Anaphora

The prayers of the Eucharist continue to plea for God's acceptance of our offering of our act of sacrifice.

This is the case with all the Eucharistic prayers, but it's especially clear in the first Eucharistic prayer, the Roman Canon.

The Canon begins, To you, therefore, most merciful Father, we make humble prayer and petition through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord, that you accept and bless these gifts and offerings.

That you accept these gifts and offerings.

So what's gonna motivate God to accept it? Well, we're gonna motivate God to accept it by the love with which it is offered.

Now, of course, the faithful, we the faithful do not simply listen to these prayers that are made in our name, we consent to them.

We do that most obviously at the end of the Eucharistic prayer when we say, "Amen.

Let it be so." But we do not, or at least should not, consent to the sacrifice made by the priest on the altar simply at this momentary point at the end.

And it looks like they were all, my guess is they were 10 years older and younger.

And they all gathered around him, behind him on the altar during the consecration, as well as through the Eucharistic prayer.

And I'd never seen anything like that before.

And before I got all in an uproar about this, needlessly, I was wondering if that's Just kind of like a local affectation or was this really kind of an abuse?

And one of the negative side effects is that the kids—I'll try to put it in these terms— The kids became accustomed to a rock band at Mass and standing around the altar as a big group, right around the altar.

It could be 25 kids, could be 100 kids.

And they're standing right there, cheek by jowl, with the priest at the altar as he's going through the Eucharistic prayer.

They came to associate the Mass with that, and that is not the Mass.

He's a Navy chaplain serving the U.S. Marine Corps.

He's author of the new book, Prex Eucharistica: Prayers of Preparation and Thanksgiving for Holy Communion.

Dr. Bombaro, welcome back.

Thank you, Todd, and thanks for accommodating my military movements this week.

The hymn mirrors Jesus' teaching not to be anxious, and it does so stanza by stanza, confessing that "God will never deceive me," I'm quoting the hymn now, "and suffers not to do harm to me." Singing this hymn is an exercise in replacing anxiety with reliance on God's goodwill in Christ Jesus, that the Lord has good for us and does good to us.

Dr. John Bombaro is senior pastor of St. James Lutheran Church in Lafayette, Indiana.

He's a Navy chaplain serving the U.S. Marine Corps and author of the new book, Prex Eucharistica: Prayers of Preparation and Thanksgiving for Holy Communion.

John, thank you very much for your time.

Yeah, that's a good question.

I think you have a reasonable assurance that it was, because the priest would have probably had a piece of paper up there on the altar, so that at that point of the Eucharistic prayer where he specifically mentions by name the person for whom the Mass is offered, even if he only said it in his mind or quietly, that would be—you wouldn't be able to know that if he didn't say it audibly— So usually, typically, the priest will say audibly, or maybe the lector would say, this Mass is being offered for the repose of the soul of Patrick's father.

but if you have any doubt and you're not sure, I would ask the priest to say, Father, you may remember, you know, the Mass last week or last weekend was for my father's repose of his soul.

Just want to make sure that you actually offer the Mass for him.

In our first hour, we will be looking forward to Sunday morning with Dr. John Bambaro, and then we will have an encore hour in our second hour of an interview with Pastor Jonathan Connor, one of his Kids Have Questions episodes.

Dr. John Bambaro, senior pastor of St. James Lutheran Church in Lafayette, Indiana, a Navy chaplain serving the U.S. Marine Corps, and author of a new book, Prex Eucharistica, Prayers of Preparation and Thanksgiving for Holy Communion.

Dr. Bambaro, welcome back to Issues Etc.

It's a joy to be with you, Ken.