10 LITURGY LESSON: CONCLUSION OF THE OPENING RITE

(Given: February 21, 2010 1^st Sunday of Lent)

We have been presenting these Liturgy Lessons for three months, and we have now completed the Opening Rites of the Mass. Next week we will begin the Liturgy of the Word, but before we go on, let's hear from a much loved-priest.

The late Joseph Cardinal Bernadin, the archbishop of Chicago, was working on a pastoral letter on the liturgy when he died of cancer in 1998. Here is what he said about that portion of the Mass that we have just finished explaining.

Everything that happens before the first scripture reading is meant to help us assemble. That means gathering together many individuals as one community at prayer, but it also means recollecting ourselves personally - not by leaving behind the cares and distractions of home and work, but by bringing them into the gospel's light.

So we gather, one by one, household by household, passing through the doors of this parish church of ours, greeting one another and taking our places. This building called a "church" is a kind of living room of the family of God - it is our room when we assemble as the church. Here we are at home.

[But that living room, that church] can only invite us to come together and pray together. That invitation must be accepted. Certainly, there are times for praying alone, seeking privacy, but the Sunday Liturgy is not one of these. The first task of each one who comes on Sunday is to take the open place nearest the holy table. Let our churches fill from the front to the back.... If we gather as we ought - singing together, being silent together, responding together -we will be a community praying, and know that we are such.¹⁵ We thank the Cardinal for this last gift.

Cardinal Joseph Bernadin, Guide for the Assembly, #22-34.