Last week in this series of articles, we were looking at the Eucharistic Prayer as the part of the Mass that corresponds to Jesus saying the Blessing at the Last Supper. This week, I would like to go into the Eucharistic Prayer a little further.
As mentioned last week, the whole prayer is prayed in the first-person plural: ‘We”. It is never just the prayer of the priest but the prayer of the whole congregation which is prayed by the priest. Why is this so?
The point of the priest praying the prayer is that it is the prayer of Jesus which becomes our prayer. ‘Through Him, with Him and In Him’ we pray this prayer. The priest, whose role it is to do and to say what Jesus said and did at the Last Supper, says this prayer as a sign that it is indeed the prayer corresponding to the prayer of Jesus at the Last Supper.
We all take possession of this prayer by the ‘Amen’ which we say at the end. This ‘Amen’ has traditionally been called the great Amen, precisely because it gives our agreement and commitment to what is prayed during the prayer. The ‘Holy Holy’ only came into the Eucharistic Prayer in the Fourth Century which may seem a long time ago to us but it means that it was not there in the earliest centuries. The memorial acclamation, following the account of the Last Supper in the Eucharistic Prayer, only came into the liturgy after the Second Vatican Council, even though it was much more ancient in the Eastern Liturgies.
It has become the practice that the people sit down during the Eucharistic Prayer, which can mean that they sit back and leave this part to the priest thinking that it is his part. The instructions in the Missal actually suggest that the people should be standing during this prayer because it is their prayer and not just the priest’s.
And standing is the traditional posture for prayer in the liturgy. As God’s people we stand before him as his free and beloved people.
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Tony Santospirito says:
Thank you Frank. It seems to me that the blessing over the gifts is important because it repeats what Jesus did at the Last Supper in the presence of the disciples. Should it not therefore always be said aloud without any accompaniment from organ or choir, so we can all join in the prayer said by the celebrant?
John W. Joyce says:
Thank you Fr. Frank,
I always appreciate your commentary and explanation of the words we hear and use in our faith.