Part VII: The Preface and Sanctus

The Lord be with you...and also with you. Lift up your hearts...We lift them up to the Lord. Let us give thanks to the Lord Our God...it is right to give him thanks and praise. This exchange, found in very ancient texts of the liturgy in both East and West, invites us into the central part of the mass. We are called to lift up our hearts--they are already raised up to God, but now we lift them up in a new way, with a new effort, with a new insistence. We lift up our hearts to God as we lift up our prayers to Him--yearning for Him, striving for Him, who will deign to reach down to us, even to come down among us, as He came down so long ago at Nazareth. The uplifting of our hearts is not simply an emotion, but it is a choice we make to be joyful before him, to dedicate ourselves to him.

We give thanks to God, both for the great wonders He has already wrought for us, and for the great gift that He is about to make to us. There is nothing more right for us to do--we were created to give praise to God, and we ought to thank him for every good thing we have. And so this prayer, known as the preface, continues thanking God for the many good things He has done for us, thanking Him and giving Him praise... Truly it is right and just, always and everywhere to give you praise. Indeed, because there are so many things for which to give thanks, the preface changes according to the season and the feast. They thank God for the wonderful works of creation and redemption, for the gift of the Holy Spirit, for the graces that He has given us through the saints, but most of all, they thank Him for that greatest gift that He has given us--the gift of His Son, which is the price of our redemption and the fullest reason that we are able to give thanks to God. Indeed, our thanks to God and praise of Him are so great that we are swept up into the celestial hymn of the cherubim and seraphim; into the eternal worship of God that is the heavenly liturgy; into that song of praise that Isaiah reports hearing on the lips of the angels: Holy, Holy, Holy Lord... The prophet Isaiah first tells of this hymn, reporting in chapter 6 of his book,

"I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, with the train of his garment filling the temple. Seraphim were stationed above; each of them had six wings: with two they veiled their faces, with two they veiled their feet, and with two the hovered aloft. 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts!' they cried one to the other. 'All the earth is filled with his glory!' At the sound of that cry, the frame of the door shook and the house was filled with smoke."

We are before that same glory--the Lord of Hosts whom we are approaching in the mass. Isaiah feared that he would die, coming before Him in his unworthiness. The Cherubim veil their faces and their feet, because they are not worthy to appear in the divine presence. And we, conscious of our own unworthiness, take up their song, joining in the praises of the Lord, the song of heavenly worship which we are continuing and anticipating upon earth. Even as the angels and the saints continually sing this song before the throne of God, so we also sing it, soon to stand before Him, present on the altar, even as they stand before Him. But if the angels veil themselves out of modesty before the presence of the Lord, so also must we, not only dressing our bodies with all modesty and respect, but also seeking to appear before him with clean hearts and pure souls. For this reason, churches usually offer the sacrament of penance on Saturday, before the Sunday mass, so that we may not be disgraced by appearing before God with our souls dressed in indecent garments. Still, unworthy and stained as we all are, we come before Him, not because we can do so by any merit of our own, but because, like the master at the feast, He has sent His servants out into the byways and hedgerows to call us in, and we came prepared as well as we can, trusting in His condescension to allow us to appear before Him.

Three times we call the Lord Holy, saying him to be the sum of all holiness, and we call Him the God of power and might; of hosts; of armies. We bring up these metaphors of war to show that all human power, however great, sits in the hand of the all-mighty, to stand or fall according to His will. In God, holiness and power are one in His perfection. His holiness has nothing of weakness in it, and His strength has no immoderation or clumsiness. Heaven and earth are filled with His glory, as His garment filled the temple. All God's works give testimony to His perfection, His wonderfulness; His glory. The perfect balance that in God is the fullness of all things good can be seen lying beneath all of His creation and holding it in being. This is God's glory--his goodness and presence--that call for us to glorify Him with our lives and our tongues.

Hosanna in the highest. This chant was called out before the living God in the Jewish temple. Children sang it before Him as He, Jesus Christ, entered Jerusalem in triumph. The Church has carried this cry through the ages and we repeat it now before Him. It is a cry of joy and triumph, but also a petition--Hosanna means save us, we beseech thee--and as we come before all of the riches of the glory of God, we know that He offers a share to us, as He helps us to receive it. We can receive His salvation--He offers it to us and holds us up to receive it. We need only cry out with our tongues and our lives: Hosanna! Lord save us!

©Theodore Book, 2007, reprinted with permission