…all true culture begins with the fact that man steps back. That he does not obtrude himself and seize hold of things, but leaves a space, so that there may be a place in which the person in his dignity, the work in its beauty, and nature in its symbolic power may be discerned.
Romano Guardini on reverence, from Learning the Virtues That Lead You to God
HOW CAN WE KEEP FROM SINGING?
Armies know how to knit the many into one. Soldiers learn to march, and they learn to march by singing. Keeping rhythm, keeping time, singing a single text: Our entrance song helps a crowd become a community. People singing must listen to one another, be aware of another’s voice and breath. We pause together, and wait, before we take up the song again. We keep the rests and hold the whole notes, together. Individuals begin a song; somewhere in the middle they become a community.
The entrance song brings us into reverence by helping us shift our attention from the argument we had on the way to Mass and to the liturgy (the public work) we are gathered to do. The entrance song both creates and “leaves a space” in which we can attend, to the day, to the place, and to the people Our sung praise of God turns us to God, and reminds us that we are hear to say our “Amen,” to all that God has done and is doing, in our hearing and in our sight. We are here to feed and be fed. We are here to empty our hands that God might fill them to overflowing with goodness. We are here to see in one another the face of Christ.
See, the Lord is coming,
And with him, all his saints.
Soon, there will be endless joy.
Entrance antiphon for the First Tuesday of Advent
GREETED AND GATHERED IN
We arrive at church with a common intention, but we do not all come from a common place. Some of us wake to find that he is still dead, she is still missing, the cancer has spread. Some of us wake to cold homes, where the heat has been turned off and the savings are gone. Some of us wake to laughing children and loving spouses in houses where the larder is full and the bills are paid. For some people, it is a “good morning,” as the increasingly common greeting has it. But the rite is for the whole community, and for all its members. Not all of us can answer, “Amen,” to the words, “Good morning.”
What greeting can encompass the glad and the grieving? What words are large enough to “leave a space” in which all may gather? What greeting can lead us all into reverence before Christ and his body? It is the greeting from The Order of Mass, “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
Those words provide a place where all can stand. However we wakened, to a good or bad morning; however we walked to Mass, and whatever burdens we bear, each of us, all of us, can gather in the name of God. All of us can meet there, and perhaps, only there, to worship.
BLESSED AND CONFESSED
The liturgy provides two options for the rite following the greeting: The Rite of Blessing and Sprinkling Holy Water, or the Penitential Rite. When the first option is chosen, the second option is not used.
The water reminds us of our baptism. The baptismal font is the womb out of which every Christian is born. Poor or rich, powerful or weak, male or female, ordained or lay, we spring from the same life-giving waters. That is our common beginning, the heritage we all share, a heritage we share with Christ the Lord. This is the sacred space of every Christian. The presider does not sprinkle the blessed water only on the people, as though he were the source of the blessing. This is a moment when we all bow before the One who led the Israelites safely through the waters of the Red Sea; the One who satisfied their thirst in the desert with water from the rock.
The presider blesses himself with the aspergil, then sprinkles his ministers, and all those in the assembly. We are, each of us, children of the water, the daughters and sons of God.
We are the sons and daughters of God, but we do not always behave in ways true to our identity and our calling. Reverence – and that to which reverence is owed - demands truth. The man who lies to himself about the mountain, saying, “I do not need to heed the winds or the weather,” walks unwisely on the trail. The woman who lies to herself about the sea, saying, “I do not need to heed the tides or waves,” swims into folly.
The penitential rite asks us, all, presider and assembly together, to “acknowledge our failures.” We do this with the confidence of beloved children, secure in their father’s love. We can be confident, because “the Father…is full of gentleness and compassion.”
So, when the presider speaks the simple truth of our daily lives, “Lord, we have sinned against you,” we have the courage to pray, “Lord, have mercy.”
WE HAVE REASON TO PRAISE
We are here, and not just in the sense of having arrived at our destination. We are here, fully engaged, as a body, as a community. We are singing and walking together. We are listening. We are blessed and forgiven. We have reason to praise. On all Sundays (except those in the waiting and preparing seasons of Advent and Lent) we sing the song with which the angels in the night sky announced Messiah’s birth. “Glory to God in the highest,” we sing. We sing with the heavenly host. The words of the song “leave a space” in which we can remember and recall our true identities. We are not primarily bill payers and amateur plumbers. We are not the people whose final worth is measured in sales or savings. We are the sons and daughters of God, invited to God’s tables, guests at God’s own feast. We are the people allowed to stand before God as we stand before his mountains and sea, praising the wonders before us.
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