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What is the longest prayer prayed by Christ in the gospels?
It is the High Priestly Prayer of Christ in the 17th chapter of John, which is one long conversation between Christ and His Father. Centuries before, Moses petitioned God on behalf of his stiff-necked people:
If I find favor with you, O Lord, do come along in our company. This is indeed a stiff-necked people; yet pardon our wickedness and sins, and receive us as your own. (Ex. 34:8-9)
The night before He died, Christ, the new Moses, did the same thing. After a long sermon (chapters 14-16 of John) in which Christ warned the Apostles of the world’s hatred for them, but promised to send the Holy Spirit, He stopped talking to them and addressed His Father. Raising His eyes to heaven He began, “Father, the hour has come. Give glory to your Son, so that your Son may glorify you.”
I recently explained that the Peace (the Sign of Peace since 1970), takes place after the consecration, when the glorified Body of Christ has been made present on our altar. For it was only after the resurrection that Christ said, “Peace be with you.”
What about before the consecration? Before that happens, there is a sermon. Then, as the rubrics (rules) traditionally called for, the priest raises his eyes to heaven and begins the high priestly prayer, the Eucharistic Prayer. Isn’t that interesting? That sounds like what Christ said and did at the Last Supper, or shall we say, the First Mass.
What then is the longest prayer at Mass? The Eucharistic Prayer. Since 1970 a priest can use four options: Eucharistic Prayer I, II, III, or IV. Before 1970, for about 1,500 years, there was just one long prayer, which became known as the Canon, meaning “fixed rule,” as in permanent, never-changing, like the truth. The prayer was ancient, arguably the oldest and most important part, the essential part of Mass.
A few months back I borrowed a book from a traditional French priest, The Reform of the Liturgy by Annibale Bugnini. His signature is on our Roman Missal on the altar, our book for Mass. He, more than anyone, is the father of our modern overhauled Mass. As documented in his book, he found a way to have what he deemed the “meaningless sounds” of Latin suppressed in favor of simple vernacular language.
So, Latin was abolished. And the Canon, the ancient and fixed Eucharistic Prayer, was for all intents and purposes abolished as well. On page 448 of his book Bugnini wrote, “rubrical flexibility had been rediscovered after centuries of fixism.” He wrote the Church needed to return to “authentic tradition” and reject the “deplorable impoverishment that had been a typical result of centuries of liturgical decadence.”
On page 449, Bugnini wrote how he proposed to Pope Paul VI of “disposing” of the Canon. The Pope said no. So, Bugnini and his companions, noting how “tampering with venerable and traditional texts is always dangerous,” proposed “to compose from scratch” other Eucharistic Prayers “for the purpose of having a greater variety of texts.”
And that my friends, is how we got Eucharistic Prayer II, III, and IV found in your missalettes. Three prayers made from scratch in the late 1960s. “Contemporary” prayers, wrote Bugnini, for “today’s men and women which they can easily understand” (456). But were they drafted to really give us variety, or to get rid of the ancient fixed prayer known as the Canon?
Can you see the heresy in Bugnini’s writing? It is modernism, what Pope Pius X (d. 1914) called the “synthesis of all heresy.” The centuries that came before (the centuries when Christ ruled the culture) were to be disposed in order to accommodate “today’s men and women.” That calls for rubrical flexibility in matters of faith and morals. That calls for new paradigms. No more fixed rules. No more Canons.
And the Canon, like the precise Latin, has for all intents and purposes, been disposed. The Canon (Eucharistic Prayer I) is rarely if ever heard prayed at “St Typical’s.” The complaint is that it unduly prolongs Mass. Eucharistic Prayer II is one third as long, and Prayer III is about half as long. Eucharistic Prayer IV is about the same length as the Canon. Is it ever used? It is pretty much a dead letter.
To pray the Canon, I’d say, takes about two minutes longer than the new shorter prayers. I’ve been lectured through the years for praying it too fast and not shouting it out. People complain they can’t hear me. And what do I tell them? I tell them something all their ancestors through the centuries understood. I tell them, “It’s okay. I am not talking to you.” For at that point I am standing in for Christ, having a long conversation with the Father on their behalf.
What should people in the pews be doing when I am reciting the Canon? Well, what did the ancient Hebrews do when Moses went up the mountain to speak with God? Did they sit around and visit? Did they stare off into space, bored out of their skulls, wondering when Moses and God would stop talking up there? Or were they silently praying? Were they praying and hoping that Moses’ intercession would be acceptable?
I pray in the Canon that the sacrifice will be “acceptable,” that God will be pleased. The Canon also mentions the mysterious priest-king of Salem, Melchizedek. Scripture shows him to be superior to the father of our faith, Abraham, and the great King David. Melchizedek is also superior to all the Old Testament Levite priests, who repeatedly offered animals. Those burned up animals, though they saved no one, served as a constant reminder for the people’s transgressions. Christ wanted a constant reminder for us, the new chosen people. Thus His command: “Do this in memory of me.”
And so, why do we come to Mass? Do we come here to learn about the Bible? Do we come for fellowship and to celebrate community with like-minded people? Do we come here in order to become better versions of ourselves? My friends, those are all fine things, but they are not essential. The essential thing is being saved from sin and death. That is the thing Christ accomplishes for us in a mystical manner at Mass.
Have you ever given any thought as to what it actually means to be saved from sin and death? Most people today, brought up in a “once saved, always saved” and now de-Christianized world, give it little or no thought at all.
Let me help with an analogy: What if you were walking on the sidewalk in your hometown, and someone out of nowhere pulled a gun point blank on you? And as he pulled the trigger, someone else, out of nowhere, jumped in front of you and took the bullet. And you stood there, openmouthed, in shocked silence, as your would-be killer ran away, while the man who saved you bled out and died right in front of you on the sidewalk.
What would you do for the rest of your life? Would you perhaps go to that spot on the sidewalk, say, once a week for the rest of your life in remembrance of the one who saved you? Would you dress in formal attire and stay for perhaps an hour and meditate on why and how you were given a second chance at life? Would you vow to live a better life?
If you said no to any of the above questions, understand something very important: The devil is lurking around the dirty streets of this world, and due to your sinful nature and inclinations, he has you point blank in his sights. You are as good as dead. But here’s the thing: Christ keeps jumping in front of you and taking the bullet—over and over.
This is His sacrifice. This is your redemption. Played out over and over again at Mass. That is why Satan hates the Mass with a passion. That is why he hates priests. And he, like the world, hates you for following Christ.
And so, my friends, the hour has come. Unstiffen your necks and stiffen your backs, so as to carry your cross. Carry it and give glory to God that He may glorify you. Pray that He comes along in your company, pardons your sin and wickedness, and one day receives you as His own.
Photo by Grant Whitty on Unsplash
