Letters to My Barber #3

Dear Lou,

Thanks for your note. I know just what you mean; sometimes it does seem like a lot of people arrive well after Mass begins. I have a couple of friends like that; they usually arrive before the gospel but not too much. They really are good people who take their faith seriously, but...I guess that some people are simply born too be late. But there are also some folks who simply can't throw off some of the habits they picked up in the "old church".

In the "old days" people were sometimes told that as long as they got to Mass by the time the bread and wine were taken up to the altar, they had fulfilled their Sunday obligation. The trouble was, that made it seem as if whatever came before the offering of the gifts didn't matter. Not true, of course, but maybe we focused so much on Christ's presence in the Eucharist bread and wine, that we tended to forget that He comes to us in other parts of the Mass as well. Jesus did tell us that whenever two or more were gathered in His name, He would be there in our midst. So the Introductory Rites (the entrance song and greeting, the penance rite, the Gloria, and the opening prayer) are not mere formalities that don't have to be taken too seriously. They are symbolic actions and they point to something very real that's happening. What is it? The gathering together of God's people into a worshiping community prepared to listen to His word and celebrate His saving action.

If we want to get the full flavor of the symbolism, we have to go back to the ancient Greek cities where our Christian faith first took root. When ever the citizens of a Greek City like Athens or Corinth had a civic duty to perform, such as voting for leaders or deciding on peace or war, they would gather from their farms or shops at an appropriate place, and this assembly of citizens was called an "ekklesia"-the visible manifestation of the Athenian state, for the state was nothing else but the people gathered to act as one. So it was with the early Christians. When they gathered to worship God, they became the visible manifestation of the People of God. They too called this gathering "ekklesia," a word which became "church" in English. That's why the Introductory Rites are important. In them we are gathered as church, becoming the Body of Christ made visible. We are placed in a suitable state to listen to God's word and to celebrate the Eucharist properly.

More on this next month. Peace.

Yours in Christ, John Dealy.