The season of Advent is now upon us! And as I prayed about what sort of homily series I should give this year, the thought occurred to me that what we always need more of, but never seem to have the time for — is more teaching about the Mass itself!

So, that’s what we’re going to do. For the next 4 Sundays of Advent, we’ll be taking a tour through the various parts of the Mass — the “Mass in Slow-Motion” as Msgr. Ronald Knox once put it. We’ll dig into why we do what we do, why we say what we say… and hopefully we will all come out the other side able to participate even more fully in the Liturgy together.

Advent is the perfect time of year to do this actually, because what is the season of Advent preparing us for?

CHRISTMAS!

That’s right!

And the word “Christmas” literally means: “Christ’s Mass.”

So what better time of year to talk about the Mass than ChristMass?!?!

Christians complain all the time about how the world tries to take Christ out of Christmas… Well, this homily series is all about keeping MASS in Christmas.

Every single mass, if you think about it, is like a little Christmas. If what we celebrate in the Mass is the arrival — the Advent — of the presence of Jesus Christ — that God Himself really comes to us at every Mass and SPEAKS to us in the Scriptures in the Liturgy of the Word, and then MAKES HIMSELF TRULY PRESENT on THIS altar in the Liturgy of the Eucharist, then yeah…

Every Mass really is like a little celebration of Christmas!

So, without further ado, let’s go ahead and dive into our four-part “Tour of the Mass!”

For this First Sunday of Advent, I’d like to discuss from the outset how we ought to prepare for mass. We’ll then finish today’s meditation by zooming in on the entrance and introductory rites of the liturgy to see how they also prepare us in a deep way for the arrival of Jesus.

First, our preparation before Mass.

We each need to come to mass… well-prepared.

Jesus says in our gospel today: “You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.”

Advent is all about preparation — a preparation for the arrival of the Son of Man at Christmas. But we also need to prepare ourselves to receive Jesus at every single Mass.

And this preparation needs to begin… at home!

Before ever leaving the house for church!!!! 

How do we do that? Well, here are some ideas:

  • You can read the mass readings so you’re more familiar with them
  • You can go to confession if you need to before receiving Communion
  • We can avoid distractions as much as possible so our minds are not cluttered and divided when we arrive at church
  • We can wear our Sunday-best out of respect for the Lord and a witness to others.
  • We arrive on time, we kneel down and pray before mass in silence instead of chit-chatting and catching up with people sitting next to us…
  • We come up with a specific intention we’d like to pray for at this mass…
  • We keep the “one hour” fast — because as Canon law say: “Whoever is to receive the blessed Eucharist is to abstain for at least one hour before Holy Communion from all food and drink, with the sole exception of water and medicine.”

These are all ways we can prepare to receive our Lord… We make room for Him.

Next — it’s time for the procession. Now, we might think of the procession as exclusively the Cross and candles and altar servers and lector and finally…the priest beginning at the back of the church in the narthex…

But really, the procession (in a certain sense) begins as soon as YOU start coming to church on Sunday!

When you’re loading the car up with kids.

When you’re driving to mass.

As you park your car.

When you enter into the church and cross yourself with holy water.

When you genuflect to the Tabernacle before taking your seat.

Long before the little bell rings and the music starts — all of these actions are part of the procession — the Body of Christ moving towards the celebration of the Eucharist and coming together one by one to this place.

Our first reading from the prophet Isaiah used that gorgeous image of “all nations” streaming toward the “mountain of the Lord’s house.”

“In days to come, the mountain of the LORD’s house shall be established as the highest mountain and raised above the hills. All nations shall stream toward it; many peoples shall come and say: ‘Come, let us climb the LORD’s mountain, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may instruct us in his ways, and we may walk in his paths.’” 

This streaming toward the Lord’s mountain is an excellent image of the procession. You are streaming toward the mountain of the Lord and gathering here in this holy place of worship, taking your places in the pews with anticipation of what… (or rather WHO)… is coming. 

“Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord,” our psalm said today… “To it the tribes go up, the tribes of the LORD. According to the decree for Israel, to give thanks to the name of the LORD.”

That’s why we come here at all! To give thanks to God! To offer Eucharist…

Then comes the official procession. The incense is lit. The bell rings. The congregation stands up. The entrance antiphon is sung. And then the processional cross begins to lurch down the aisle, flanked by candles. 

Other servers and lectors come next.

And finally…at the end of the procession…comes the priest.

It’s necessary to point out that with any procession, the “most important person” actually always comes last — so we can say that the procession reaches its climax when the priest finally enters in…

But we’re not welcoming “Fr Anthony” or any other particular priest for that matter…No…I’m actually nothing. I’m not important at all…

We are standing and welcoming the entrance of Jesus Christ, our Great High Priest Himself!

It’s all about JESUS. It’s JESUS who is streaming towards the Mountain of the Lord. It’s JESUS who is arriving and entering into the Sanctuary on our behalf. It’s JESUS who is about to offer once again the PERFECT, ONCE-FOR-ALL Sacrifice of His Life. The beautiful vestments the priest wears are not meant to draw attention to the man under the vestments, but rather to hide him… to help us see JESUS approaching the altar instead.

