Posts

Posted on

Finding God at the Sears Tower! (or) The Existence of God and the Second Law of Thermodynamics

The History Channel has been running a series called Life After People It depicts what would happen to our cities and landmarks if all humans suddenly disappeared. As you might imagine, things tend to fall apart pretty quickly. What the series depicts rather graphically is the Second Law of Thermodynamics which is:

The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium.

What? You might say! Well, consider a cup of hot coffee that is placed on the counter. Over time the coffee will lose its heat (this is entropy) until it returns to room temperature (equilibrium). It is not in the nature of a cup of coffee to keep its heat or to get even warmer unless acted upon but some outside factor such as man or strong sunlight etc. This is the Second Law of Thermodynamics and the cup of coffee must follow it. Stated in a broader way, the Second Law of Thermodynamics and in particular entropy means that complex things tend to fall apart and go back to their basic elements without  something outside them to maintain them. Lets illustrate this using an example you might see on the series “Life After People.”

We’re at the Sears tower in Chicago, one of  the tallest buildings in the world. The massive building is like a small city with lots of  complex systems that maintain it. It is January 1, 2010 and suddenly all humans disappear from the planet. In the first moments there is little difference to the building except an eerie quiet. Music still plays in the elevators and the escalators in the lobby  move along. At 2:30 pm a small alarm goes off in the basement indicating to the boiler mechanic that the boiler needs a minor adjustment. But the boiler mechanic is not there. Heat slowly builds in the boilers and other alarms go off. But no one is there to hear or respond. The heat reaches a critical point by 3:30 pm and two major pipes burst spewing steam and boiling water. By 4:30 pm the boiler room has flooded to the point that several electrical panels short out causing a major portion of the building to lose power. In the building above the temperature begins dropping. Outside it is a frigid January day. As the sun sets mid afternoon, the once well lit and warm building descends into darkness and increasing chill. By 5:00pm the next day portions of the building near the external walls have begun to drop below freezing. Outside the temperature is hovering in the lower teens. Overnight the water in some of the pipes near the external walls begins to freeze. By noon the next day there is some thawing and then refreezing as the night temperatures drop. After several days of this pattern, several large pipes begin to break and water begins to flow freely in the upper floors and starts to leak out some of the window casements. The freezing and thawing begins to loosen some of the windows and, several months after man the glass starts falling to the streets far below. The building is now increasingly open to the weather and more and more the building suffers deterioration.

Well you get the point: Entropy is at work. This are falling apart and returning to their basic elements. In the months and years ahead rust and other corrosion will take a toll and the building will deteriorate to the point that it will begin to collapse. Finally, in the decades ahead complete collapse will have occurred and steel and rubble will be strewn all over State Street. In the centuries to come even the steel and rubble will return to dust and be overgrown by trees and forest. Without an indwelling intelligence and energy to maintain equilibrium, the Sears tower cannot stand. It looses its complexity and returns to the dust from which it came. This is the Second Law of Thermodynamics and particularly the principle of entropy illustrated.

But don’t you see, as the Sears Tower in Chicago needs  Man, so the created universe needs  God. Without  God’s indwelling intelligence and maintenance, entropy would cause all kinds of disorder in the universe and ultimately failure. The complex systems of this world would fail and return to their basic elements without some outside force acting upon them. Even the atheists who so love to talk about evolution have to see that evolution, in a way, is the  opposite, of entropy. The evolution of simple things into complex things cannot take place without an outside energy (and intelligence) causing it. Otherwise the Second Law of Thermodynamics is violated. A cup of coffee does not heat up on its own. The Sears Tower would not suddenly or even gradually appear out the earth as a fully functioning little city without a lot of outside energy and intelligence. It does not pertain to sand and rocks to evolve  into steel and then take shape as a fully functioning building with plumbing, electricity and computers. For this to evolve takes energy and intelligence, some force from the outside to act upon it.  The Sears Tower or a hot cup of coffee cannot explain themselves. Something outside of them must explain them.  The atheists want you to think that all this order came it to existence by itself and organizes itself. Well if you can tell me how the Sears Tower could suddenly or even gradually come into existence all by itself as a fully functional building, I might start to believe the atheist and secularists arguments. But as it is I think it takes a lot more “faith” to believe the atheist arguments than simply to admit the obvious, that this world has order that resists entropy because it is designed and indwelt by God who sustains it. A cup of hot cannot explain itself or maintain itself something or someone from the outside does this. Our bodies are far more complex that even the Sears Tower. What caused entropy to reverse and for the complexity to evolve? It had to be something outside of and this world bound by the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Maybe it’s God!

