Saying the Mass ... with Intention
The Mass is efficacious for many things, that it is a powerful tool within the armoury of the Church. It is not simply a memorial supper, but an act of transformation in which the bread and wine, offered on the Altar, become the body and blood of Christ. And if the bread and wine are transformed, then so to are those who participate and receive the Mass.
If it is transformative on the human level, then it can also transform situations, which is why the Mass is often offered with an Intention, that is on behalf of a person (living or deceased), a place or situation. The main Mass of Sunday for instance is always offered for the needs of the Parish, other low Masses celebrated during the week might be offered for different Intentions.
Normally I wouldn't be celebrating a low Mass during the week, but this week I will be offering two: the first was today, and was for a member of our community going to a selection conference for ministry. It was said for her, for the other candidates, and for the assessors, that they might be guided by the Holy Spirit. Tomorrow I will be saying a Requiem Mass for a member of the Purfleet community who died over the weekend. Requiem Masses are said for the dead, either close to the time of death, or on the anniversary of death, and are said for the peace and repose of the soul of the deceased.
Dom Gregory Dix, an Anglican Benedictine monk and liturgical scholar in his magnum opus on the Mass, its structure and history had this to say about the efficacy (the transformative nature) of the Mass. It is perhaps the best, if not the most famous piece of writing in Anglicanism about the Mass, and its meaning:
'Was ever another command so obeyed? For century after century, spreading slowly to every continent and country and among every race on earth, this action has been done, in every conceivable human circumstance, for every conceivable human need from infancy and before it to extreme old age and after it, from the pinnacle of earthly greatness to the refuge of fugitives in the caves and dens of the earth. Men have found no better thing than this to do for kings at their crowning and for criminals going to the scaffold; for armies in triumph or for a bride and bridegroom in a little country church; for the proclamation of a dogma or for a good crop of wheat; for the wisdom of the Parliament of a mighty nation or for a sick old woman afraid to die; for a schoolboy sitting an examination or for Columbus setting out to discover America; for the famine of whole provinces or for the soul of a dead lover; in thankfulness because my father did not die of pneumonia; for a village headman much tempted to return to fetish because the yams had failed; because the Turk was at the gates of Vienna; for the repentance of Margaret; for the settlement of a strike; for a son for a barren woman; for Captain so-and-so wounded and prisoner of war; while the lions roared in the nearby amphitheatre; on the beach at Dunkirk; while the hiss of scythes in the thick June grass came faintly through the windows of the church; tremulously, by an old monk on the fiftieth anniversary of his vows; furtively, by an exiled bishop who had hewn timber all day in a prison camp near Murmansk; gorgeously, for the canonisation of S. Joan of Arc—one could fill many pages with the reasons why men have done this, and not tell a hundredth part of them. And best of all, week by week and month by month, on a hundred thousand successive Sundays, faithfully, unfailingly, across all the parishes of Christendom, the pastors have done this just to make the plebs sancta Dei—the holy common people of God.'
My prayer at each Mass is that through it we might each be made 'the plebs sancta Dei', that is 'the holy common people of God'.
If it is transformative on the human level, then it can also transform situations, which is why the Mass is often offered with an Intention, that is on behalf of a person (living or deceased), a place or situation. The main Mass of Sunday for instance is always offered for the needs of the Parish, other low Masses celebrated during the week might be offered for different Intentions.
Normally I wouldn't be celebrating a low Mass during the week, but this week I will be offering two: the first was today, and was for a member of our community going to a selection conference for ministry. It was said for her, for the other candidates, and for the assessors, that they might be guided by the Holy Spirit. Tomorrow I will be saying a Requiem Mass for a member of the Purfleet community who died over the weekend. Requiem Masses are said for the dead, either close to the time of death, or on the anniversary of death, and are said for the peace and repose of the soul of the deceased.
Dom Gregory Dix, an Anglican Benedictine monk and liturgical scholar in his magnum opus on the Mass, its structure and history had this to say about the efficacy (the transformative nature) of the Mass. It is perhaps the best, if not the most famous piece of writing in Anglicanism about the Mass, and its meaning:
'Was ever another command so obeyed? For century after century, spreading slowly to every continent and country and among every race on earth, this action has been done, in every conceivable human circumstance, for every conceivable human need from infancy and before it to extreme old age and after it, from the pinnacle of earthly greatness to the refuge of fugitives in the caves and dens of the earth. Men have found no better thing than this to do for kings at their crowning and for criminals going to the scaffold; for armies in triumph or for a bride and bridegroom in a little country church; for the proclamation of a dogma or for a good crop of wheat; for the wisdom of the Parliament of a mighty nation or for a sick old woman afraid to die; for a schoolboy sitting an examination or for Columbus setting out to discover America; for the famine of whole provinces or for the soul of a dead lover; in thankfulness because my father did not die of pneumonia; for a village headman much tempted to return to fetish because the yams had failed; because the Turk was at the gates of Vienna; for the repentance of Margaret; for the settlement of a strike; for a son for a barren woman; for Captain so-and-so wounded and prisoner of war; while the lions roared in the nearby amphitheatre; on the beach at Dunkirk; while the hiss of scythes in the thick June grass came faintly through the windows of the church; tremulously, by an old monk on the fiftieth anniversary of his vows; furtively, by an exiled bishop who had hewn timber all day in a prison camp near Murmansk; gorgeously, for the canonisation of S. Joan of Arc—one could fill many pages with the reasons why men have done this, and not tell a hundredth part of them. And best of all, week by week and month by month, on a hundred thousand successive Sundays, faithfully, unfailingly, across all the parishes of Christendom, the pastors have done this just to make the plebs sancta Dei—the holy common people of God.'
My prayer at each Mass is that through it we might each be made 'the plebs sancta Dei', that is 'the holy common people of God'.
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