A Tour through the Mass!

Further Presentation of the Bread and Wine

We began to talk about this part of the Mass in this column last week, but there is yet more to say about it.

We draw life from food – bread and wine – and we present them to begin the celebration of the Eucharist. This is not an added extra to the liturgy; it begins the Liturgy of the Eucharist. In doing this action we are presenting ourselves as human beings dependent for life on food.

And the blessing said over the bread and wine take this dependence further in recognizing that it is God who gives these gifts to us. The priest prays: “Blessed are you, Lord, God of all creation, through your goodness we have this bread to offer”. So, we present these gifts which already come from God and acknowledge that we are not only dependent on them for life but on God himself. This is a radically religious act.

We do this as the beginning of our being caught up into communion with Christ as the Eucharist continues but it is in this action that we present ourselves in readiness for that communion. We are preparing ourselves to present ourselves before the Father, saying with Christ: “Into your hands I commit my spirit”, that is to say my life, myself. We prepare to put ourselves into God’s hands.

The prayer over the gifts which have been brought up make the transition from the gifts presented to what those same gifts will become, for instance on the 18th Sunday of the Year, we pray: “Merciful Lord, make holy these gifts, and let our spiritual sacrifice make us an everlasting gift to you”.

For the above reasons, we need to do the Presentation of the bread and wine with greater liturgical emphasis. Should not the gifts be brought up with the bread on the paten and the wine already in the chalice? Should not the people bringing up the bread and wine go to the altar and put them into the hands of the priest, bread to one side of him and wine to the other?

The bringing up of the bread and wine is a ministry; it not an odd job!! People need to be prepared for this ministry as they do for other ministries and should we not have a roster for those who do it as we do for other ministries?

They do this in the name of the gathered People of God. They do this representing the whole People of God.

By Fr Frank O’Loughlin