Many people seem to believe that the Mass is something we take time out for once a week. We fulfill our “Sunday obligation”. That’s not it at all. It is not a time out.
The Mass is designed to be the center of the life of discipleship. You might think if it as similar to a sales seminar wherein our leader, Jesus, speaks to us, reminding us of all we were taught and encouraging us to do our part. Then we are nourished for the job and sent out to be his ministers in the world.
Everything we do as disciples, everything we do in the large and small moments of our day-to-day lives, should flow from our celebration of the Mass and lead back to it. That is why we celebrate every week.
You can tell that the Mass is designed to be the center of our lives from the fact that every Mass ends with us being sent out to participate in the mission of the Church, to be the Body of Christ in the world.
Involvement in the mission of the Church is what the life of discipleship is all about. We are baptized into the ministry of Christ and are to continue his ministry in the world today.
You could say that the Mass builds up to that final act of sending-out, but actually, the Mass builds up to the Communion Procession and then resolves down to the Sending. Let’s look at the flow of the Mass.
- In the Opening Rites, we gather as a community of disciples, gathered with the Lord.
- In the Liturgy of the Word we dialogue with the Lord. We hear the Word proclaimed and reflect on how God’s Word touches into our day-to-day lives before we open our words of prayer in the General Intercessions.
- Then, in the Liturgy of the Eucharist, we offer sacrifice in response to God’s speaking. We ask the Holy Spirit to make our Lord’s sacrifice of 2,000 years ago present to our day and time and we join the offering of our lives to his to make one gift to the Father.
- In Communion, we are nourished to live out our offering during the week as we commit to it with our “amen”.
- Then the deacon, or priest if there is no deacon, dismisses us to live out our offering in the mission field of our day-to-day lives.
- We return the following week to give our Lord the fruits of our work in the world and to make offering for the new week.
For a free, reproducible brochure on the Mass, click HERE
The elements of the Mass, how they work together and how the liturgy flows is discussed in more detail in my book. It is available on Amazon. See the link below:
