Walking through Divine Worship (Part Two): The Summary of the Law

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THE SUMMARY OF THE LAW
Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ saith: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.
In our last visit we looked briefly at the remarkably succinct and sublime Collect For Purity. Now, we glide onward to its companion.

A visitor to an Ordinariate Mass might rightly ask why are there two penitential rites? To those unfamiliar with the nuances of the Mass, one might think of the Mass as a microcosm of the liturgical year.

An "Advent" precedes the Liturgy of the Word, what used to be called the Mass of the Catechumens. Advent, you will recall, is the season preceding Christmas, the birth of the Messiah. We prepare for the arrival of the Lord, the Word-Made-Flesh. The Introductory rites - that include the Collect For Purity and the Summary of the Law - prepare us for the Advent of the Lord, Jesus Who appears in the flesh of His word, Holy Scripture.

The Penitential Rite in Divine Worship is a "Lent" before the Sacrifice of the Lord, the Easter of the Mass. More about that in a later post.

The genius of Divine Worship, the Mass of the Personal Ordinariates (... all are welcome to attend!), is that we pause for a moment to humble ourselves as we enter more deeply into the Presence of God. We recall the words of Christ:

John 14:15-21
If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also. At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.
Thus, to hear and pray the Collect for Purity, examined in Part One of this series, and the Summary of the Law is to welcome God's loving way for us. We cannot enter into communion with God if we are preoccupied with narrow self interests and, worse, derailed by serious sin. Sure, there can be distractions of one kind or another - some serious and some reflective of a mind rudely meandering. The Church in her wisdom understands that we need to train as athletes (2 Timothy 2:5), and so we, aided by grace, must practice again and again the disciplines that shape and identify us as faithful sons and daughters of God. Cooperating with God to configure our minds to the truth of the Holy Gospel and to dispose our hearts to the Presence of God is part of the Catholic's daily workout.

Rehearsing the Summary of the Law is part of the first movement of the liturgical symphony. It is a melody sweet to those who have ears to hear it. To listen is to pray; hearing the Summary creates in us a space receptive to God's grace. Grace moves us deeper into the Mass to encounter Jesus in and through His word.

Back to the original observation. Are there two penitential rites? Yes and no. The first part of the Mass is a preparation that has us alerted to the need for humility as we approach the altar of sacrifice.

early 14c., "quality of being humble," from Old French umelite "humility, modesty, sweetness" (Modern French humilité), from Latin humilitatem (nominative humilitas) "lowness, small stature; insignificance; baseness, littleness of mind," in Church Latin "meekness," from humilis "lowly, humble," literally "on the ground," from humus "earth," from PIE root *dhghem - "earth."
The Gardener of our souls is preparing in our lives a place to plant his Spirit so He may call forth life from us, the verdant life of faith. The Penitential Rite follows after the readings, Creed and Prayers of the People. The Liturgy of the Word, concluded by the Pentitential Rite, prepares us to encounter the Lord in the Liturgy of the Eucharist.

Before we approach the sanctuary of the Lord, the Holy of Holies, we had best ask for forgiveness for putting anything in the way of God giving us His very life and love. So, listening to the teaching of Scripture, hearing the word of God and its message contextualized for us by the homilist, trained in the arena of the Creed, leaving our gifts at the altar to pray for the brethren before embarking on the next chapter of the Mass, we, having been immersed in truth and goodness, fall on our knees seeking God's forgiveness to proclaim God's sovereignty over our lives.

More reflections on the Penitential Rite in a later post.

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