You probably noticed that the lights in our church
were dimmed today when you came in. Yes,
we paid the electric bill and everything was working as planned. The lights will be dimmed before Masses to
help provide a more prayerful space.
Many wish to enter into private prayer before our communal prayer of
Mass begins and the dimmed lighting is a visual reminder for all of us to take
our conversations either into the lobby, the Prayer Garden, or Meeting Room
South.
There are a few other changes that we are
implementing at Mass. We will continue
to bring Holy Communion to those who are mobility impaired. We ask that you sit on the aisle and let an
usher know that you cannot approach the Altar for Communion. That hasn’t changed. What has changed is that those who are
mobility impaired that would like to receive the Precious Blood of our Lord
will be asked to be seated in the first pew of each section. This is to prevent spillage and desecration
of the Eucharist.
Silence has an important role during our Mass. We live in a noisy world and for most of us
silence is foreign. For us before,
during, and after Mass, silence is a reminder that we have entered a space that
is in the world but not of the world.
And in this unworldly space, silence helps us to direct our thoughts to
our loving God. We enter quietly,
leaving the noise of the street and the world behind.
During the Mass we will be putting extra emphasis
on our silence. Prior to the Opening
Prayer the priest says, “Let us pray.”
In the silence that follows these words, we pray. We silently pray for those we know are in
need. We pray for ourselves and our
families. Father then gathers our
prayers and offers them to the Lord; this is why this prayer is called the
“Collect” (say CALL – ECT) because Father collects our prayers into one.
After the First Reading there’s a minute of silence
as we reflect upon the Word of God and let it reverberate within us. After the Second Reading we again reflect
upon what God is saying to us through His Holy Word. Then, after the Homily we again enter into
silence to ask ourselves how we may apply the words of Jesus and the homily to
our own lives. After Communion we all
sit silently and praise and pray to God in our hearts, giving thanks for the
Gift we have received.
In total, there are some 3½ minutes of silence in
the Mass. The silence won’t add more
time to our celebration, but it will make our celebration more meaningful to
all.
Finally, we are hoping to incorporate more
reverence into our Mass. We show
reverence through our posture, our gesture and our movement. In the celebration of Mass we raise our hearts,
minds and voices to God, but we are creatures composed of body as well as
spirit and so our prayer is not confined to our minds, hearts and voices, but
is expressed by our bodies as well.
When our bodies participate in our prayer we pray
with our whole person. During Mass we
assume different postures: genuflecting, standing, kneeling, sitting, and we
are also invited to make a variety of gestures. These postures and gestures are
not merely ceremonial. They have profound meaning and, when done with
understanding, can enhance our personal participation in Mass.
In addition to serving as a vehicle for the prayer
of beings composed of body and spirit, the postures and gestures in which we
engage at Mass have another very important function. The Church sees in these
common postures and gestures both a symbol of the unity of those who have come
together to worship and a means of fostering that unity.
