Over the summer, we are looking at a section from the Canon of the Mass each week, to learn what the ‘law of praying’ has to teach us about what we believe. You can find the previous posts in this series in our reflections archive.

In communion with those whose memory we venerate,
especially the glorious ever-Virgin Mary,
Mother of our God and Lord, Jesus Christ,
and blessed Joseph, her Spouse
your blessed Apostles and Martyrs,
Peter and Paul, Andrew,
James, John,
Thomas, James, Philip,
Bartholomew, Matthew,
Simon and Jude;
Linus, Cletus, Clement, Sixtus,
Cornelius, Cyprian,
Lawrence, Chrysogonus,
John and Paul,
Cosmas and Damian
and all your Saints;
we ask that through their merits and prayers,
in all things we may be defended
by your protecting help.
Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

This is meant to be a spiritual commentary on the Canon of the Mass, rather than a grammatical one. However, in approaching this section, we have to point out the oddity that all other commentators point to first. ‘In communion with’ — well, that’s a tidied-up translation of the Latin original. ‘Being in communion with’ might be a more literal translation of communicantes. But you can’t make a complete sentence out of that form of the verb. (‘I kicking a ball’ doesn’t make a complete sentence in English or in Latin.) Where has the rest of this sentence gone?

The answer is that it was interrupted by the previous paragraph. How that happened doesn’t really matter. We are, in fact, continuing the sentence and the thought of the prayer for the Church we looked at two weeks ago. Recall that we prayed for the Church — that Church we know we are in communion with because we are in communion with the Pope and our Bishop, both of whom we named. In fact, we effectively presented our credentials. By naming our Pope and our Bishop, we showed God our membership card that proves we are members of his Church.

And now that we know we are members of the Church on earth, that must also mean we are in communion with the Church in heaven. So having presented our credentials to the Father in the earlier section, we now reap the benefits and invoke the protection of the saints in heaven. The act of standing at the foot of the Cross and presenting a list of demands to God should be a terrifying one. Thankfully, it is not — because we trust that God is our loving Father. But just in case we had any doubt, he also gives us the support of his — and our — friends in heaven.

Our Lady comes first of course. She occupies the first place in heaven next to her Son — never let anyone tell you that the Catholic Church doesn’t respect women. We also express two of the four Marian dogmas here: that she is ever-virgin and Mother of God. A dogma is a teaching so fundamental to the faith that you have to believe it in order to be a real Christian. The divinity of Christ, for example, is clearly a dogma of the faith. If you don’t believe Jesus is God, then whatever else you might believe that is correct, you haven’t really got the fundamental idea of Christianity. The teaching that Mary is ‘Mother of God’ is something we must believe, because she is the Mother of Jesus. If we say that she is not Mother of God, we must be saying that her child is not really God. And then we’re really in trouble. So we are reminded of this seeming paradox, this wonderful miracle, brought about through the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit: the Incarnation. The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.

Also occupying prime positions in this list of saints are the princes of the Apostles, Peter and Paul, so central to the faith of the Roman Church, and the remaining Apostles follow after. (Paul fills in the gap here left by Judas Iscariot. Judas’ replacement, St Matthias, appears later.) But then some saints follow who might be less familiar. They are all martyrs, as we are told, but how and why are these particular martyrs chosen?

Linus is the second Pope. He is St Peter’s immediate successor as Bishop of Rome, and appears in St Paul’s writings (2 Timothy 4:21). Cletus is the third Pope, Linus’ successor. Clement is number four, and also appears in scripture (Philippians 4:3). That shows us they were known to the Apostles, and were part of their generation. And that in turn shows us how quickly the Romans got through Popes in the early years of the Church.

Can you guess who Sixtus was? That’s right. He is of course the twenty-fourth Pope. Not the fifth as you might have expected, nor the sixth as the name might suggest. (‘Sixtus’ is our spelling of the Greek name Xystus, and has nothing to do with the number ‘six’. Though there was a St Sixtus I who was Pope number seven, just to really confuse things.) The Sixtus we mention here is the second Pope of that name, and lived in the third century.

