Corpus Christi marked the beginning of the second year of the National Eucharistic Revival. This is a pastoral initiative of the bishops in the United States in response to the faith crisis we are facing in our country, where only three out of 10 Catholics believe Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist, according to a 2019 Pew Research Center study. The purpose of this second year is reviving the faith in the Eucharist in every parish. Four pastoral tasks are proposed: reinvigorate worship by paying attention to the ars celebrandi, offer opportunities to help parishioners meet with the Eucharistic Christ, provide robust faith formation, and send out the faithful to share their love for the Eucharist.
I’m devoting my next few columns to this Eucharistic revival. This time, I’d like to reflect on a fundamental aspect of the ars celebrandi, the art of celebrating Mass: being aware that the Eucharistic celebration is the prayer par excellence — from beginning to end. Mass is a prayer in which we worship God, we ask him for our needs, we give him thanks and we offer him our life in sacrifice. To the priest, celebrating with art means not just reading the prayers that appear in the missal, but praying them. It makes a big difference to internalize the texts from the missal and express them by elevating those words to God in the name of the whole assembly, rather than reading them mechanically with no emphasis, or even rushing. Quoting Romano Guardini, Pope Francis remarks in Desiderio Desideravi: “We must regain the sense for the ‘great’ style of praying, the will towards the existential in prayer too” (n. 50).
In this apostolic letter devoted to the liturgical formation of the people of God, the Holy Father surprises us when he stresses that, “we are inclined to think of it [the ars celebrandi] only in regards to ordained ministers carrying out the service of presiding. But in fact this is an attitude that all the baptized are called to live” (n. 51).
Just as it is for priests, for us, the lay faithful, celebrating the Mass with art means knowing to pray it — not only the Our Father and the creed, but also all the prayers. It’s not enough to hear only the Word that is proclaimed and the prayers the priest is praying. We must turn all the Mass into a personal prayer that, gathered in assembly, ends up becoming the prayer of the Church.
Instead of not paying attention while the priest prays and responding “Amen” without even knowing why, let’s focus on the prayers the priest prays: at the penitential act, the collect prayer, the prayer over the gifts, the preface, the Eucharistic prayer and the prayer after Communion. It is commendable to meditate on them from our missalette before every celebration so when we hear them during Mass, we can internalize those words and make them ours, through the voice of the priest. Only then will we make Mass a true prayer to adore God, to ask him, to give him thanks and to offer him our life in sacrifice.
“Like every art,” the ars celebrandi “requires consistent application,” Pope Francis points out in Desiderio Desideravi (n. 50). Practice makes the master.
Be passionate about our faith!