56. Prayer, Blessing, and Dismissal

We will finally reach the conclusion of Mass in this week’s Catholic Massterclass! What an incredible journey! Our final three actions to explore are the Prayer After Communion, the Blessing, and the Dismissal. All three are fairly brief, so we should be able to cover them all today.

 

After a moment of silence, the priest offers the Prayer After Communion, which is provided in the Roman Missal. The prayer includes an acknowledgment that we have received the incredible gift of the Eucharist, while asking for that gift to bear fruit in our lives as we move forth into the world. This is a very important part that will eventually lead to the dismissal: our worship and reception of the Holy Eucharist is meant to lead to greater righteousness in our lives. This prayer is an acknowledgment that we need the Lord’s help for that to happen, alongside our own participation in the work of redemption.

 

After that prayer, the Roman Missal states that necessary, brief announcements may be given before the final blessing. It seems worth highlighting those two words: necessary and brief. This is all still within the context of worship of God, so we don’t want to put all the focus back on ourselves when it should remain on God.

 

The final Blessing comes from a couple different places in Scripture. First, we see in Leviticus 9:22-23 that the priest would go and offer sacrifice, followed by a priestly blessing of the people. In Luke 24:50-51, while Jesus is ascending into Heaven, Luke tells us that Jesus blessed his disciples. The ascension is a good image of the end of Mass. The sacrifice has been completed and Jesus returns to sit at the right hand of the Father, but he first provides his High Priestly blessing. At Mass, the priest acts in the person of Christ. He has offered the sacrifice. Before he departs from the sanctuary, he offers the High Priestly blessing of Jesus. The blessing provides a sign of grace and protection for those who are going into a world where they might encounter a variety of situations both pleasant and unpleasant. With the blessing of God, his faithful people can be confident that the Lord is with them every step of the way.

 

Finally we come to the part of the Mass that gives the Mass its name. The current form of the Mass has four possible dismissals that the priest may use. In the older form of the Mass, which was always spoken in Latin, the priest said, “Ite, missa est,” which translates to something like, “Go, it is the dismissal.” The Mass receives its name from the word missa, which translates into a sending forth. Ultimately, our worship of God is meant to send us into the world as people transformed by what we have done and received. We shared union with God and now we bring that union into our homes, work places, friendships, families…anywhere in need of God’s loving presence. The people of God are sent on a mission to glorify the Lord by the way they live their lives. This is an incredible mission, and the people express their joy and gladness at such a command: Thanks be to God!

 

Holy Mass ends there. You’ll notice there is not actually prescribed a closing hymn or extra prayer in our current form of the Mass. Many parishes pray the St. Michael Prayer and/or sing a hymn, which is not a problem, but it’s worth noting that these are not officially part of Catholic Mass.

We’ll have a few more sessions of our Massterclass to cover a few more topics - stay tuned!