The Mass is designed to be the center of our lives
I’ve argued that you can tell from the fact that every Mass ends with us being sent out to do the mission of the Church, to be the Body of Christ in the world. But the Mass builds up to that final act, the Sending. Actually, the Mass builds up to the Communion Procession and then resolves down to the Sending.
Let’s look at the structure 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:
