And With Your Spirit

“Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

You may hear this greeting twice at mass this weekend, once as the opening greeting of the mass from the presider, and once in the Second Reading, since it is taken from Paul’s 1st Letter to the Corinthians. You may not realize it but most of what we refer to as the “mass parts” are taken from scripture. Of course some of them are obvious, like the Lord’s Prayer, but many of them are not, like the greetings that the priest uses. Even the response, “and with your spirit” is used a number of times in both the Old and New Testament.

Of course maybe the most famous since the revision of the mass a few years ago got to be, “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof,” because it seems like a strange thing to say. (What roof? the roof of my mouth?) But it is a direct quote from Luke’s gospel where a Roman Centurion asks Jesus to heal his servant.

If you’d like to see just how much of what we say at mass comes from the bible, here is a resource that can help. In the meantime, peace be with you …

–Fr Lou