Cornelius is the last Pope in the list, then we get some other people the Romans just liked. Cyprian was a heroic bishop of Carthage and Father of the Church. Lawrence was an extremely popular deacon in Rome — his church is still today one of the seven principal churches of Rome. His popularity might be down to his generosity to the poor of Rome, or his sense of humour. Lawrence was in charge of administering the Roman Church’s finances. When persecution broke out, Roman soldiers were sent to him to collect the vast wealth of the Church. Lawrence told them he would happily hand it over, but that it was so great that it would take him a day to gather it all. Could they come back tomorrow? During which time, Lawrence took what money there was and distributed it to the poor. When the soldiers returned, they found his rooms packed with all those Lawrence had helped. ‘Behold the treasure of the Church!’ he said to them. It didn’t go down too well. Lawrence was sentenced to death by roasting on a gridiron. Halfway through his martyrdom, he called out cheerfully to his executioners, ‘You can turn me over — I’m done on this side.’ No wonder he has always been so popular with the Roman people.

Almost all of these saints are buried in Rome, with churches built over their bodies. St Philip used to say that when we find ourselves unable to pray, we should walk round the altars of the saints and beg their prayers as a spiritual alms. In Rome, this means more than simply visiting an altar dedicated to a saint with a painting or statue above it. In Rome, very often, the saint’s body itself is buried beneath the altar. To walk around the churches of Rome is to walk through the prayers of the Mass.

Most of these saints quite literally form the foundations of churches in Rome. All of them are building blocks of the Church that we know today. They played their part in handing down the Catholic faith as it has reached us through the Roman Church. It is because our faith — and especially our prayer — is so Roman that we can be certain that it is also Catholic. The catechism didn’t come to us directly from heaven. We each of us were taught the faith from others. The Gospel is not myth but history, and therefore it is transmitted to us through history, through real people. That’s what this list describes. We are tracing how the faith reached us: Peter passed it to Linus; Linus passed it to Cletus; Cletus to Clement… Sixtus… all the way down to us to us. We can trace our own Catholic faith back to these saints — who died witnessing to the truth of what they taught. And they in turn could trace their faith back to the Apostles, and through them, to Christ himself.

Over the summer, we are looking at a section from the Canon of the Mass each week, to learn what the ‘law of praying’ has to teach us about what we believe. You can find the previous posts in this series in our reflections archive.

Remember, Lord, your servants (N. and N.)
and all gathered here,
whose faith and devotion are known to you.
For them, we offer you this sacrifice of praise
or they offer it for themselves
and all who are dear to them:
for the redemption of their souls,
in hope of health and well-being,
and paying their homage to you,
the eternal God, living and true.

Now we really do pray for specific individuals. It’s been a very long time since the priest actually spoke anyone’s name out loud at this point, but the ‘N. and N.’ (standing for ‘Name’) are still printed to remind him to pause here and do so in silence. That pause is a wonderful reminder for all who are present to call to mind all those we should be praying for.

God doesn’t need our prayer for others. He doesn’t refuse to shower blessings on people simply because other people haven’t prayed for them. God can work without us. But what a pity it would be if he had to. Our ability to pray for others — to pray and actually make a difference to the lives of others — is a wonderful gift from God.

The image we must have is of a mother baking a cake. She knows what she’s doing; she can manage perfectly well by herself. Then her five year old son comes along and wants to join in. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, and it’s more work to let him help. But she does anyway. She lets him stir the mixture. She doesn’t need him to do it, and it’s not particularly helpful, and he splashes it everywhere and doesn’t really contribute anything to the process at all. But now he can genuinely say that he has had some part in making the cake. They’ve worked together to make that cake, even if the mother really did all the hard work. In a similar way, God doesn’t need our help to make good things happen, but in his fatherly love he allows us to be involved in his baking. It’s a privilege he gives us so that we can genuinely claim some share in the good things we bring about through our prayers.

If you ever get the chance to visit the private chapel that belonged to St John Henry Newman in the Oratory in Birmingham, you will see all around his altar pictures of his friends and family, and various letters people had sent him. They were there to remind him to pray for them during Mass. He kept a book as well, with daily and weekly prayer intentions — the names of those he loved, and those who had asked his prayers, and all kinds of other things he just thought he should be praying for. We ought to have great confidence in bringing all our needs and concerns before God. Christ himself tells us to ask. As St Augustine says, ‘He would not so encourage us to ask were he not willing to give. Let human slothfulness blush, he is more willing to give than we to receive.’

During the Mass, we pray for the needs of others. And we don’t just pray for abstract spiritual goods for them, but those things that are essential: health and well-being, as well as redemption. Because we are joined to Christ in baptism, we are called to share in his role of interceding on behalf of the world. There is a great value to intercessory prayer, as our part in sanctifying the whole of God’s creation, and bringing it into line with his will. And so we are reminded that our prayer really does have the power to change the world.

Over the summer, we are looking at a section from the Canon of the Mass each week, to learn what the ‘law of praying’ has to teach us about what we believe. You can find the previous posts in this series in our reflections archive.

…your holy catholic Church.
Be pleased to grant her peace,
to guard, unite and govern her
throughout the whole world,
together with your servant N. our Pope
and N. our Bishop,
and all those who, holding to the truth,
hand on the catholic and apostolic faith.

We began our prayer asking God the Father to accept our sacrifice, and now we make the first of our petitions for people. In the first place, we pray always as members of the Church. The Mass is the principal prayer of the Church, and every Mass is offered for all her members, living and dead. So in our private prayer, we should remember that we never pray purely as individuals. Neither should we pray only for our own intentions. But, as members of the Church, we have a duty to contribute to that daily round of petition addressed to God for the needs of all our brothers and sisters. And when we do so, we are in turn reminded that they are praying for us as well. If we find ourselves with more time to pray for the needs of the Church, we should make that investment while we can, trusting that others will return the favour when we need support. And so our prayer not only reminds us of our unity, but actually builds up those bonds of charity.

And this idea doesn’t just apply to our prayer. Our actions too are performed not only as private individuals, but as members of the Church. When we do good, it is not just to our benefit. When we sin, we don’t just hurt ourselves. I was once explaining this to a member of the armed forces. ‘Imagine you were in the centre of town, drunk and shouting and fighting with people in the street. Now imagine you were in your uniform. What would your commanding officer say?’ ‘Oh no,’ he replied, ‘He’d say: You’ve not just disgraced yourself! You’ve brought disgrace on the RAF. You’ve brought disgrace on your country…’ The list continued. That’s why at the beginning of Mass we confess our sins not just to Almighty God, but also ‘to you, my brothers and sisters’. Every sin we commit not only harms us, but the Church as well. The worst sins damage our union with the Church. Some of the sins the Church fears most are those that break apart her members: apostasy, schism and heresy. So we pray, first of all, for that safety in which our faith will flourish, in a Church guarded and governed by God, united in the true faith.

Then notice that we don’t explicitly pray for our Pope and Bishop. We do pray for them, of course, because they are included among all those members of the Church that we are praying will be guarded, united and governed by God. But we mention the Pope and Bishop here not simply as people we ought to pray for. We name them to identify what it is we’re talking about when we use the word ‘Church’. We name them because they are our guarantee that the Church we are in communion with is the Church founded by Christ himself, and is in union with him. We know that we are part of the Church because of our communion with the successor of St Peter, and the successor of the Apostles who heads our local church (in our case, the Archbishop of Birmingham).

The bishops — and the Pope as foremost among them — ‘hand on the catholic and apostolic faith’ in an unbroken succession that goes all the way back to the Apostles — who in turn received that faith from Christ himself. This ‘Tradition’ (from the Latin tradeo — I hand over) is the deposit of faith. It tells us who Christ was, and what he was like. It gives us our historical link to him and his teaching.