So here is my Argument for the Existence of God Based on the Second Law of Thermodynamics:

  1. The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time until it returns to equilibrium. (i.e. things tend to fall apart and return to their basic elements without someone or something to cause their evolution into more complex things or to halt their tendency to entropy)
  2. But this world does manifest substantial complexity that manifests an evolution from the simple to the complex, a kind of reverse entropy.
  3. Therefore this world must be acted upon by someone or something outside itself that orders it and pushes back entropy.
  4. This someone or something we call God.
Posted on

Jesus and the Sacraments are More than a Flu Shot!

It is tragic to me as a Catholic priest that many parents bring their children to baptism but nothing else and think all the while that they have done all that they should. Almost as though Baptism was no more than a flu shot: Take it and forget it.

But let me ask you, is it enough to give birth to a child and think your work is over?  Hah!…It has just begun!  We cannot simply bring children to birth, we have to feed, cloth, teach and care for them for years. It is the same with baptism, we cannot simply think that bringing  them to new life in baptism is all that is required. These children need to be taught about God and prayer, nourished on the Eucharist, bathed in confession, strengthened in confirmation, fed every Sunday at God’s altar, brought to maturity in Christ. Real faith is  not about a half-hour ritual many years ago. It begins there but it does not end there. The work for a Catholic parent has just begun. It is a work that is costly and cannot simply be reduced to a half-hour baptismal ceremony.

And if you’re a baptized Catholic don’t tell me that just getting baptized is all it took. If you get born and never eat your life is doomed. If you get born and never grow, learn to walk and talk, never reach maturity, something is terribly wrong.  Likewise, if you get baptized and never grow, never feed on the Eucharist, never learn of Jesus Christ and begin to speak of him, something is seriously wrong. You can’t reduce your faith to a simple half-hour ceremony, as though it were simply a flu shot. Real faith costs something, it demands change and effort from us. We have to die, so that Christ can live in us. This is costly.

Many of the Protestants have a strange and quite unbiblical notion called “Once saved, always saved.” That is, once you get saved, you can never lose that salvation no matter what. Well, I don’t have time to tell you all the biblical texts that such a notion violates but really, tell me if that makes any sense at all. We all know that we can make commitments and sadly walk away from them. But here too, on display is the nation that faith costs nothing more than walking up in a service and saying the “sinners prayer” or some little ritual. No indeed, faith is more costly than that, we are called to give our life to Jesus.

We do not get our faith “on sale.” The kind of work Jesus has to do in our life is not inexpensive or minor. It cost Jesus his life, and, I’ve got news for you, it will cost you your life too. It’s not some simple ritual, not like a simple flu shot. The Catholic Theology of baptism is that we die with Christ and rise with him to new life. Did you hear that? We die. Truth be told, we all have a lot of things to die to: sin, ego, possessions, popularity, greed, resentments, hatred, sensuality and on and on. Give your heart to Jesus but realize, it’s not just some sort of inexpensive, harmless ritual. To embrace our baptism is to die to this world and all its pomp and glory, to die to our ego and all its exaggerated needs.

