The Concluding Rite
PART V: CONCLUDING RITES AND PERSONAL THANKSGIVING
The Concluding Rite
You are my witnesses. And now I am sending down to you what the Father has promised. Stay in the city.... They worshipped him and then went back to Jerusalem full of joy (Lk 24:48‑49.52).
* * *
The Concluding Rite is quite simple. It includes:
• The blessing.
• The dismissal.
• The kissing of and reverence to the altar.
Once the Prayer after Communion is concluded, the priest greets us in the usual manner, extending his hands saying, “The Lord be with you.” We answer, “And with your spirit.”
The greeting is now made real in its highest sense: The Lord is with us, with those who have received Communion. The priest, joining his hands again and then immediately placing his left hand on his breast, raises his right hand and blesses us with these words:[1]
May almighty God bless you,
the Father, and the Son, + and the Holy Spirit.
Amen, we answer.
On certain days or occasions, a more solemn form of blessing or prayer over the people may be used.
Then the priest gives us the sign of dismissal:
Go forth, the Mass is ended. (in the original Latin, Ite Missa est)
or some other formula, like:
Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord. (Ite ad Evangelium Domini nuntiandum.)
Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life. (Ite in pace, glorificando vita vestra Dominum).
Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.
Or simply, Go in peace. (Ite in pace), with Alleluia, alleluia added during Easter season (Go in peace, alleluia, alleluia).
We reply as always:
Thanks be to God.
The priest kisses the altar as at the beginning. Then he makes the proper reverence (a low bow—or a genuflection, if the Blessed Sacrament is there) with the ministers and leaves.
* * *
This part of the ceremony reveals the true character of the Mass. It is not a crowd watching a beautiful memorial service. It is the Church gathered around the altar, together with Christ her Head, who offers the sacrifice of the cross. Therefore, one should not think that anyone could come at any time, pray there as he fancies, and go away when he likes. We, therefore, stand while the priest and the ministers leave the sanctuary. We feel part of the Church and members of the Mystical Body of Christ.
* * *
The Mass is finished, we are encouraged to return to our ordinary occupations to love and serve the Lord. We serve the Lord while fulfilling our usual norms of piety, resting, or working in the presence of God. In this way we constantly keep alive those dispositions we had during the Mass.
* * *
When the Lord was about to crown his work on earth, he asked his Father, “Keep those you have given me true to your name, so that they may be one like us. I am not asking you to remove them from the world, but to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world” (Jn 17:11.15‑16).
The Lord does not want us removed from our surroundings, our work or our social relationships. He wants us in the world so that we might sanctify and improve it, and place at God’s feet all souls and institutions, all political life and all activities in general.
St. Josemaría Escrivá points out for us, “Your ordinary contact with God takes place where your fellow men, your yearnings, your work and your affections are. There you have your daily encounter with Christ. It is in the midst of the most material things of the earth that we must sanctify ourselves, serving God and all mankind.”[2]
Therefore the Mass should not be taken as a kind of escape from our duties. “Have no doubt: any kind of evasion from the honest realities of daily life is for you, men and women of the world, something opposed to the will of God.”[3] On the contrary, we should turn to our daily occupations to find God also in these pursuits. Thus, we will avoid leading a double life—”On one side, an interior life, a life of relation with God; and on the other, a separate and distinct professional, social and family life, full of small earthly realities.
“No! We cannot lead a double life. We cannot be like schizophrenics, if we want to be Christians. There is just one life, made of flesh and spirit. And it is this life which has to become, in both, soul and body, holy and filled with God. We discover the invisible God in the most visible and material things. There is no other way. Either we learn to find our Lord in ordinary, everyday life, or else we shall never find him.”[4]
Footnotes:
[1]GIRM3, no. 167.
[2]St. Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, Conversations , no. 113.
[3]Ibid., no. 114.
[4]Ibid., no. 114.
The Concluding Rite
You are my witnesses. And now I am sending down to you what the Father has promised. Stay in the city.... They worshipped him and then went back to Jerusalem full of joy (Lk 24:48‑49.52).
* * *
The Concluding Rite is quite simple. It includes:
• The blessing.
• The dismissal.
• The kissing of and reverence to the altar.
Once the Prayer after Communion is concluded, the priest greets us in the usual manner, extending his hands saying, “The Lord be with you.” We answer, “And with your spirit.”
The greeting is now made real in its highest sense: The Lord is with us, with those who have received Communion. The priest, joining his hands again and then immediately placing his left hand on his breast, raises his right hand and blesses us with these words:[1]
May almighty God bless you,
the Father, and the Son, + and the Holy Spirit.
Amen, we answer.
On certain days or occasions, a more solemn form of blessing or prayer over the people may be used.
Then the priest gives us the sign of dismissal:
Go forth, the Mass is ended. (in the original Latin, Ite Missa est)
or some other formula, like:
Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord. (Ite ad Evangelium Domini nuntiandum.)
Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life. (Ite in pace, glorificando vita vestra Dominum).
Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.
Or simply, Go in peace. (Ite in pace), with Alleluia, alleluia added during Easter season (Go in peace, alleluia, alleluia).
We reply as always:
Thanks be to God.
The priest kisses the altar as at the beginning. Then he makes the proper reverence (a low bow—or a genuflection, if the Blessed Sacrament is there) with the ministers and leaves.
* * *
This part of the ceremony reveals the true character of the Mass. It is not a crowd watching a beautiful memorial service. It is the Church gathered around the altar, together with Christ her Head, who offers the sacrifice of the cross. Therefore, one should not think that anyone could come at any time, pray there as he fancies, and go away when he likes. We, therefore, stand while the priest and the ministers leave the sanctuary. We feel part of the Church and members of the Mystical Body of Christ.
* * *
The Mass is finished, we are encouraged to return to our ordinary occupations to love and serve the Lord. We serve the Lord while fulfilling our usual norms of piety, resting, or working in the presence of God. In this way we constantly keep alive those dispositions we had during the Mass.
* * *
When the Lord was about to crown his work on earth, he asked his Father, “Keep those you have given me true to your name, so that they may be one like us. I am not asking you to remove them from the world, but to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world” (Jn 17:11.15‑16).
The Lord does not want us removed from our surroundings, our work or our social relationships. He wants us in the world so that we might sanctify and improve it, and place at God’s feet all souls and institutions, all political life and all activities in general.
St. Josemaría Escrivá points out for us, “Your ordinary contact with God takes place where your fellow men, your yearnings, your work and your affections are. There you have your daily encounter with Christ. It is in the midst of the most material things of the earth that we must sanctify ourselves, serving God and all mankind.”[2]
Therefore the Mass should not be taken as a kind of escape from our duties. “Have no doubt: any kind of evasion from the honest realities of daily life is for you, men and women of the world, something opposed to the will of God.”[3] On the contrary, we should turn to our daily occupations to find God also in these pursuits. Thus, we will avoid leading a double life—”On one side, an interior life, a life of relation with God; and on the other, a separate and distinct professional, social and family life, full of small earthly realities.
“No! We cannot lead a double life. We cannot be like schizophrenics, if we want to be Christians. There is just one life, made of flesh and spirit. And it is this life which has to become, in both, soul and body, holy and filled with God. We discover the invisible God in the most visible and material things. There is no other way. Either we learn to find our Lord in ordinary, everyday life, or else we shall never find him.”[4]
Footnotes:
[1]GIRM3, no. 167.
[2]St. Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, Conversations , no. 113.
[3]Ibid., no. 114.
[4]Ibid., no. 114.