A Tour through the Mass!

The Gospel

The heart of the Liturgy of the Word is the Proclamation of the Gospel.  And it is treated in such a way that this is made clear. 

The Gospel is preceded by the singing or at least saying of the Alleluia (or the Verse before the Gospel during Lent).  This is a hailing of the Gospel which is about to be read.

We stand for the proclamation of the Gospel, whereas we sit for the other readings.  We stand because we are about to place ourselves before the words which come to us from the Lord Jesus. 

The Gospel is introduced by a dialogue: The Lord be with you.  And with your spirit.  A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew, Mark, Luke or John.  Glory to you, O Lord.  And then at the end, we hear The Gospel of the Lord to which we respond: Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

Notice that all the people’s responses are said directly to the Lord.  We speak to the Lord whose words have just been spoken to us.  In the course of the centuries, Christians have discovered that listening to these words is to listen to the Lord himself, and that they have a power to enter into us and claim us as his disciples as they did the first disciples to whom they were spoken.  So, we speak of the Lord as being present by means of his word spoken to us in our present time.

We do not read the Gospel just to learn something about Jesus or about what it means to be one of his followers, but to place ourselves before him and let his words enter into us and bring about a reaction in us.  We enter into a dialogue with him!

It is also possible to have a special book for the gospel.  It is called the Gospel Book, that is a book containing the gospels and the gospels only.  When using a Gospel Book, it can be carried into the church in the entry procession and is placed on the altar from where it is taken during the singing of the Alleluia.  

During the course of the three-year cycle of the Readings, we read almost the whole of the four gospels.  During weekday Masses, we begin reading from the Gospel of St Mark, then when that is finished, we read the passages from Matthew and Luke which do not appear in Mark’s Gospel.  During Lent, Easter, Advent and Christmas, the weekday readings follow a pattern dictated by the seasons.  Passages from St John’s Gospel are often read in those times.

By Fr Frank O’Loughlin