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The Mass, before it is anything else, is first a Gathering. The first action of the Mass is to gather the People for the celebration.
The Catechism gives as one of the names of the Mass: "The Eucharistic assembly (synaxis), because the Eucharist is celebrated amid the assembly of the faithful, the visible expression of the Church." (#1329)
Synaxis comes from the same root word for synagogue, meaning a gathering, an assembly, a reunion. So one of the early descriptions of the Christian Eucharist was simply "the Gathering."
The Practice established by the New Testament and Early Church.
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| First Christian Pentecost |
The New Testament describes the gatherings of the Early Church. After the Resurrection the Apostles were gathered in one place (on Sunday; for example, see John 20:19 HERE). The Apostles, other men and women disciples, and Mary gathered on Pentecost (see Acts 1:12-14 HERE and Acts 2:1 HERE). The Acts of the Apostles says that the Church gathered and "broke bread’ together, an early name for the Eucharist. 1 Corinthians 11:17-34 (HERE) describes early Church gatherings for the Eucharist, but needing some corrections.
In one of the earliest Christian documents outside the New Testament, the Didache, written around 100 AD, the author prays comparing the bread in the Eucharist and the People at Mass: "As this broken bread was once scattered in grains upon the mountains, and being gathered together became one; so let your church be gathered together from the ends of the earth unto your kingdom." (Didache 9)
In 155 AD, St. Justin Martyr wrote about the Eucharist: "And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place..." They gatherd for the Eucharist. (CITATION)
The Gathering of the Church on Sunday makes the Church visible.
Now I wrote previously "God calls us together on Sunday to give witness that we are saved and called to be God’s family together, to be God’s People, to be the Church of Christ, the community of disciples. We cannot give witness to this alone, but we do it by gathering together on Sunday. Then we worship together, which is our higher purpose in life." (See last week's entry HERE)
As Catechism #1329, quoted above, says: "the Eucharist is celebrated amid the assembly of the faithful, the visible expression of the Church." No one of us individually is the Church, just as no one person individually is a nation, or no person is individually a married couple, etc. To be a married couple, one needs two; to be a nation one needs all its citizens; to be the visible sign of the Church, one needs the members to be gathered. The Mass makes visible the Church in any given place.
Life in Christ is to be gathered together by him.
When the Catechism describes our salvation, it says that "Christ [came] to ‘gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad’." (Catechism #58). "Christ stands at the heart of this gathering of men [and women] into the ‘family of God’. By his word, through signs that manifest the reign of God, and by sending out his disciples, Jesus calls all people to come together around him." (Catechism#542; emphasis added)
Who gathers us? God, of course. As we pray in Eucharistic Prayer III:
"Listen graciously to the prayers of this family
whom you have summoned before you:in your compassion, O merciful Father,
gather to yourself all your children
scattered throughout the world."
Notice that this prayer says that God has summoned us to appear before him in the Eucharist; to be gathered by him. Yet God acts through his visible Church on earth to do this. It is the Bishop, who represents Christ the Shepherd (who gathers his flock) who calls together the Church on earth in a particular place. The Catholic Church either gathers with the Bishop or with his co-workers, the Priests, and only where this occurs is a true gathering of the Church for Eucharist.
So we must gather on Sunday. We are obliged to do so, because God wants us to give public witness to the life in Christ and his Body the Church. This can only be done if we indeed gather together around Christ, at his altar, where we celebrate his Death and Resurrection in the Eucharist. Thus we are saved so as to be united to one another in Christ’s love and community and we give public witness to this salvation when we gather together for Mass.
The First Act of Worship.
Our first act of worship in the Mass on Sunday is to get ourselves and our families to Mass. We do not come to Mass simply because we like everyone there. Not everything at Mass may be to our taste or liking. But all that is secondary and even irrelevant, because if we belong to Christ we belong also to everyone who is united to Christ. This is what it means to be Catholic, the word means "universal," or as Irish writer James Joyce once wrote, "Catholic means ‘Here comes everybody!’"
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| Photo: CNS/Claudio Peri, EPA |
Next Week: Preparation for Mass