Watch this video, it isn’t long. The speaker is a Southern Baptist, Paul Washer. He is rebuking his fellow Baptists some of whom think God’s grace is cheap and can be reduced to a simple altar call or to a “Once saved always saved” notion. But we Catholics do it to. Some of us think all we need are a few rituals and an occasional prayer. But the sacraments are more than this, they are not mere rituals, they are meant to be transformative realities. Sacraments cost Jesus everything, and, if you are serious about them, they will cost you too, and effect a radical transformation that isn’t always easy and costs us something. Faith and the sacraments  are more than a flu shot.

Posted on

Five Guys for God

I promised to provide updates on our Run For Vocations team that is training for the Marine Corps 10K and marathon in October. Here is an update you don’t want to miss. More than 50 people have signed on to run and raise money for vocations. If you are not a runner but want to support vocations, have I got a deal for you!

Come join us at Five Guys Burgers on Thursday, July 23 and 20% of your purchase will be donated to the Archdiocesan Run for Vocations.  Please plan to bring a friend along as well.

 

Restaurant Night at


Five Guys Burgers and Fries

 

University Town Center

6451 America Boulevard, Hyattsville MD

(near East-West Highway and Belcrest Road)

 

Thursday, July 23, 2009

5 pm-8 pm

 

Say “Run for Vocations” when ordering

and Five Guys will donate 20% your sale to the Run for Vocations

 

Enjoy a fun evening out with family and friends while supporting vocations in the Archdiocese of Washington.

Learn more about the Run for Vocations Team at www.dcvocations.org.

Posted on

Double Standards Continue as Anti-Catholicsm Remains and”Acceptable”Prejudice

The New Yorker Magazine recently published a hateful essay by playwright Paul Rudnick. I will not reproduce the venom here. However I would like to post excerpts from the Untied States Conference of Bishops Website. You can view the whole article Here: USCCB Full Article

Here are excerpts of that article followed  by a few of my own comments:

The New Yorker, the magazine of urbane Americans, proves once again that anti-Catholicism still lurks in U.S. society. This time it’s in an article by the playwright Paul Rudnick, who seems to get his kicks by bashing religion. It is bizarre that someone who uses his literary skills to decry prejudice and stereotyping of gays opts to indulge his own prejudice against another group, Catholics….Rudnick’s recent rap on Catholics comes in snide remarks about religious sisters in “Fun With Nuns,” in the July 20 issue of the New Yorker. …Apparently the editors, who even are heralding the essay on the New Yorker Web site, don’t find any problem with Rudnick’s gratuitous slam: “Nuns can be dictatorial, sexually repressed, and scary—and therefore entertaining.” Nor did they bother to edit out a remark about which nuns should be “f…able.” ….

Historian Arthur Schlesinger Sr. once noted that anti-Catholicism is  “the deepest-held bias in the history of the American people.” Anti-Catholicism also has been called the “anti-Semitism of the liberal.” It seems on the rise now….
Last week, the USA Today Faith & Reason blog was rampant with anti-Catholic comments in response to Pope Benedict XVI’s ground-breaking encyclical on the economy “Caritas in Veritate” (“Charity in truth”). Because the blog has a “Report Abuse” button…. some of the initial offensive remarks are gone. Yet more than a week later, [comments] can still be read asking if you spell pope with “one or two ‘o’s,” advising the pope to do something that’s unprintable here and ought to be unprintable in a family newspaper’s blog, remarking that “someone needs to give the pope his meds” and opining that “the pope is disgusting and sickening,” adding for good measure, “Catholic is DISGUSTING.” Even more slurs and canards to be found on the Website, including “I guess the Vatican is finally going public with its plot to control the world.”At least USA Today can be blamed only for not keeping up with its obligation to watch what bloggers post. The New Yorker, on the other hand, despite its history of fine literary criticism, intentionally runs Rudnick’s comments and even boasts of them on its Web site.


