Special guest post from Deacon Dennis Brown
“AT THE TABLE: COMMUNION AND DISMISSAL”
Deacon Dennis Brown offers an answer to this week’s At the Table series question:
Why do we say, “The mass never ends,” at the end of mass?
The prescribed wording for the dismissal is “The mass is ended,” but it is our tradition at Holy Family to say “The mass never ends, go in peace to love and serve the Lord, and each other.” But, before I address the reason for this, I’d like to begin with a reflection on the Communion Rite and its relationship to the Dismissal.
It’s vitally important that we fully understand the meaning of the term “Body of Christ.” Almost all Catholics recognize the consecrated bread as the Body of Christ and the consecrated wine as the Blood of Christ. Some, however, seem to have missed the connection between this Body of Christ in the sacramental elements of bread and wine, and what we call the mystical Body of Christ, the community of the Church.
This is not a new problem in the Church. In 1 Corinthians 11:29, St. Paul insists that “all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves.” St. Augustine once chastised his church for trying to decapitate Christ. He said they thought they could have the head of the body (Christ) without the rest of the body (the church), but that is not possible. So, while this is not a new problem, it is a crucial one. Too many of us miss both the beauty and the challenge of this mystery. The sacramental body and the mystical body are intimately intertwined. An understanding of the Eucharist that focuses on one half of this mystery while ignoring the other half is inadequate. Another quotation from St. Augustine emphasizes this link between the sacramental body and the ecclesial body of Christ when, preaching about the Eucharist, he said, “Receive what you are, be what you receive.” He reminds us that we who receive the Body of Christ are the Body of Christ. Another way of saying this is that during the Communion Rite, the Body of Christ offers the Body of Christ to the Body of Christ. Even the word “Communion” means “union with.” It speaks of a shared union of all those who are part of Christ’s body and that the primary effect of the Eucharist is the unity of the body of Christ. When we receive the Body and Blood of Christ, we become more fully the Body of Christ in the world today.
It is this understanding of the Communion Rite that brings us to the Dismissal Rite. As I indicated in the beginning, the simple formula is “The mass has ended.” Unfortunately this English translation does not adequately express it’s original meaning in Latin. The Latin, Ite, missa est, is literally translated as “Go, it is the missa”; that is, “Go, it is the sending” or “Go, you are sent.” Being sent means that we are to carry on the mission of the Church. In this sense, the dismissal from the liturgy is not really an ending; it is a beginning. In fact, the mass itself is about being sent and it, indeed, never ends. What we have celebrated together, we are sent forth to live out during the week. We are sent to be the Body of Christ.