16. The Eucharistic Prayer
The Eucharistic Prayer or Canon of the Mass is the central prayer of the
entire celebration. Most Catholics have been made aware from their
earliest days that during the Eucharistic Prayer the bread and wine are
transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ. What many Catholics are
not aware of, however, is that the Eucharistic Prayer is about more than
adoring Christ who becomes present in our midst.
The Church tells us that liturgy (and the Mass is the highpoint and
heart of liturgy) is the action of Christ the priest and His Body, the
Church. In the celebration of Mass, during the Eucharistic Prayer, not
only does Christ become present, body and blood, soul and divinity,
under the forms of bread and wine, but Christ’s saving action, His
passion, death and resurrection are once again enacted and offered to
the Father by Christ Himself in the person of the priest, and by all
present.
This is a truth of enormous significance! This action of Christ which
brought about our redemption from sin and eternal death, offered once
for all on Calvary, becomes present again for us, here and now, in this
time and place, so that we can join in Christ’s perfect offering and can
ourselves participate in His perfect worship.
Read carefully any of the Eucharistic Prayers. You will see that prayer
is offered, not to Christ, but to the Father: “ Father, you are holy
indeed ...”; “Father, we bring you these gifts ...”; “Father, we ask you
.…” It is worship offered to the Father by Christ as it was at the
moment of His passion, death and resurrection, but now it is offered
through the priest acting in the person of Christ, and it is offered as
well by all of us who are part of Christ’s Body, the Church. This is the
action of Christ’s Body, the Church at Mass.
When the priest prays this prayer he prays “we bring you these gifts”;
“we ask you ...”; “we offer.” That “we” signifies that all the baptized
present at this Eucharistic celebration make this offering in union with
Christ, pray this prayer in union with Him. And what is most important,
we do not offer Christ alone; we are called to offer ourselves, our
lives, our individual efforts to grow more like Christ and our efforts
as a community of believers to spread God’s Word and to serve God’s
people, to the Father in union with Christ through the hands of the
priest. Most wonderful of all, although our offering is in itself
imperfect, joined with the offering of Christ it becomes perfect praise
and thanksgiving to the Father.
And so, during the Eucharistic Prayer at Mass, we have more to do than
to look forward to the moment of consecration and remain there while the
prayer of the priest continues. Before the consecration we join in the
prayer of praise and thanksgiving to the Father known as the Preface and
affirm that praise and thanksgiving in our singing of the Holy, Holy,
Holy. Following the Consecration we join together in the Memorial
Acclamation which proclaims our common faith in Christ’s real presence
and is an acclamation expressing our gratitude to Christ for His
wonderful gift of salvation. But then our prayer moves on and we are
called to offer Christ, and ourselves with Christ to the Father: “We
offer to you, Father, this holy and living sacrifice...” and to pray
with the priest that “we who are nourished by His Body and Blood may be
filled with the Holy Spirit and become one body, one spirit in
Christ...”; we then join our prayers with the prayers of the Blessed
Virgin Mary and all the saints for our Holy Father the Pope, our bishops
and clergy and all God’s people, living and dead. At the conclusion of
the Eucharistic Prayer the priest sums up all that has gone before:
“Through Him [Christ], with Him [Christ], in Him [Christ] in the unity
of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours, almighty Father,
forever and ever.” And we who are privileged to make our own offering
through, with and in Christ, respond with the most important acclamation
of the Mass, the great AMEN by which we profess the action of Christ to
be our action as well.