So there it is, the ugly face of bigotry. But I ask you, would anyone dare to speak this way about a Jews, Muslims, African Americans, Latinos, et. al.? Do you see the double standard?  Most of this ugly and hateful speech gets a pass in the media and entertainment world. Part of it is that we Catholics aren’t the type to take to the streets in protest.
But in an odd sort of way I want to say that I am glad to belong to a Church that is so hated by the world. It means we stand for something and are not simply going to compromise and be silent as the world chooses to go morally insane. And the world hates us for this. Did not Jesus promise hatred and persecution: If the world hates you know that it hated me before you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own, but I have called you out of the world and so the world hates you.   No pupil is greater than his teacher, If they have hated me they will hate you too. (John 15:18-20) And Jesus also warns us, “Woe to you if all people speak well of you, for it was in this way that they treated the false prophets. (Luke 6:26).  So in a way I am glad to be in good company, with Jesus. If we were a compromising, equivocating Church the world would welcome us. As it is they hate us and I suspect they are so angry because deep down inside they know we are right.

Despite my paradoxical peace in the face this hatred I DO want to finish by what I consider to be a necessary rebuke: Shame on you Paul Rudnick for speaking  of our religious sisters as you did. Shame on you for your scurrilous and hypocritical attack.  And shame on all those who wrote hate-filled things about our Holy Father and our Holy Faith at USA Today Blog. Shame on all of you and remember, God is watching.

Here is a video that gives the full context of John 15 and the Scripture quotes I listed above.



Posted on

Things We Can Learn From Dogs

I grew up with dogs. Dogs, generally speaking, have a great outlook on life. This list is an oldie on the internet but, if you haven’t read it, it is really rather instructive. Dogs DO have a lot to teach us. God teaches us not only out of the Bible but in creation. In that spirit here are

Fifteen Things We can Learn from Dogs:

  • 1. Never pass up the opportunity to go for a joy ride.
  • 2. Allow the experience of fresh air and the wind in your face to be pure ecstasy.
  • 3. When loved ones come home, always run to greet them.
  • 4. Let others know when they’ve invaded your territory.
  • 5. Take naps and stretch before rising.
  • 6. Run, romp, and play daily.
  • 7. Eat with gusto and enthusiasm.
  • 8. Be loyal.
  • 9. If what you want lies buried, dig until you find it.
  • 10. When someone is having a bad day, be silent. Sit close by and nuzzle them gently.
  • 11. Thrive on attention and let people touch you.
  • 12. Avoid biting when a simple growl will do.
  • 13. When you’re happy, dance around and wag your entire body.
  • 14. No matter how often you’re scolded, don’t buy into the guilt thing and pout…. run right back and make friends
  • 15. Delight in the simple joys of a long walk.

And here is one of the most amazing videos I have ever seen. It’s about “Faith the two legged dog”:

Posted on

Women in the trenches

womenatwork

Does this sound like your life? Dr. Donna Orsuto, an American theologian at the Gregorian University in Rome and Director of the Lay Center at Foyer Unitas Institute believes the trenches are a place of contemplation.

See:

http://www.h2onews.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=19543&catid=54&Itemid=14

It is a good reminder that as lay women and men we are called to bring the Gospel to the “trenches” and to share as we prayed in the Psalm at today’s Mass, ” how the Lord has done marvelous deeds for me.” This, of course, is  Mary’s prayer. Take a minute and pray with her:

My soul magnifies the Lord,
And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.
For He has regarded the low estate of His handmaiden,
For behold, henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
For He who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name. And His mercy is on those who fear Him from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with His arm:
He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He has put down the mighty from their thrones,
and exalted those of low degree.
He has filled the hungry with good things;
and the rich He has sent empty away.
He has helped His servant Israel, in remembrance of His mercy;
As He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to His posterity forever.

Posted on

Catholic Preaching – What do you Think?

47b6cc20b3127cce9854864ffc0300000027100abuw7rs2zswjgWhen I talk with Catholics who have left the Church, the number one reason I get that they left was poor preaching.This is especially true of those who left for the Evangelical Churches. Catholic priests as a group have the reputation of being poor preachers. I think there are several reasons for this.

