Maternity B. V. M. Church at 9220 Old Bustleton Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19115 US - General Instructions of the Roman Missal

The celebration of Mass is a corporate act, an act of the whole assembly gathered for worship. All the particular ministries serve this corporate function (GIRM #27). In the Mass, the Church is joined to the action of Christ, "the high point of the work that in Christ God accomplishes to sanctify us and the high point of the worship that the human race offers to the Father, whom we adore through Christ, the Son of God, in the Holy Spirit" (#16). We are joined to this divine action through baptism, which incorporates us into the risen Christ. This action, which lies at the center of the whole Christian life (#16) is not initiated by us but by God acting in and through the Church as the body of the risen Christ. It becomes our action only to the extent that we give ourselves to this mystery of redemptive worship. The liturgy is designed to bring about in all those who make up the worshiping assembly "a participation in body and spirit that is conscious, active, full, and motivated by faith, hope, and charity (#18). To the extent that we are able to participate in this way, the work of redemption becomes personally effective for each of us. By such participation, the General Instruction says, we make the actions and prayers of the liturgy our own; we enter more fully into our personal communion with Christ’s redeeming act and perfect worship (see #54,55, etc.).

In the celebration of Mass the faithful are a holy people, a chosen people, a royal priesthood; they give thanks to God and offer the Victim not only through the hands of the priest but also together with him and learn to offer themselves. They should endeavor to make this clear by their deep sense of reverence for God and their charity toward brothers and sisters who share with them in the celebration (#95). They should become one body, whether by hearing the word of God, or joining in prayers and liturgical song, or above all by offering the sacrifice together and sharing together in the Lord’s table (#96).

Because the whole liturgy is a corporate act of the gathered assembly (GIRM #34; Catechism of the Catholic Church #1144), there are certain parts of the Mass that are to be done by the whole assembly, the congregation of the faithful and all the ministers, in order to express the corporate nature of this act. Through these actions, the entire congregation of the faithful joins itself to Christ in acknowledging the great things that God has done and in offering the sacrifice (#78). These acts include:

Listening with reverence to the readings of God’s word (GIRM #29);

Engaging in the dialogue of prayer through acclamations, greetings, and responses to spoken and sung prayers (#34-37) in a tone suitable to the text (#38);

Joining in an action through common postures and gestures (#42);

Participating in communal silence (#45);

Because of their baptismal dignity, letting themselves be included in the offering symbolized by incensation (#75);

Participating in the greeting of peace as a sign of ecclesial communion and love for each other (#82);

Participating in specific spoken prayers and other texts, namely;

during the penitential rite (#51);

the profession of faith (#67-68);

the general intercessions (#69);

the Lord’s Prayer (#81);

the prayer of humility before sacramental communion (#84);

Participating in liturgical song, because singing is a way of expressing both the corporate nature of the act of worship and the intense union to be achieved between God and the Church in Christ through the Holy Spirit. It is a union so intense and total that it is described as a union between lovers whose nature is best expressed vocally in song (#39).

Singing is also an act which unifies and focuses the individual (#39), thus encouraging that "participation in body and spirit that is conscious, active, full, and motivated by faith, hope, and charity" (#18). These songs and acclamations are normally to be sung, in whole or in part, by all the participants:

In the celebration of Mass we raise our hearts, minds and voices to God, but we are creatures composed of body as well as spirit and so our prayer is not confined to our minds, hearts and voices, but is expressed by our bodies as well. When our bodies participate in our prayer we pray with our whole person, a the embodied spirits God created us to be, and this engagement of our entire being in prayer helps us to pray with greater attention.

During Mass we assume different postures: standing, kneeling, sitting, and we are also invited to make a variety of gestures. These postures and gestures are not merely ceremonial. They have profound meaning and, when done with understanding, can enhance our personal participation in Mass. In fact, these actions are the way in which we engage our bodies in the prayer that is the Mass.

Each posture we assume at Mass underlines and reinforces the meaning of the action in which we are taking part at that moment in our worship. Standing is a sign of respect and honor, so we stand as the celebrant who represents Christ enters and leaves the assembly. This posture, from the earliest days of the Church, has been understood as the stance of those who are risen with Christ and seek the things that are above. When we stand for prayer we assume our full stature before God, not in pride, but in humble gratitude for the marvelous thing God has done in creating and redeeming each one of us. In Baptism we have been given a share in the life of God, and the posture of standing is an acknowledgment of this wonderful gift. We stand for the Gospel, the pinnacle of revelation, the words and deeds of the Lord, and the bishops of the United Stated have chosen standing as the posture to be observed in this country for the reception of Communion, the sacrament which unites us in the most profound way possible with Christ who, now gloriously risen from the dead, the cause of our salvation.

