MASS: Gathering together to worship God

In the procession, the priest, deacons, servers and other ministers enter, preferably while a hymn is being sung. The act of processing can serve as a symbol of gathering together to worship God.

Entrance song, procession
The entrance hymn serves two purposes. One, it gives praise to God. Secondly, by the act of all the people singing it together, it promotes the unity of the congregation. The congregation should not be seen as a group of individual people but rather as a people gathered together as one.

Do not be distracted by this, but rather realize that all of this is helping you to let go of yourself and to be open to God.

The sign of the cross and the greeting
When they reach the sanctuary, the priest, the deacon and the ministers reverence the altar with a profound bow. As an expression of veneration, moreover, the priest and deacon then kiss the altar itself. As the occasion suggests, the priest also incenses the cross and the altar.

After the entrance chant is concluded, the priest stands at the chair and, together with the whole gathering, makes the sign of the cross. Then he signifies the presence of the Lord to the community gathered there by means of the Greeting. By this Greeting and the people’s response, the mystery of the Church gathered together is made manifest.

The sign of the cross reminds us of our Savior, Jesus Christ, and how he died for us on the wood of the cross. It is a sign of God’s love for us, that while we were sinners, he sent his Son to save us, from our sins. We remind ourselves that Jesus by his cross has overcome the powers of sin and death.

Penitential rite
In the Penitential Rite, we are called to reflect on the fact that we are not perfect in and of ourselves. Rather, we rely on God’s help and seek his mercy for those times when we stumble and fail to do good–God’s will. While this rite does not replace the sacrament of reconciliation, it does remind us that even when we are in the state of grace, we are still prone to sin and need God’s protective mercy.

A period of silence follows. We are given time to think and reflect. It is interesting that along with a declined sense of sin, people have grown uncomfortable with silence. We live in a world where we are bombarded with noise in almost every waking moment. But in silence, God speaks to us. “Be still, and know that I am God (Ps 46:10).” Noise often keeps us from hearing God’s pleas spoken to our hearts.

At the words “through my fault,” we strike our breast. Why? In the ancient world, striking one’s breast was a sign of mourning. At Jesus’s death on the cross, the Gospel of Luke recounts that the crowd returned to their homes “beating their breast (Lk 23:48).” We beat our breast as we declare our sinfulness in imitation of the tax collector who “standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner’ (Lk 18:13).”

The Church believes that when we gather to pray as a Church, the group that gathers is more than meets the eye. Literally, heaven comes down to this spot, and all of its inhabitants–the angels and all the saints–join us. As we ask them to join our prayer, we should be mindful of the purity of their prayers. Bowing our head as the priest says the general prayer of absolution is one way to accept the mercy of God that is given by the Church through the merits of Jesus Christ.

Lord have mercy (Kyrie)
Saint Paul said that it is only in the Spirit that we can acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord. The words Kyrie eleison are taken from the Greek language and mean “Lord, have mercy on us.” This threefold petition to each Person of the Holy Trinity is expressive of the earnestness with which we implore the Divine mercy.

We call upon the Father to be merciful to us through his omnipotence; upon the Son, to be merciful to us through his goodness. We implore mercy because we have often offended the Heavenly Father, who in his power has created us; because we have often offended the Eternal Son, who through his wisdom has endured such great suffering to redeem us; because we have often offended the Holy Spirit, who through his goodness has sanctified us.

We can open ourselves up to a powerful encounter with God at the celebration of the Mass if we admit that without the help of God we do not know what we are doing. Like the blind men on the side of the road, we need the Lord to heal our blindness so that we too might recognize him: “Lord have mercy on us (Mk 10:46-52).”

Gloria in excelsis
Confident that the Lord will forgive us our sins, we now sing out, giving praise to God in imitation of the angels in heaven. This prayer of the Mass is actually an ancient hymn in which the Church, gathered together in the Holy Spirit, glorifies and entreats God the Father.

This hymn of praise contain three parts, the first part is the song that the shepherds heard sung by the heavenly choir of angels at the birth of Christ. The second part praises God by recalling all of his attributes. The third part prays to Jesus, asking him to save us from our sins.

The Gloria is a sublime hymn of praise, and we should repeat it in the spirit of a joyful welcome to our Savior. Jesus is present in the Blessed Sacrament as truly as he was in the grotto, though in a different form. Let us join with the angels in praising him, with the shepherds in adoring him and with the Magi in glorifying him.

Collect
With the words, “Let us pray,” the priest invites the congregation to join in his supplication, indicating by these words the union of his heart with that of the congregation. Then follow the Collects, or collective prayers for the day, which, for conciseness of form, richness of expression and depth of meaning, have never been equaled.

They are called collective prayers because they sum up all the intentions and needs of the Church and of her children, both spiritual and temporal, which are laid before God by the priest. The priest extends his hands and then folds them as a mark of humility, acknowledging that we can do nothing of our own strength and that we must put all our trust in God. Afterwards he extends them once more in an attitude of appeal, in memory of our Savior who, with arms extended upon the cross, interceded with his Heavenly Father for the whole human race.

Nearly all these prayers conclude with the words “Through Jesus Christ our Lord,” for the Heavenly Father has given us the promise that he will refuse nothing which we ask in the name of his beloved Son, Jesus.

At the close of the prayer, the congregation replies with an “Amen!” This is a response we give throughout the liturgy and an important part of our participation in the Mass. It is our way of saying that we agree with the prayer made by the priest, and that it is in fact our prayer, too.