  1. The expected length of a Catholic sermon is 7-10 minutes. This is far too brief a time to really develop well a biblical or doctrinal theme. It results in a  slogan based and brief exhortation. In this matter the people of God have to work with us. Most Catholics are upset if the liturgy goes more than 50 minutes. We all need to agree to take more time to be with the Lord. Longer sermons are necessary to really develop and break open most passages. Most Protestant sermons are about a half and hour. True, I don’t want a preacher to go longer unless he really has something to say but it is also true that most priests have to wrap up when they’ve barely gotten started. It’s not a good context for preaching.
  2. This leads to the second point. I think many of us priests confuse exhortation for preaching. Most of the sermons I grew up with could be summarized in two sentences:  “1. Jesus is challenging us to do better today.” And 2. “Let us try to do better and now please stand for the creed.”  This is exhortation but true preaching takes the Word of God and does four things: Analyzes, organizes, illustrates, and applies it. It doesn’t just exhort us to do better it shows how, and sets for the why and wisdom of God’s Word. This as you might guess takes a little more than 7 minutes.
  3. Good preaching is edgy. It comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable. But too many priests are afraid of offending or upsetting. Despite the fact that we serve a Lord who got killed  for what he said, too many of us are not willing to suffer even the raised eyebrows of our congregation. We have to be will to talk forthrightly about serious issues today, about sin, about injustice, about promiscuity and so forth. We have to speak the truth in love but the “Jesus loves you sermons”  are not enough. Jesus loved us enough to speak the truth to us even when we killed him for it.  We priests have to get a spine, and a heart and be willing to preach  even the difficult stuff. It has been my experience that Catholics respond well to tough sermons. They don’t want angry priests but they do want priests who are zealous for the truth.
  4. How about a little enthusiasm? If you really care about what you are saying shouldn’t it be reflected in your mannerisms and tone of voice? Too many priests have a kind of lecture like discursive approach instead of a fiery Charismatic approach. True enough there are different personalities but a fiery enthusiasm is hard to hide. But being on fire can’t be faked. It comes only from prayer and a deep love for God and His people.

Now I raise all this because this blog isn’t just supposed to be a cheer leading section. One of the purposes of this blog is to reach out to Catholics who have drifted or outright left. And I KNOW this is one of the big issues.

So alright readers I know you can add to the list  above. Perhaps your feed back will help some of us priests improve. So have at it. Be kind and constructive but speak the truth. We priests can use it. And pray, pray, pray. You get the priests and the sermons you pray for.  Also encourage Father when he does well and gently admonish him if he needs improvement.

Before you write take five minutes and listen to this sermon by Fr. Bill Casey, a great preacher, for his take on this! It’s powerful and talk about edgy! He tells us priests to stand up like men with a backbone. He also thinks that help is on the way. There is hope since the Holy Spirit has not given up on us!

By the way the goofy looking preacher with the big mouth in the picture at the top is yours truly. 🙂

Posted on

The Mass in Slow Motion – The Offertory

Now it’s time for the offering. The scriptures warn us not to appear before God empty-handed (Ex. 23:15; Ex 34:20; Dt. 16:16). Bread and wine are the official gifts presented but they also represent our very lives given to God. In the Old Testament the priest always sacrificed something separate from himself, (an animal, occasionally libations or cereal offerings). But In the New Testament, Jesus the High priest offers his very self. The priest and the victim are one and the same! Each of u sin baptism are made priest (different from ministerial priests), prophet and king. As priests we are asked to offer our own self to God. The bread and wine are brought forward but we place our own lives on the paten, in the chalice. Further, our gift of money, of our substance, is also a symbol of our very self. So it is time for the offering, are you ready?

