Personal reflection about my love for the Mass

I love the Mass, every day and every part of it. But I thought I would share one of my “favorite” moments in the Mass and explain why.

The hymn, “Gloria,” is said or sung on Sundays outside Advent or Lent, on solemnities and feasts, and in solemn local celebrations.

I love deeply, and feel a great thrill, when the priest sings the first line, “Gloria in excelsis Deo.” This translates to “Glory to God in the highest.”

The reason I love this so much is that it is exactly the confluence of the verbal relationship between God and humans because this is “the call to prayer.” Yes, throughout the Mass the priest leads the congregation in prayer, saying “Let us pray” and then reciting or singing the prayer.

But the structure and content of this one line sung by the priest as a call to prayer, echoes through the thousands of years of a priest, and indeed even an Islamic imam, calling the faithful to prayer. When I was in Turkey back in 1995, I felt the exact same continuity of God’s verbal relationship with humans when I would hear the call to prayer from the mosque minaret.

How much more so do I feel it, then, when I am in the Catholic Mass and the priest reaches the opening line of “Gloria” in the liturgy! It is that ancient call to prayer, but not by saying “It is now time to pray” but by diving right into declaring the highest praise of God almighty.
I certainly do not want to make any priests who might read this blog to now feel self conscious! *wink* What I do feel when I hear this sung is the earnestness and sense of “calling to the people to join him in praising the Lord” by the priest, rather than if he hits the notes just right! It is that ancient call to prayer moment in the Mass.

That feeling would be lost if people got all self righteous about it and say that it’s “not fair” that the priest “gets to read the first line” and why doesn’t everyone just sing that first line together in some artsy democracy? Ha. It’s not about democracy and everyone singing along. And it’s not about rank or authority either. It is one of the many ways that faith becomes “contagious.”

There is the spiritual connection in every human to God that responds to a priest calling the assembly to prayer by first declaring his praise to God. Later in the Mass one hears the “Sanctus,” which is a direct imitation of the angels that St. John saw and heard in heaven praising God. There is a reason for a “call and answer” structure in worship. Just as in the liturgy humans imitate the angels in their worship of God in the singing of the “Sanctus,” there is always a benefit to the priest, who has committed his life to God, to “call out in prayer” and “set the example” by singing this first line of “Gloria.” When I hear a priest sing that line, I see the centuries of priests who were before him, each of whom called on the congregation to worship and give glory to God in the highest.

So that is what I’m feeling and thinking when I hear the opening line of “Gloria,” and why it is always one of my favorite moments in the Mass.

“Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis.”