The posture of kneeling signified penance in the early Church: the awareness of sin casts us to the ground! So thoroughly was kneeling identified with penance that the early Christians were forbidden to kneel on Sundays and during the Easter Season when the prevailing spirit of the liturgy was that of joy and thanksgiving. In the Middle Ages kneeling came to signify the homage of a vassal to his lord, and more recently this posture has come to signify adoration. It is for this reason that the bishops of this country have chosen the posture of kneeling for the Eucharistic Prayer, after the Sanctus.

Sitting is the posture of listening and meditation, so the congregation sits for the pre-Gospel readings and may also sit for the period of meditation following Communion.

Gestures too involve our bodies in prayer. The most familiar of these is the Sign of the Cross with which we begin Mass and with which, in the form of a blessing, the Mass concludes. Because it was by his death on the cross that Christ redeemed humankind, we trace the sign of the cross on our foreheads, lips and hearts at the beginning of the Gospel. Fr. Romano Guardini, a scholar and professor of liturgy wrote of this gesture:

But there are other gestures that intensify our prayer at Mass. During the Confiteor the action of striking our breasts at the words through my own fault can strengthen my awareness that my sin is my fault. In the Creed we are invited to bow at the words which commemorate the Incarnation: by the power of the Holy Spirit he was born of the Virgin Mary and became man. This gesture signified our profound respect and gratitude to Christ who, though God, did not hesitate to come among us as a human being, sharing our human condition in order to save us from sin and restore us to friendship with God. This gratitude is expressed with even greater solemnity on the Feast of the Annunciation of the Lord and on Christmas when we genuflect at these words.

The Our Father is followed by the Exchange of Peace, the gesture by which we express, through our handclasp and the prayerful greeting of peace that accompanies it, that we are at peace, not enmity, with others. This exchange is symbolic. The persons near me with whom I share the peace signify for me, as I do for them, the broader community of the Church and all humankind.

Finally, with the new General Instruction, we are asked to make a sign of reverence, to be determined by the bishops of each country or region, before receiving Communion standing. The bishops of this country have determined that the sign which we will give before Communion is to be a bow, a gesture through which we express our reverence and give honor to Christ who comes to us as our spiritual food.

In addition to serving as a vehicle for the prayer of beings composed of body and spirit, the postures and gestures in which we engage at Mass have another very important function. The Church sees in these common postures and gestures both a symbol of the unity of those who have come together to worship and a mean of fostering that unity. We are not free to change these postures to suit our own individual piety, for the Church makes it clear that our unity of posture and gesture is an expression of our participation in the one Body formed by the baptized with Christ, our head. When we stand, kneel, sit, bow and sign ourselves in common action, we are giving unambiguous witness that we are indeed the Body of Christ, united in heart, mind and spirit.

Before the priest says the prayer over the offerings at Mass, he engages the assembly in a brief dialogue. For several decades after the Second Vatican Council, people in the United States sat for the invitation and response and then rose for the priest’s prayer. Now, all stand for the dialogue that precedes the prayer over the offerings.

In the dialogue, the priest invites the people to pray that God will accept the sacrifice. They respond, "My the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands, for the praise and glory of His name, for our good, and the good of all His Church."

The words are important. The Eucharistic Prayer is about to begin. The priest recites most of it alone, but all are expected to pray along with him. In this brief dialogue, the people acknowledge that the priest is offering the sacrifice, but they pray that it will benefit all present, and indeed all the church. The assembly speaks these words as a kind of prayer. Given the importance of this dialogue, the people stand as the priest addresses them in the words, "Pray, my brothers and sisters..." and they remain standing to respond.

At Masses where incense is used, the assembly may be incensed during the preparation of the gifts. In this case, the people stand while they are being incensed. They remain standing for the invitation and response before the prayer over the offerings.

Standing before the prayer over the offerings was common in some countries before the revision of the Mass in 2002. This clarification helps unify the posture of people throughout the world in the sacred moments before he sacrifice is offered in the Eucharistic Prayer.

"When receiving Holy Communion, the communicant bows his or her head before the Sacrament as a gesture of reverence and receives the Body of the Lord from the minister...When Holy Communion is received under both kinds (Bread and Cup) the sign of reverence is also made before receiving the Precious Blood" (General Instruction of the Roman Missal 160). Communion is the climax of the Mass. The Eucharist is the summit, the greatest experience of our life, and it is the source, the origin of all we do and are. It calls forth our belief in God and our service to the world. As Catholics, we believe that the Communion we share is the Sacramental presence of Jesus and that Christ remains with us as we go forth to love our neighbor. At God’s invitation, we come to this table with joy, faith and reverence. As a sign of the reverence we owe this Sacrament, each of us bows our head before we receive. This sign of reverence is similar to the bow of the head made at Mass whenever we say the name of the Trinity, Jesus, Mary or saint being honored. It differs from the profound bow. We make a profound bow from the waist when passing by the altar. We also make a profound bow during the creed at the words "by the power of the Holy Spirit." In the past, when approaching Communion, some have made a profound bow, a head bow or a genuflection. Others have made the Sign of the Cross after Communion. For the sake of uniformity, the custom in the United States is now a bow of the head before receiving Communion.