The general instruction of the Roman Rite (GIRM) describes the offering this way:


The offerings are then brought forward. It is praiseworthy for the bread and wine to be presented by the faithful. They are then accepted at an appropriate place by the priest or the deacon and carried to the altar. Even though the faithful no longer bring from their own possessions the bread and wine intended for the liturgy as in the past, nevertheless the rite of carrying up the offerings still retains its force and its spiritual significance.It is well also that money or other gifts for the poor or for the Church, brought by the faithful or collected in the church, should be received. These are to be put in a suitable place but away from the eucharistic table. The procession bringing the gifts is accompanied by the Offertory chant which continues at least until the gifts have been placed on the altar. (GIRM 73-74)


History – The Offertory procession was in the early days if the Church an important part of the Mass. However, in the very earliest days of the Church it was probably not necessary. Since the Mass was held in close proximity to a meal (the agape meal) and since the community was small an generally gathered in a house the bread and wine were already close at hand. Hence there was no special stress laid on the offering of these. However, at least two things brought about a change. In the first place, the Mass was removed from the context of the fraternal meal early on due to difficulties experienced with this format (cf I Cor. 11). Secondly, the rise of gnosticism promulgated a disdain for matter and the whole material order. This was incorrect to a Christian understanding of the world and it was necessary to stress the value of earthly creation. The heavenly gift had an earthly origin. Thus the offering of the material gifts came to a new prominence in the liturgy. By the middle of the third century it had become a general rule that the faithful should present gifts at the Eucharistic solemnity. They brought not only gifts of bread and wine, but also gifts besides for the Church, and the clergy and the poor. There were many things described: food stuffs, candles, oils and the like.  The descriptions of these offertories vary a good bit but some were very elaborate. Gifts were brought forward and sorted out on the spot by deacons and others. Some were brought to the altar and others laid aside…whew!  By the 11th century all gifts were gradually replaced by legal tender (money). And so we have the collection. Increasingly the clergy simply obtained bread and wine from these monies. The offertory procession began to decline in most places during the Middle Ages even despite the continued  encouragement by the Church. Processions began to be limited only to certain designated feast days. By the 16th the offertory procession had all but disappeared. In the aftermath of the Council of Trent there were attempts to revive them but to little avail, Why it was  unsuccessful in not exactly clear but it seems related to the financial entanglements of the Church and a desire not to stir up       old angers against the Church  in regard to money and gifts. Today, the offertory procession has generally been restored and is encouraged by the directives. The current practice steers a middle course however, since the offertory rite, although having a procession still retains a basic simplicity and has not thus become as elaborate as those of antiquity. Likewise, the prayers are brief and to the point.

The Gifts of the bread and wine are placed on the altar with accompanying prayers.

The host. The word Host referring to the bread is from the Latin, “Hostio” meaning I kill, I slaughter and hence means “victim.”  Recall that in the earliest days the bread destined to be consecrated was selected from that bread which the faithful brought forward during the offertory procession. However, early on there is seen the tendency to provide for it carefully from other means so as to assure its fittingness. Likewise, as the number of communicants increased, it became tedious to break one large host into many smaller pieces from the one host as had been the tradition. Now the individuation of the hosts took place before the Mass and this eventually led to the hosts in the form we have today. With the move to unleavened bread (in the west) the exclusion of bread provided by the faithful became a matter of course since it was not something they ordinarily had on hand. The definitive move to unleavened bread in the west took place in the eighth century. It is to be baked with flour and water without any yeast. At the Last Supper Christ probably took this kind of bread (Mazzah) which was also called the bread of affliction (the bread of nomadic shepherds who had no home of their own). The Exodus accounts also point out that unleavened bread was required of the Passover Meal since there was no time to knead the dough in the original exodus and hence unleavened bread was required of the ritual. Canon Law indicates that the bread must be made of wheat alone (no other ingredients such as honey etc. are to be added).  and recently made so that there is no danger of corruption.(Canon 924.2) Likewise the bread used should appear as actual food. But the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship remarks that this is to be understood as linked to the consistency of the bread and not to its form which remains the traditional one (i.e. the traditional rounded hosts).  Likewise, the preparation of the bread should keep in mind the        dignity due the Eucharistic bread and that it be able to be broken in a dignified way, does not give rise to excessive fragments and offend the sensibilities of the faithful when they eat it.(Inaestimabile Donum, # 8).

