Abbot Jeremy Driscoll is a Benedictine monk of Mount Angel Abbey in Oregon. He teaches at Mount Angel Seminary and the Pontifical University of Sant’ Anselmo, Rome. Following are notes on Father Jeremy Driscoll’s presentation “What Happens at Mass” at Saint Bernard’s on March 18, 2017 in Billings, Montana. For complete information please refer to “What Happens At Mass” Revised Edition by Jeremy Driscoll, OSB.
Code is “and with your spirit” reminding the Assembly of sharing in the mystery of the Cross.
The priest recites one of two options for the Final Blessing.
Comment: Congregation remains standing.
Presider: The Lord be with you.
Assembly: And with your spirit.
Each time the response is “And with your spirit” is code. This particle code indicates the celebration is complete. The Assembly is sent into the world after Mass. . John 20:21 – He said therefore to them again: Peace be to you. As the Father hath sent me, I also send you..
With the prayer I have been prepared by the story teller to be sent out into the world to make it better. “Amen.”
The Sign of the Cross. Our one God has one name, “In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” “Amen.”
Then the celebrant says:
May almighty God bless you,
the Father,
and the Son,
and the Holy Spirit.
Assembly: Amen.
Comment: Congregation remains standing. Then the Deacon, or the Priest himself, with hands joined and facing the people, says:
Go forth, the Mass is ended.
Or: Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord.
Or: Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life. Or: Go in peace.
Assembly: Thanks be to God.
Then the Priest venerates the altar as usual with a kiss, as at the beginning. After making a profound bow with the ministers, he withdraws.
Catholics understand the Eucharist – body and blood – is a concrete something in which divine reality is hidden. Present among the people after receiving communion, brings the Assembly closer to God.
By means of bread and wine and the Holy Spirit transcending time and space, we come in contact with the risen and glorified Body of Christ.
After listening to the story led by the priest, let me not forget to take God’s gift of love into my everyday life.
What is amazing about the Mass is finite beings and finite languages are able to deliver the infinite happening.
I remember the sacrifice. Deeply inscribed in human beings is a need to give themselves to God. I feel unworthy when I experience true sacrifice of the Mass. I am rendering my heart to acts of mercy such as feeding the poor and hungry, to give water to the thirsty, clothes the naked, shelter the homeless, visit the sick, visit the imprisoned or ransom the captive or bury the dead.
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Notes on The Mass – Start of Section
Archbishop Karol Wojtyla visited Father Joseph Glucek in 1966. Father Glucek had served as parish priest for Saint Mathias in Moore, Montana; Sacred Heart Church in Hobson, Montana and Saint Wencelsaus (Duke of Bohemia) in Danvers, Montana. Did Archbishop Karol Wojtyla’s visit include the transcription of Saint Faustina’s diary and tracing the trip of Father Josef Jarzebowski’s trip across the United States with the Divine Mercy message?
The young man given the mass explanation assisted with remembering the events May 21 1966. The son wanted to go fishing. One grandfather met with the young man’s father regarding a business transaction. Hearing the son’s fishing request plus Father Glucek and Archbishop Wojtyla arrived, the grandfather made arrangements with Father Glucek to arrive at the fishing destination and where family mass would happen with food for a meal. First grandfather then contacted the other grandfather by telephone making arrangements for the son to go fishing at one of my grandfather’s ponds and forewarn the family Father Glucek was on his way with another priest but with food implicating there would also be a mass.
As there were two priests instead of one, more family was contacted to attend the mass with a meal following the mass.
The “men” went fishing as people and food were assembled. The “men” went fishing as there were not enough fishing poles for all children to go fishing with the “men”. After everyone had been fed, Archbishop Karol Wojtyla gathered everyone together one last time especially the women who prepared the meal. Father Glucek offered to translate with Archbishop Karol Wojtyla saying “no, no.” All was quiet when Archbishop Karol Wojtyla said “good eats” with all knowing it reminded him of his mother’s cooking.
Monsignor Joseph Glucek reminded me when Pope John Paul II first visited him. The comment was made how Father Glucek was two people ahead of Karol Wojtyla when people were being rounded up for the concentration camp. Monsignor Glucek did not remember Karol Wojtyla but the events described aligned with Father Glucek’s experience. Who remembers who is behind them while going to Communion.
Why did Archbishop Karol Wojtyla agree to go to this Bohemian family on this visit. Archbishop Karol Wojtyla also said mass at Saint Wencelsaus (Duke of Bohemia) in Danvers, Montana on most likely on May 22 1966.
Circumstantial evidence implies Father Glucek met Father Josef Jarzebowski after being released from the concentration camps. Father Glucek made his way to Chicago then was assigned to Red Lodge. While in Red Lodge he was known for traveling north to the Central Montana.
Monsignor Kevin O’Neil indicated if Father Josef Jarzebowski started in Seattle he would have gone through Butte. The maternal grandmother from Toston, Montana, of a little girl born May 9 1941 was the first live birth of her youngest daughter living in Central Montana. The grandmother spoke Bohemian which would have been similar enough to communicate with Father Josef Jarzebowski. As Central Montana was on the way to the East Coast (in any Montanan’s minds) where and a baptism would be performed, the grandmother and grandfather drove Father Josef Jarzebowski. Where the family mass was said on May 21 1966 was most likely where Father Joseph Jarzebowski stayed the night as this was the little girl’s paternal grandparents.
When Father Josef Jarzebowski was traveling during World War II, many restrictions were in place for travel but with enough Polish and Bohemain communities along the way, the priest could have made the trip with no planning on his part and no valid visa but trusting in God. People in agriculture have communication which would have gone undetected. Father Jarzebowski would have been presented as some sort of a relative most likely a “cousin” just visiting and saying mass before he went to the next community. The trip for Father Jarzebowski would have been interesting. There are Polish and Bohemian communities in Eastern Montana to Mulligan Nebraska then to Chicago.
The ban for the Divine Mercy was in 1959. The Bohemian language and food/cooking was extremely close to the Polish language Father Jarzebowski knew which was why Monsignor Glucek felt like he was with family at the at this Bohemian family. One great grandfather was faithful to saying what the family referred to as his “three o’clock short rosary” and reading from the “Imitation of the Sacred Heart”. I wanted to learn the “three o’clock short rosary” but was told it was not allowed.