As Monsignor Charles Pope puts it: “The congregation is welcoming Jesus who has taught that when two or three gather in his name that he is there in the midst of them. The priest represents Jesus and acts in the person of Christ. Therefore […] Jesus Christ is walking our aisle and we welcome him with a hymn of praise!”

He’s carrying us with him into the sanctuary — “Come, let us climb the LORD’s mountain, to the house of the God”

What is this “LORD’s mountain” anyways?

It’s the ALTAR!

We stream towards… the altar!

We stream towards this rock, this mountain — we climb up the mountain, climb up the stairs into this sanctuary — and we say: 

“Let us climb the Lord’s Mountain… to the house of the God of Jacob that He may instruct us in His ways, and we may walk in His paths.”

What’s the first thing the priest does when he arrives into the sanctuary after genuflecting to Christ’s Presence in the Tabernacle?

He kisses the altar!

He kisses this place of sacrifice — Where our salvation happens!  At a symbolic level, the altar represents Christ Himself. Jesus is at the same time Priest, Victim, and the Altar of Sacrifice. So the priest, when he kisses the altar — is really kissing Jesus. 

We then might incense the altar… processing around it. Showing it due reverence. The music swells…

All of this is a symbolic, ritualistic way of building up our holy expectation, our wonder, and our awe: The Mass has begun. Jesus has arrived within the sanctuary. All heaven and earth are full of his glory. This is the advent of Immanuel Himself: 

God-is-with-us.

Then the priest solemnly begins… in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Our prayer is always made from WITHIN THE TRINITY. It’s our deepest identity now.

We are the community of baptized believers — baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit! We’ve been given a share — a participation — in the Trinitarian Divine Life!

“The LORD be with you.”

“And with your spirit.”

What does that exchange mean?

Well, it’s not just a simple greeting — it’s not just me saying “Good morning” Or “Hey, how y’all doing.”

No… It’s actually a declaration:

The Lord IS WITH YOU… right now! He’s here with us!!!! He has arrived!

And your reply is just as important and mysterious:

“And with your spirit.”

As Abbot Jeremy Driscoll says: “The people are addressing the ‘spirit’ of the priest. They are saying in effect ‘Be the priest for us now,’ aware that there is only one priest, Christ Himself.”

The priest then immediately leads everyone through the Penitential Act:

“Brothers and sisters, let us acknowledge our sins, and so prepare ourselves to celebrate the sacred mysteries.”

There’s that Advent theme of preparation again! “You must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.”

How do we prepare ourselves to encounter the Living God?

By quickly acknowledging that we are not worthy to be here at all. We tell God honestly where we have fallen short. We confess our sins. We humbly admit, as St Paul said in our second reading today that “it is the hour now for us to awake from sleep.” That the day is at hand — the Mass has begun! — So, we tell God pointblank that we want to “throw off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light!”

“I confess to almighty God, and to you my brothers and sisters… that I have GREATLY sinned.” This prayer is called the “confiteor” which is just Latin for “I confess.”

What we are doing? We are taking full responsibility for our sins: “Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault.”

Dr. Edward Sri teaches that “we strike our breasts when we say the words ‘through my fault’ [because] the action of striking the breast is an ancient biblical expression of deep sorrow and contrition. It is what the multitudes at the Cross did after Jesus died. They left Calvary in mourning, ‘beating their breasts.’”

After the confiteor, the priest prays: “May Almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us our sins, and bring us to everlasting life.”

And the people all respond — AMEN!

Then come those ancient Greek words: Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison! Lord have mercy… Christ have mercy! 

These words are basically saying: “Lord, soothe me, comfort me, take away my pain, show me your steadfast love” How beautiful! — God wants to comfort us and heal us… He doesn’t want to be harsh with us…This gives us boldness and confidence to continue worshipping!!!

Ordinarily, the Gloria would follow — but we omit that song during the Advent season. We hold it back until we come at last to that glorious night when we recall how the host of angels at the birth of Jesus appeared to those shepherds, singing: “GLORIA IN EXCELSIS DEO!”

But for now, we keep our lips tight shut. We move right along. And the Priest, with hands joined, says (or sings): Let us pray. 

What follows is called the “Collect” prayer. 

It’s a chance for ALL the prayers of the people to be collected… gathered up together and united into one… And so, we pray in silence with the Priest for a moment. And then with hands extended — opened up wide to present ALL of our prayers up to God — the priest says the Collect prayer, at the end of which the people acclaim: Amen.

This concludes the introductory rites… We take our seats as a sign that we’re now prepared and ready to hear the Voice of God speak to us in the Liturgy of the Word. 

And with that, we conclude our reflection for now as well. We’ll continue next Sunday on our journey towards Christmas… our journey deeper and deeper into Christ’s Mass.