Wine was used by Christ at the Last Supper as a part of the Passover meal. Wine for the Jews of the Old Testament was a sign not only of festive joy but also of undisturbed possession of the land. To later medieval symbolism wine was also a sign of joy born of pain. Only when the grapes were crushed did they eventually yield wine. The wine used at Mass must be natural wine of the grape and not corrupt (Canon 924.3) In the ancient world, wine was usually much thicker and heavier than it is now. It was thus the custom for people to mix their wine with water and thus dilute it. This custom has been carried over into the Mass. Although it had originally a      practical purpose, it also gained a symbolic interpretation. Today,due to the quality of wines, it is largely symbolic. There are a number of popular symbols attributed to this mixing:

  1. The union of Christ and his people The wine stands for Christ and water for humanity whose hope is to be lost in Christ.St. Cyprian for example wrote, “When wine is mixed with water in the chalice, the people are united to Christ…if the wine alone were to be offered, the blood of Christ would become present without us, if water alone were to be offered, the people would be there without Christ. (Epis. 63, ad Caecilanum, 13).<
  2. There is an allusion to the blood and water that flowed from the pierced side of Christ.
  3. The two natures (divine and human) of Christ are also symbolized in the wine and water. This is especially emphasized in the Eastern Liturgies.
  4. The present prayer at the mixing expresses both 1 and 3.


Prayers are said as each gift is place upon the altar. In the older forms of the liturgy, there was only one prayer said over all the offerings. This prayer was said aloud. However, during the Carolingian and under eastern influence the prayer came to be recited in a low voice (a tendency which reinforced its sacral character). Once the silent recitation of the prayer took place, there also tended to be the multiplication of prayers said by the priest piously and personally. In this way there evolved prayers recited by the priest as he received the gifts of bread and wine from the deacon. Over the years these prayers came to be considered less and less a purely personal prayer of the priest and more and more a formal, required prayer of  the liturgy. However, as sometimes happens, these prayers tended to grow longer and longer. There were several attempts to limit them. The form stabilized between the 10th and 12th centuries through a process too lengthy and complicated to explain here! They were formally standardized by the Missal of Pius V in 1570. Eventually there came to be a prayer at the offering of the bread, the mixing of wine and water, and the offering of the wine, concluded by a general prayer beseeching God to generally accept our sacrifice. These were set forth  in the Tridentine Mass but were changed in the new order of the Mass.
(See appendix 9). The prayers of the New Order of the Mass are based on a prayer used by our Lord Himself at the Last Supper. They would be worded in approximately this way:


Blessed is the Lord our God, ruler of the universe,
who causes bread to come forth from the earth. For
every man, moreover to eat and drink and enjoy the
fruit of all his labor is a gift from God. (Eccl 3:13)

You are blessed, lord our God, King of the universe,
You who created the fruit of the vine.


Hence the new prayers point back to the Passover especially while the prayers of the Tridentine Mass emphasized the sacrificial aspects of Eucharist. The prayers may be said either aloud by the priest or secretly. There is a preference indicated in the General Instructions which goes as follows:

  1. The priest says the formulas in a low (secreto) voice during the singing;
  2. If there is no music or singing, the priest says the texts quietly; or,
  3. He may (licet) say them aloud; and the people may (potest) say the acclamations at the end (i.e.Blessed be God Forever).

After these two prayers the priest bows and says secretly this prayer “Lord God We ask you to receive these gifts which we offer you with humble and contrite hearts” This text is from the Book of  Daniel (3:39-40) where it is prayed by Azariah who, missing the sacrifices of the temple, realizes that it is the spiritual sacrifice which best pleases God. It appears gradually in ancient liturgies and was made obligatory by the Missal of Pius V (1570). It is retained in the Mass today.

Here are two videos depicting an offertory procession. The first is a typically American one, albeit in the informality of a “youth Mass” The Second is in the setting of an African Parish. In both Africa and many parts of Asia, offertory processions are big affairs, featuring a lot of dancing and congregational participation as you’ll see.