Autor: Sokolowski, Robert

Buch: Christian Faith & Human Understanding

Titel: Christian Faith & Human Understanding

Stichwort: Eucharistie; Kanon d. Messe (Präfation -> Sanctus, Struktur d. Konsekration, Zitat, Erzählung); Priester in persona Christi; Zitat - dramatische Schilderung

Kurzinhalt: The one sacrifice of Christ was primarily an action by the incarnate Son before the Father and it is eternally present to the Father, transcending the temporal limitations of worldly time ... The Mass would be seen as a sacred meal and not a sacrifice

Textausschnitt: [6] PRAYING THE CANON OF THE MASS

86a The priest celebrating Mass should try to fit his thoughts and sentiments to the words that he says. His internal dispositions should match the external expressions of the liturgy. In addition to the words, however, the structure of the Eucharist also provides a pattern to which the priest's thoughts and sentiments can be conformed. In this essay we will discuss several structural elements in the Canon of the Mass that should be kept in mind, by both the priest and the people, during the celebration of the Eucharist. (Fs)
The Preface and Sanctus

86b The Eucharistie Prayer begins with the Preface. The celebrant addresses the congregation and invites them to lift up their hearts and give thanks to the Lord our God. From that exchange onward, until its close at the Great Amen, the Eucharistie Prayer is addressed to God the Father. It is important for the priest and the people to keep this focus in mind. (Fs)
86c The Preface recalls the saving action of God and emphasizes some aspect of it that is appropriate for the feast of the day: Advent or Lent, the Christmas or Easter season, a commemoration of the Blessed Virgin or one of the saints. Then, the final sentences of the Preface place us, even while we remain here on earth, in the company of the angels and saints. It is with them that we recite the Sanctus, the prayer derived from the vision of the prophet Isaiah. In chapter 6 of the Book of Isaiah the song of praise, "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of hosts," is chanted by the seraphim; in the Preface it is presented as being sung by the heavenly host, by the angels and saints, and we join our voices with theirs. The Sanctus ends with a reference to the Messiah: "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord," drawing from the words of Christ in Matthew 23:39, which in turn are drawn from Psalm 118:26.The celestial glory of God has been brought to earth in the Incarnation, and God is manifest not only in the heavens but also on earth. (Fs) (notabene)

87a Thus, the Preface and especially the Sanctus draw us into the divine presence in heaven, in company with the angels and saints. The Sanctus should be said deliberately and its impact should remain with us throughout the Eucharistie Prayer. It provides the setting within which the entire Eucharist is to be celebrated. The Mass is our participation in the celestial liturgy. (Fs) (notabene)

Structure of the consecration

87b After the Sanctus, the Eucharistie Prayer continues with praise and petitions made to the Father. When the time comes for the consecration, however, the structure of the prayer changes in two ways. First, there is a change in literary form: the prayer gives way to the epiclesis, the calling down of the Holy Spirit, which in turn gives way to the institutional narrative, which in turn gives way to the words of consecration, the quoted words of Christ. The literary form changes from petition to invocation to narrative to quotation. Each of these steps should be distinctly registered when they are made, not only for the devotion of the celebrant but also for that of the congregation. They should not be rushed through or blurred into one another. (Fs)
87c Second, the grammatical form of the words being said by the priest changes. The we, the first-person plural of the prayers and epiclesis and narrative, gives way to the I, the first-person singular of the quoted words of Jesus during the words of institution. The two changes in linguistic structure, in the literary form and in the grammar of the pronouns, are expressions of deep theological aspects of the Eucharist. (Fs)

87d In both the faith of the Church and the structure of the rite, the Eucharist reenacts the Last Supper. The priest repeats the words of Christ over the bread: "Take this, all of you, and eat it: for this is my body, which will be given up for you." He also repeats the words of Christ over the wine: "Take this, all of you, and drink from it: for this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for all so that sins may be forgiven." Then, as a closure to these words, he says, "Do this in memory of me." In these words, and in the gestures he makes as he takes up the bread and the chalice, the priest reenacts the words and gestures of Christ at the Last Supper. (Fs)

88a However, the Last Supper was not just an event enclosed in itself. At the Last Supper, Jesus anticipated his passion and death, and in the faith of the Church the Eucharist ultimately reenacts not the Last Supper but the redemptive death of Christ. The Church sacramentally reenacts the sacrifice of the cross because Christ preenacted that sacrifice at the Last Supper. When the Church identifies her present action with that of Christ at the Last Supper, she also identifies her action with the sacrifice of the cross, because the Last Supper anticipated that sacrifice. The one sacrifice of Christ is presented through a structured manifold of appearances: as anticipated by Jesus and as remembered and reenacted by the Church. (Fs) (notabene)
88b This action of the Church, however, is carried on before the eternal Father in the setting provided by the Preface and Sanctus. The one sacrifice of Christ was primarily an action by the incarnate Son before the Father and it is eternally present to the Father, transcending the temporal limitations of worldly time and history: "But [Jesus], because he remains forever, has a priesthood that does not pass away. Therefore, he is always able to save those who approach God through him, since he lives forever to make intercession for them" (Hebrews 7:24—25). The Mass too is achieved before the eternal Father, and for that reason the Church's sacrifice can blend with that of Calvary. It is by virtue of its presence before God's eternity that the Mass overcomes the exclusions of "now" and "then" and present, past, and future that occur in respect to all historical events. In the Mass we enter into the same sacrifice achieved once and for all by Christ. The identity of the sacrifice achieved before the Father permits such a sacramental identity for us here on earth. (Fs)

