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Catechesis on the Liturgy: Blessing and Dismissal

(See previous chapter in this series)       (See next and final chapter in this series)

Homily
Sunday, November 19, 2006, 33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle B
St. Joseph Parish, Detroit

            60. We have nearly concluded our long series on the Mass, a series of homilies wherein I have been describing the details of the Mass, the processions and incense, the prayers and readings, with the hope of helping all of us here participate more actively, more spiritually actualized and attentive, in this act of worship of the Father, and act of worship done by the whole Christ, head and body.

            Today we shall discuss the closing rites and the blessing, leaving the aspects dealing with Holy Communion for next week’s homily. Next Sunday will be Christ the King Sunday, a very appropriate feast for us to meditate on Eucharistic communion.

            Mass concludes with the greeting, “The Lord be with you,” to which the faithful answer, “And with your spirit,” but yet only in English for now we continue with the form of answer the Bishops left us, “And also with you.” After this greeting, the priest gives his blessing, and then there is the dismissal, by no means the least important part of the Mass. I will detain myself only on the blessing and the dismissal.

The Blessing

            61. The priest invokes the Holy Trinity and asks the Holy Trinity to bless all those present. More than invoke it, he actually imparts God’s blessing. The form is more elaborate when the bishop blesses at the end of Mass.

            62. What is a blessing? Are blessings by God’s representatives biblical? What kinds of blessings are there? Who can bless? These questions are important for us Catholics, who ask priests for blessings, and who have everything from rosaries and bibles to cars and houses blessed.

            63. Blessings are abundant in the scriptures. God blessed Abraham[1], and God gave the power to bless to patriarchs, kings, priests, Levites and even parents.[2] God blesses those whom he wishes not only directly but by means of created things.[3] God blesses man, and man blesses both God and fellow man, all according to God’s design as foreseen in the scriptures. The Father’s greatest blessing was the gift of the Son and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon us, sinners.

            64. Blessings are dispensations and manifestations of God’s goodness, as passed on from parent to child, from father to son. It is both gift and mystery.[4] And it follows the order of fatherhood, hence parents can bless their own children.

            65. There are types of blessings. First, there is God’s blessing upon creation, specifically upon Man, by which he communicates and manifests his goodness. A second type of blessing is man’s blessing of God, and it is not the same thing except by analogy. For man does not communicate or manifest his presumed goodness to God, for as Jesus repeatedly says to us in the Gospels, “You are evil,”[5] yet always with the hope of the transforming power of his grace. In God’s eyes, we are sinners, who obtain his mercy by understanding and by humility.[6] Man’s blessing invokes God’s goodness upon another, and at the same time praises God for his goodness, thus manifesting it. The third type of blessing is when man blesses God by simply praising him, thus manifesting his glory on earth.

            We Catholics have our things blessed, which we will use for prayer and devotion, making these things channels, as it were, by which God will give and show his goodness. We bless the things we use, such as home and workplace and vehicles and instruments of work so as to more effectively fulfill our mission on earth of dominating the world and putting it at the service of the Holy Trinity.

            66. As blessings follow the order of fatherhood, and obviously mothers can and should bless their children too, for the two are one flesh, so too a priest, who is the spiritual father of a parish community, and in some sense represents God on earth, blesses all the faithful. How rare it is to find Catholics who kneel down and ask a priest for a blessing, a wise custom easily lost. Often even I have been at functions, and the question came up as to who will bless the food, and no one thought to ask the priest, as if that was too clerical or something. But in a family’s home, I as a priest always defer to the father of the family, should he wish, to lead the prayers at meals and bless the food.

            And so it is that the last act of the Mass is the blessing of the priest in the name of Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church. For the wise, many graces are there for the getting.

Ite, Missa est

67. The priest then dismisses those present. He uses the expression, “Ite, missa est.” It is very difficult to translate this. The expression, “Missa est,” seems to be an ancient Roman form of dismissal not just for Mass but for all sorts of formal gatherings, referring to the fact that the assembly is dismissed, the case is closed, or the matter at hand has come to an end. Formal conclusion.[7] The verb form is a participle, “missa,” but in Latin not infrequently equivocates the participle for the noun. A literal translation could be, therefore, “Go, it has been sent,” which is unlikely due to ancient Roman usage of the Latin language. Rather, the concept would seem more likely, “Go, it is dismissed, closed, over.” It is a traditional and formal dismissal.

In previous centuries, only the festive masses ended with the usual “Ite, missa est,” much like today we use the Gloria in the Mass only on festive occasions. The expression, “Benedicamus Domino, let us bless the Lord,” with its response, “Deo Gratias, thanks be to God,” was commonly used at low Masses.

68. The dismissal includes the word, “Ite, go!” Go, go forth. Go into the world, into your homes, go to men, to all men, wherever he is, whatever his condition or age. This one word links the Mass to the mission. For in Catholicism, the liturgy and our apostolate are strictly linked.

69. About this, Pope John Paul II stated, in 1998, “It is essential to keep clearly in mind that the liturgy is intimately linked to the Church’s mission to evangelize. If the two do not go hand in hand, both will falter. Insofar as developments in liturgical renewal are superficial or unbalanced, our energies for a new evangelization will be compromised; and insofar as our vision falls short of the new evangelization our liturgical renewal will be reduced to external and possibly unsound adaptation. The Roman Rite has always been a form of worship that looks to mission. This is why it is comparatively brief: there was much to be done outside the church; and this is why we have the dismissal Ite, missa est, which gives us the term Mass: the community is sent forth to evangelize the world in obedience to Christ's command (cf. Mt 28:19-20).”[8]

70. Next week we shall meditate on the mystery of Eucharistic Communion with Christ the King. Filled and feasted on God’s blessings, let us go forth as true apostles, to spread the faith, so that more can find what their hearts are looking for, namely, the one true God. Amen.