all nations are united in the Eucharist)
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