Part IX: The Canon

(Although there are several different options for the Eucharistic Prayer, this article will speak about the first one, which is also the oldest. Most of what is said is also true for the others, but perhaps in a somewhat different order.)

On our knees before the altar, we see the priest begins the great prayer of the canon, the most ancient and central part of the mass. Every ear is attuned, ever heart set on the classical eloquence flowing in measured phrase from the lips of the priest. Beneath the balanced flow of the words is a rising tide of prayer and fervor leading to the moment of the consecration. The priest is calling upon God, asking him to accept and bless the gifts that he offers up, asking Him to receive the sacrifices that we have laid upon the altar the sacrifices of bread and wine, but also the sacrifice of our prayers and sufferings which we have offered in spirit. He offers our sacrifices for the Church, asking the Lord's protection for His bride upon earth, in the unity of all her members. With the harmony of right order, he names the members of the Church for whom he prays for our pope, for our bishop, and for all true and faithful believers.

These sacrifices of ours become intertwined with the great sacrifice of Christ the sacrifice offered once and for all upon the altar of the cross on Calvary, and made present anew here upon this altar. God has created us in such a way that we need to respond to Him that our well-being and salvation depend on calling upon Him. He has given us the grace that if we choose to live our lives in union with Him, we ourselves come to share in His goodness and holiness. And he has allowed us, through prayer, to draw others up toward Him along with ourselves. For this reason, the priest asks the Lord to remember those who are dear to us. Through our prayer, they are tied into the great goodness and holiness that our Lord offers us in the mass. There is a moment for the priest to name those among the living that he would especially like to pray for, and it is a chance for us, also, silently to present to God the names of those for whom we seek His grace. Perhaps someone is facing a difficult time in their life, or has fallen away from the goodness of God's Church, and is in special need.

We are not alone in offering up our prayers. Not only are we united with the priest and with those standing around us, but we are also joined by the saints in heaven, who always look down upon us with their share in God's loving mercy. We call to mind some of these great witnesses who are pleading for us before the throne of God. First of all, we mention our mother, and Christ's mother, Mary, who is both more close to God and more close to us because she carried Him in her womb, and followed Him perfectly, without sin. We recall Joseph, her spouse, who is also our foster-father if we are adopted brothers and sisters of Christ. Then we mention all twelve of the apostles, the means chosen by God to pass the gospel on to us. They were faithful to their mission, and died as martyrs to the truth of the Gospel. That truth has been handed down to us through the successors of Peter, and so the prayer names some of the first popes through whom we have received the faith Linus, Cletus, Clement, Sixtus, Cornelius. The great martyrs also stand with us in our prayer Cyprian, Lawrence, Chrysogonus, John and Paul, Cosmas and Damian. Indeed all the saints surround us and join us in offering our prayers to God. Their prayers are constantly calling down God's mercy upon us, even as we benefit from their examples and the merits won by their holy lives.

Having invoked the whole crowd of witnesses that surround God's altar in heaven, and who also surround the altar before us, the attention of heaven and earth is focused upon the altar, upon the priest, upon what is about to take place. The priest prays that the bread and wine that he offers up on behalf of all may be pleasing to God, and that through what is about to happen we may be saved from hell and fully united with him. He extends his hands over the offerings, calling down the Holy Spirit, asking that what he offers may be made fit to become the body and blood of Christ.

The words that the priest speaks now are not his own, nor even the words of the Church, but instead the very words of Christ, and his actions are Christ's. It is as if the priest standing at the altar and our high priest in heaven were somehow confused, so that one could not tell who was speaking the words. This church in which we now stand becomes tied to that upper room in Jerusalem, so that as we kneel here, we might as easily be kneeling there, watching our Lord standing before His apostles. The priest and Christ takes bread into his hands, and raises his eyes unto his Father in heaven. Surely that gaze of Christ in the cenaculum pierced the heavens, resting finally upon His Father. He calls out: this is my body. Surely the earth silently shakes. Angels bow in reverence. The saints veil their eyes. Christ is again upon the earth.

The host rises from the altar in the hands of the priest, like the Sun of Justice rising in the East. Our gaze is transfixed as we stare into the brilliance of the new dawn, looking at our Savior come to us. Looking at him, we are looking, as it were, through a window into heaven. The light of the blessed streams around us, rolling out with streams of grace. We are filled with a longing for that true homeland of ours where we, in the company of all the saints, will worship God in perfect joy forever. As the host descends, we are again in the upper room, again Christ is before us, taking the chalice, offering it to His Father. Again His words ring out "this is the cup of my blood." It is now complete. We are in awed stillness as the very God of heaven rests before us, offering Himself again for our salvation.

©Theodore Book, 2007, reprinted with permission