Pope Francis Tidbits on the Mass

ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS
TO THE "SCHOLAE CANTORUM" OF THE ITALIAN ASSOCIATION OF SAINT CECILIA

Beautiful and good music is a privileged tool for approaching the transcendent, and often helps to understand a message even those who are distracted.

I know that your preparation involves sacrifice in terms of the availability of time to devote to rehearsals, to the involvement of people, to performances on feast days, when perhaps friends invite you to go for a walk. Many times! But your dedication to the liturgy and its music represents a way of evangelization at all levels, from children to adults. In fact, the liturgy is the first “teacher” of catechism. Do not forget this: the liturgy is the first “teacher” of catechism.

Sacred music also carries out another task, that of bringing together Christian history: in the liturgy, Gregorian chant, polyphony, popular music and contemporary music resonate. It is as though, in that moment, there were all the past and present generations praising God, each with its own sensitivity. Not only that, but sacred music – and music in general – creates bridges, brings people closer, even the most distant; it knows no barriers of nationality, ethnicity, or skin colour, but involves everyone in a higher language, and always manages to bring together people and groups even from very different backgrounds. Religious music shortens distances, even between those brothers and sisters who sometimes do not feel they are close. For this reason, in each parish the singing group is a group where one encounters availability and mutual help. - Paul VI Audience Hall, Saturday, 28SEP2019

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I am a sinner. This is the most accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner.

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8. If we had somehow arrived in Jerusalem after Pentecost and had felt the desire not only to have information about Jesus of Nazareth but rather the desire still to be able to meet him, we would have had no other possibility than that of searching out his disciples so that we could hear his words and see his gestures, more alive than ever. We would have had no other possibility of a true encounter with him other than that of the community that celebrates. For this reason the Church has always protected as its most precious treasure the command of the Lord, “Do this in memory of me.”

9. From the very beginning the Church was aware that this was not a question of a representation, however sacred it be, of the Supper of the Lord. It would have made no sense, and no one would have been able to think of “staging” — especially before the eyes of Mary, the Mother of the Lord — that highest moment of the life of the Master. From the very beginning the Church had grasped, enlightened by the Holy Spirit, that that which was visible in Jesus, that which could be seen with the eyes and touched with the hands, his words and his gestures, the concreteness of the incarnate Word — everything of Him had passed into the celebration of the sacraments. - Desiderio desideravi

Cf. Leo Magnus, Sermo LXXIV: De ascensione Domini II, 1: «quod […] Redemptoris nostri conspicuum fuit, in sacramenta transivit».

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The Eucharist is a marvelous event in which Jesus Christ, our life, makes himself present. Participating in the Mass is living once again the passion and redemptive death of the Lord. It is a theophany: the Lord makes himself present on the altar to be offered to the Father for the salvation of the world. - The Eucharist the Heart of the Church

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Praying, as every true dialogue, is also knowing how to be in silence — in dialogues there are moments of silence — in silence together with Jesus. When we go to Mass, perhaps we arrive five minutes early and begin to chat with the person next to us. But this is not the moment for small talk; it is the moment of silence to prepare ourselves for the dialogue. It is the moment for recollection within the heart, to prepare ourselves for the encounter with Jesus. Silence is so important! Remember what I said last week: we are not going to a spectacle, we are going to the encounter with the Lord, and silence prepares us and accompanies us. Pausing in silence with Jesus. From this mysterious silence of God springs his Word which resonates in our heart. Jesus himself teaches us how it is truly possible to “be” with the Father and he shows us this with his prayer. The Gospels show us Jesus who withdraws to secluded places to pray; seeing his intimate relationship with God, the disciples feel the desire to be able to take part in it, and they ask him: “Lord, teach us to pray” (Lk 11:1). We heard it in the First Reading, at the beginning of the Audience. Jesus responds that the first thing necessary for prayer is being able to say “Father”. Let us take heed: if I am not able to say “Father” to God, I am not capable of prayer. We must learn to say “Father”, that is, to place ourselves in his presence with filial trust. But to be able to learn, we must humbly recognize that we need to be taught, and to say with simplicity: ‘Lord, teach me to pray’. - Catechesis by Pope Francis on the Holy Mass, General Audience, Wednesday 15 November 2017 

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In the Lord’s Prayer — in the “Our Father” — we ask for our “daily bread”, in which we see a particular reference to the Eucharistic Bread, which we need in order to live as children of God. We also implore “forgiveness of our trespasses”. And in order to be worthy to receive God’s forgiveness we commit to forgiving those who have offended us. And this is not easy. Forgiving the people who have offended us is not easy; it is a grace that we must ask for: “Lord, teach me to forgive as you have forgiven me”. It is a grace. Through our own efforts we are unable: to forgive is a grace of the Holy Spirit. Thus, as we open our heart to God, the “Our Father” also prepares us for fraternal love. Lastly, we again ask God to “deliver us from evil” which separates us from him and divides us from our brothers and sisters. Let us clearly understand that these requests are quite appropriate to prepare ourselves for Holy Communion (cf. General Instruction of the Roman Missal, 81). - Catechesis by Pope Francis on the Holy Mass, General Audience, Wednesday 14 March 2018