LITURGY LESSON: EUCHARISTIC PRAYER #3: EPICLESIS

(Given: August 8, 2010 19^th Sunday in Ordinary Time)

We continue today with our Liturgy Lessons on the Eucharistic Prayer. In the Roman church, the Western church, we had only one Eucharistic Prayer for over fourteen hundred years. Many will remember that it used to be called "the Canon of the Mass." Now we have fourteen Eucharistic prayers.

Each prayer is different, but each contains certain essential components. One of these is the EPICLESIS....(see pronunciation below) EPICLESIS is a Greek word, which means, "calling upon" or "invocation." In this prayer, the priest asks God the Father to send the Holy Spirit to make our gifts holy and ourselves.

Today we will pray the Third of the fourteen Eucharistic Prayers, which has a double- EPICLESIS. Listen as the priest first prays, "We ask you to make (these gifts) holy by the power of your spirit." - and then later - "Grant 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."

During the Eucharistic Prayer, watch the priest's hands. It is when he lowers them and holds them over the bread and wine that he asks the Father to "make them holy by the power of the Holy Spirit." Later on, with arms outstretched in prayer, he will ask that we "may be filled with the Holy Spirit."

Next week we will talk about another essential component, the relationship of the Eucharist Prayer to the Last Supper.

241 words: 1:36

READERS: Before Mass, please remind the priest to use the Third Eucharistic Prayer.

READERS: EPICLESIS is pronounced: e pi KLA sis