But Christ became man not just to hand over a set of doctrines. We don’t just want to know about him. We also want to know him, directly. And so by passing on to his Apostles the Holy Spirit, who in turn handed the Spirit on to the first bishops, Christ is made present here and now in every place that a successor of the Apostles celebrates the Mass. Without this unbroken chain of apostolic succession, we wouldn’t be able to enjoy the close relationship we have with Christ, who is present and draws us closer to him in every one of the sacraments.

Over the summer, we are looking at a section from the Canon of the Mass each week, to learn what the ‘law of praying’ has to teach us about what we believe. You can find the previous posts in this series in our reflections archive.

To you, therefore, most merciful Father,
we make humble prayer and petition
through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord:
that you accept
and bless these gifts, these offerings,
these holy and unblemished sacrifices,
which we offer you firstly
for your holy catholic Church…

We don’t waste any time here: we start our prayer by addressing God the Father immediately. But we approach him through his Son. This is the the fundamental Good News of the Gospel, that God the Son become one of us so that we might be adopted as God’s children. We are able to approach God — and even dare to call him Father — because his own Son became one of us, bridged the gap between humanity and God, and lives forever to intercede for us.

Almost all of our liturgical prayer is addressed to the Father. We speak directly to the Son much less frequently (we tend to wait until he is present on the altar in the Blessed Sacrament). There is no competition or jealousy between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, so it’s not a problem that we address the Father most. It’s not even a problem that we never address the Spirit directly in the course of the Mass. This is, it seems, how things are meant to be. The Holy Spirit works quietly in the background, not drawing attention to himself, but making us like the Son, and directing us, through him, to the Father.

There is, perhaps, a practical reason that the Spirit is barely mentioned in this prayer — and it is most likely because of its age. In the very early Church, there was very little need to remind people that the Holy Spirit was God, because they could see that for themselves. He often showed himself descending as fire on the newly confirmed. He imbued certain members of the Church with the charismatic gifts they needed for that particular time. It was surely hard not to have faith in the Holy Spirit when he would cause one member of the congregation to stand up and speak in tongues, another to prophecy, and grant to another the gift of healing the sick miraculously! (St Augustine says the reason we don’t see these charismatic gifts so much anymore — and he was writing around 400AD — is that they are not needed in the same way. The twelve apostles between them certainly could not speak every language needed to preach the Gospel; now the Church does speak every language through her different members.)

There was then little need to remind people through the law of prayer that the Spirit is God. At least not until centuries later. The Church was over 300 years old when St Basil the Great wrote his great defence of the divinity of the Holy Spirit. And it is about this time that many of the liturgical prayers now used in the Christian East were composed or edited by St Basil and St John Chrysostom. These prayers emphasise throughout the divinity of the Holy Spirit, and call on him to come down upon the gifts of bread and wine to consecrate them. Well aware of the power of the lex orandi, the Fathers of the East wanted to make sure no one left Church on a Sunday in any doubt that the Holy Spirit is God.

It is perfectly possible, then, that the Roman Canon has no mention of the Holy Spirit because it comes from an even earlier Christian tradition. The consecration comes about simply through the Father’s gracious acceptance of our prayer.

That consecration of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ is such an extraordinary thing that the priest finds himself speaking sometimes as if it has already happened before any change has actually occurred, and sometimes as if it still to happen after it already has. So here, what we offer to God is not really bread and wine — what would he want with those? But we offer him ‘these holy and unblemished sacrifices’. Here we clearly refer not to the whiteness of our altar bread, but the purity of the Spotless Lamb whose sacrifice this is, Jesus Christ himself. In a similar way, it is in the paragraph immediately following the consecration that we refer to what is on the altar as ‘bread’ for the first time in this prayer (‘the holy Bread of eternal life’). This is not meant to deny the change that has taken place, but is simply a sign of the great mystery we celebrate, that our words can’t quite capture. A mystery, as we are reminded here, that is celebrated always for the benefit of the whole Church.