Grammatical changes

88c The priest says the prayers of the Canon of the Mass in the first-person plural. In doing this he prays in the name of the Church. He says that "we" ask God to accept and bless the gifts we bring, that "we" offer these gifts for the holy catholic Church, and he asks that God remember all of "us" gathered before Him. The epiclesis, the invocation of the Holy Spirit on the gifts, is also expressed in the same grammatical form: the priest asks that God bless and approve "our" offering, and that he let it become for "us" the body and blood of the Lord. The institutional narrative is also said under the aegis of what "we" say, even though the pronoun is not explicitly used in it. (Fs)

89a In the words of institution, however, in "this is my body" and "this is the cup of my blood," the priest speaks in the first-person singular because he speaks no longer in the name of the Church but in the name of Christ. He allows Christ to be the speaker of the words; or, to put it more appropriately, Christ elevates the voice of the priest, through sacramental quotation, to become the vehicle for his own speech; the priest is enabled to speak in persona Christi. At this central point of her sacred liturgy, the Church renounces any verbal initiative of her own and lets the words of Christ himself achieve the sacred action, the reenactment of his own redemptive death. (Fs)

89b The priest does this while remaining within his own historical context, in his own world and time, with the cares and needs of the Church and the people around him; but while focused on the sacrifice of Calvary, he echoes the words and actions of the Last Supper, and he also stands within the celestial liturgy in which the Son, the Lamb of God slain for our sins, is eternally present to the Father. All these temporal and eternal dimensions are engaged in the words that are said and the gestures that are made during the institutional narrative and consecration. All these dimensions can be present to the minds of the priest and the people at this point in the liturgy. (Fs)

Quotation and not dramatic depiction

89c There is an interpretation of the Eucharistie Prayer that would draw us away from the context in which the liturgy is performed before God the Father: we may be inclined to think that the consecration is rather like a drama, a play performed before the congregation. We may even tend to think that the congregation is involved in the play, as depicting the disciples at the Last Supper: the priest takes the role of Christ and the congregation the role of the apostles. To this way of thinking, the words and gestures of the priest are seen as dramatic depictions of what Christ did and said at the Last Supper. (Fs) (notabene)

89d Such a dramatic interpretation of the Mass would not be appropriate. It is more fitting to think of the words and gestures of the priest as quotational, not dramatic. The priest quotes the words and gestures of Christ; he does not perform them in the manner of an actor. There are several reasons why quotation is a more fitting presentational form for the consecration than drama. (Fs)

90a First, to see the consecration as a drama would shift the focus of the liturgy from its relationship to God the Father to an axis between the priest and the people. The liturgy would cut away from its presence before God, which had been established in the Preface and Sanctus, and it would be centered on the dramatic impact of the priest acting before the congregation as audience or participants. Second, such an interpretation would highlight the Mass as representing the Last Supper, but would diminish its reenactment of the redemptive death of Christ. The Mass would be seen as a sacred meal and not a sacrifice. Third, this interpretation would place the liturgical emphasis on the person of the priest as the performer; drama highlights the present actor, whereas quotation takes us away from our present context and lets someone else speak through us. If Lawrence Olivier is depicting Hamlet, we think of Olivier, not primarily Hamlet, as taking center stage; but if we quote what someone says we subordinate our voice and especially the content of our speech to that other person. We let someone else speak through us and we subject our responsibility to his. Christ is more palpably the speaker when we take his words as being quoted than if we were to take the priest as dramatically representing him. Christ, the one who is quoted, speaks with the authority of the incarnate Son of God, as one who has the power to bring about what he declares in his words. Fourth, in the old rite the possibility did not arise that the priest was dramatically depicting the Last Supper before the congregation; the focus was entirely toward God the Father. (Fs)

90b The difference between quotation and dramatic depiction is also relevant to the prayerful attitude of the priest. If the priest sees his words and his gestures as quoting those of Christ, he can more appropriately see himself as the servant of both Christ and the Church, the person who is there to hand on to others the message and the achievement of Christ the Lord. If the priest were to see himself as a dramatic actor, his own persona and style would come to the fore in an inappropriate and probably intrusive way. His would be the primary agency. Quotation affords a salutary anonymity to the priest in his sacramental ministry. It also relieves the priest of a burden that actors have, that of finding ever new ways of making their performance interesting to their audience. The priest is not there to perform; he is there to accomplish the liturgy as it is written in the Roman Missal. He is there as the servant of Christ and the Church, a servant who becomes quotationally transparent in the words and gestures of the consecration. Christ is the ultimate minister of the Eucharist, and his activity is perceptibly manifest when his words and gestures are quoted at the center of the Church's offering. (Fs)

91a The Church's quotation of the words and gestures of Christ is done primarily before God the Father. Christ's speech comes to life in an address before the eternal Father, expressing the eucharistie action of the Son toward the Father. However, at the Last Supper the words of Christ were directed toward the disciples ("Take this, all of you, and eat it: for this is my body, which will be given up for you"). Certainly an overtone of such an address spoken by Christ, now directed toward the people, remains in the words of consecration, but the primary focus of the celebrant toward God the Father is never interrupted. When the priest recites the words of consecration, he will quite naturally tend to take them as being spoken to the faithful, but he should not let the theocentric focus of the Church's prayer be lost. (Fs)