Breaking In The Habit

There is an important principle that I’ve learned as a friar: when the food is on the table before a meal, make the prayer quick. It’s dangerous to keep people waiting for too long.

It’s for this reason that I think many people struggle with the Eucharistic Prayer at Mass: it is really long. Like, so long, that people find it difficult to follow and don’t even know that it has numerous parts. Seemingly the same each week, the words of the priest seem to all run together in a never-ending monologue, and even the most faithful of Catholics find it difficult to pay attention throughout the whole prayer.

Which is a shame, really, because the prayer is beautiful. Also, it’s the central prayer of our Church, so we should probably want to take part in it.

So, how do we engage with it better and allow the beauty of the prayer to come alive? By learning what it actually says. Although the specific words of each option are different (there are 13 Eucharistic Prayers and 85 prefaces), each Mass followed the same structure. Below, I will leave you with the structure of the Eucharistic prayer, as outlined by the General Instruction of the Roman Missal:

79. The chief elements making up the Eucharistic Prayer may be distinguished in this way:

• a Thanksgiving (expressed especially in the Preface): In which the priest, in the name of the entire holy people, glorifies God the Father and gives thanks for the whole work of salvation or for some special aspect of it that corresponds to the day, festivity, or season.
• b Acclamation: In which the whole congregation, joining with the heavenly powers, sings the Sanctus. This acclamation, which is part of the Eucharistic Prayer itself, is sung or said by all the people with the priest.
• c Epiclesis: In which, by means of particular invocations, the Church implores the power of the Holy Spirit that the gifts offered by human hands be consecrated, that is, become Christ’s Body and Blood, and that the spotless Victim to be received in Communion be for the salvation of those
  who will partake of it.
• d Institution narrative and consecration: In which, by means of words and
  actions of Christ, the Sacrifice is carried out which Christ himself instituted at the Last Supper, when he offered his Body and Blood under the species of bread and wine, gave them to his Apostles to eat and drink, and left them the command to perpetuate this same mystery.
• e Anamnesis: In which the Church, fulfilling the command that she received from Christ the Lord through the Apostles, keeps the memorial of Christ, recalling especially his blessed Passion, glorious Resurrection, and Ascension into heaven.
• f Offering: By which, in this very memorial, the Church!and in particular the Church here and now gathered!offers in the Holy Spirit the spotless Victim to the Father. The Church’s intention, however, is that the faithful not only offer this spotless Victim but also learn to offer themselves,[71] and so day by day to be consummated, through Christ the Mediator, into unity with God and with each other, so that at last God may be all in all.
• g Intercessions: By which expression is given to the fact that the Eucharist is celebrated in communion with the entire Church, of heaven as well as of earth, and that the offering is made for her and for all her members, living and dead, who have been called to participate in the redemption and the salvation purchased by Christ’s Body and Blood.
• h Final doxology: By which the glorification of God is expressed and which is confirmed and concluded by the people’s acclamation, Amen.