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Catechesis on the Liturgy: Gloria in Excelsis Deo

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Homily
Sunday, September 24, 2006, 25th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle B
St. Joseph Parish, Detroit

Gloria in Excelsis Deo

We now continue on our catechesis on the Mass, a series of homilies which hopefully will help all live the Gospel as it is manifest in the Mass, and prepare them to pray more attentively during Mass, and to answer questions, objections and accusations which may arise for them on any quarter.

18. I usually discuss a handful of elements of the Mass in each of these homilies, today I will discuss only one, and in depth, because of how little it is generally appreciated or understood: the hymn which starts, “Glory to God in the Highest,” to which I will refer by its Latin name, the Gloria. It is a hymn of praise; and it is in the prayer of praise when we most recognize that God is God.[1] The Gloria is a hymn deeply impregnated with the truth of the Incarnation of the Son of God.

Origins

19. It is one of the many ancient hymns of the Liturgy.[2] Some of these ancient hymns are retained in the current use of the Liturgy of the Hours prayed by clergy and religious and by those laypeople who so choose, such as the Te Deum. All these ancient hymns are compositions imitating the songs and hymns of the Scriptures, especially the Psalms.

            There are three traditions of the Gloria. The first is the Syrian version from the Nestorian liturgy. The second is the Greek version from the Byzantine liturgy. The third is yet another Greek version, but this one taken from a writing called the Apostolic Constitutions, also known as the Constitutions of the Holy Apostles by Clement. Written as late as 400 AD, it has eight books; the second half of the seventh book[3] is all full of prayers of praise and thanksgiving; a Gloria is found there, which basically is the same that we now sing the Latin Rite Mass. [4]

Liturgical Use of the Gloria

20. This hymn  is particularly ancient. As early as the second century, Pope Telesphorus (d 136) ordered the Gloria to be sung at the nighttime Christmas Mass.[5]

Sometime shortly before 514, Pope Symmachus had permitted the Gloria to be sung on Sundays and other feasts of martyrs, but only at Masses with bishops. (You may know that, in the order of the Mass before this new order established by Vatican II, the Mass of a bishop was different than that of a priest; there were small ritual peculiarities. We barely have vestiges of that in the new order of Mass, for example, when the bishop greets the Congregation, he does not say “The Lord be with you,” but rather, “Peace be with you,” and he has a special form of blessing at the end of Mass.) We continue this practice of singing the Gloria on Sundays and feast days, for indeed it is a festive song. We repress it on the Sundays of Lent, but even in Lent we allow its use on feast days.

While the Kyrie was a song special to the choir, the Gloria has always been a congregational song. By custom it got transferred to the clergy; and now, where possible, the priest now intones it, and the whole Congregation sings the whole. It is therefore wisest to have simple melodies accompany this him.

Parts of the Gloria

            21. One can divide the Gloria into seven parts, but that analysis would be far too detailed and intricate for one Sunday homily. Let us look at it by its more easily distinguishable three sections. The first is the song of the angels on the night of the Nativity. The second is a praise of God. The third is a praise of Christ.

            First Section, Angelic Nativity Song

            22. The song of the angels, the first of the three main sections of the Gloria, comes from the scriptures. “Glory to God in the highest, proclaimed the angels, and peace, and good will upon men,” sang the angels to three poor shepherds, insignificant men in the eyes of the world, but chosen by God to hear this eternal hymn. Jesus had just been born, St. Luke tells us in his Gospel, and laid in a manger where animals eat, for there was no room for him and he was unwelcome among sinful men. The Gloria of the angels is not only a loving and powerful wish for all men, but also a statement of fact. By the incarnation of Jesus, God was given glory, and so too the Son was glorified by the Father, and peace was won reconciling man to God.

Second Section, Praise of God

            23. The second section of the Gloria praises God. First we say what we do, that is, we praise, we bless, we adore, we glorify, we give thanks. In this sense, the Gloria teaches Catholics how to pray. If ever you draw a blank when you want to pray, use the Gloria as a school of prayer.

            Then we list some of the titles of God: Lord God, King of Heaven, Almighty God, Father, like a small litany. You see, we refer here to God in the unity of his Godhead, with no consideration for the Trinity of Persons. Turning from the focus on the one God, we turn to the revelation of God in this world which is the person Jesus Christ.

            Third Section, Praise of Christ

            24. And so we move to the third section of the Gloria, which is about Jesus himself. This very transition makes us realize that we start with a praise of God, and then finish with a praise of Jesus. This may make the Catholic mind stop for a second… we aren’t used to thinking in these types of terms. That is, we are used to thinking not of two, God – Jesus, but of one (God) or three (Father, Son and Holy Spirit). So, why are there two references to God, and not one or three?

            25. The pair, “God” on one hand and “Christ” on the other, stresses something particular and specific. God is our Creator, who is in heaven, and who made all things; he is the foundation and principle of all. Christ, however, is the way to God, the revelation of God, the one who did the work of God in the history of salvation, in the economy of salvation: he was sent by the Father, he became our Mediator, and he gave us his Spirit. There is no other road to God except through Jesus. No one is saved except through Jesus Christ, for there is no other name in heaven or on earth which has the power to save. And since the Catholic Church is his mystical body, no one is saved except through Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church: this is a sure teaching. Jesus said, “I and the Father are one,” and to Philip he said, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father!”

            26. So if one term, “God,” refers to God in his unity, and three terms, “Father, Son and Holy Spirit,” refer to God in his Trinity, then let two terms refer to God according to his economy, meaning, his economy of salvation. (The economy of salvation is the disposition Providence has made of God’s saving work throughout history.) This economy is as follows: that the Son of God would become the savior of sinners. For this reason, the Gloria is a hymn very profoundly impregnated with this sense of the incarnation. And so, we praise God for who he is in the previous part of the Gloria, and now in this section we praise him for what he does.

            27. Now, the “angels are spiritual creatures who glorify God without ceasing and who serve his saving plans for other creatures: ‘The angels work together for the benefit of us all’[6].”[7] If all the angels and saints are with us at every Mass, and we know they are, and if this hymn glorifies God and proclaims the redemption through the incarnation, then the angels have to be singing this with us with great voices.

            28. If before we had a small litany of God’s titles, now we have a small litany of the titles of Jesus Christ Lord, Son of the Father, Lamb of God, the Holy One, the Most High. Indeed, Jesus is God, and Jesus is the Lord!

29. You may notice that it is not when we address the unity of God in the previous part of the Gloria, but now when we address Christ the Mediator, when we say repeatedly, “have mercy on us.” For Jesus came to show us, reveal to us, and make effective for us, God’s mercy; he is our Savior, our Redeemer, our Mediator. There for it is most appropriate to ask Jesus, “Mercy!”

Doxology

            30. This hymn, glorifying God for the incarnation and the goods that came to us by it, ends with a doxology to the father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is habitual that every psalm and canticle finishes with a doxology to the trinity, a tradition alive today even in our own liturgy of the hours.

Conclusion

31. The prayer of the Gloria should move us to acknowledge God’s role in our lives, to live with humility and repentance, to transform our prayer and our whole lives into praise of God, remembering these important divine truths.

St. Augustine, on his magnificent work On the Trinity, explains St. Paul’s expression “from glory to glory” (2 Cor 3:18) as meaning that we start giving God glory on earth in creation, and finish by giving God glory in heaven.[8] Let our lives give praise to God, by assimilating the truths of the hymn of the Gloria in the day-to-day conduct of our lives. Amen.