I was reading through the
prayers of the extraordinary form of the Mass yesterday as I made my spiritual
communion.
There’s one prayer that often
makes me melt. It’s in the prayers after the consecration; in the little red
Latin-English missal it’s under the heading “For Blessings”. It says:
Humbly
we beseech Thee, almighty God, to command that these our offerings be carried
by the hand of Thy holy Angel to Thine Altar on high, in the sight of Thy
divine Majesty, so that those of us who shall receive the most sacred Body and
Blood of Thy Son by partaking thereof from this Altar may be filled with every
grace and heavenly blessing: Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.
I love thinking about the holy
Angel carrying our offerings up to Heaven, right into the sight of King of the
Universe. I love thinking about “every grace and heavenly blessing”, because if you really think about what that prayer if saying, the immensity of it boggles the mind!
Also from the little red book
is an after-Mass prayer from St. Bonaventure. I especially like the first part:
Dearest
Lord Jesus, pierce the inmost depths of my being with the sweet and wholesome
pang of Thy love, with true and tranquil and most holy apostolic charity, so
that from sheer melting love and desire of Thee my soul may ever faint with
longing, yearning for Thee and for Thy dwelling-place, asking only to be
released from the flesh and to be with Thee.
Today when I read that, I
thought also about how we must always strive to keep our souls cleansed of sin
by confession and penance, because if we are released from the flesh, we want
to go to Heaven quickly, with a minimum amount of time in Purgatory. And
thinking about that made me think about the sins I had already committed that day,
and inspired me to beg forgiveness for them.
It also made me think about all
of the sins I’ve committed in my life – some of them pretty egregious – and the
fact that God has forgiven me for all of
them, since I have freely confessed them. I do know better than to dwell on
past sins, tormenting myself about them. That’s not what I’m talking about; I’m
talking about remembering that God is so great and merciful that He has
forgiven those sins and cleansed and purified me each time I’ve gone to confession - provided, of course, that I can move myself to contrition and perform the prescribed penance. That is really something, when you stop to
consider it! How much more, then, should I forgive the little grievances I hold against others.
The prayers of the old Mass, I
think, lead us into that kind of thinking and that kind of appreciation for
God, which then helps us to worship Him as He deserves and demands.
