The Eucharistic Prayer: The Preface
Fr. Roch Kereszty, O. Cist.

The Preparation of the Gifts is followed by one of the solemn Eucharistic Prayers, which is recited by the priest in the name of the Church and of Christ. In this prayer we are approaching the very center of the Eucharistic Liturgy. Before Vatican II only one Eucharistic Prayer, the Roman Canon, was used in the Roman Liturgy, while the Oriental Rites have always had a wider selection of theologically rich eucharistic prayers, such as the Liturgy of the St. John Chrysostom or the Liturgy of St. Basil.

After the Council three more alternative Eucharistic Prayers were added to the Roman Rite. The Roman Canon became Eucharistic Prayer I. An early third-century Eucharistic Prayer, the Anaphora of St. Hyppolitus, became, with a few modifications, Eucharistic Prayer II. Eucharistic Prayers III and IV were freshly composed after the Council by liturgical scholars at the request of the Holy See. Even though these two Prayers are new compositions, they embody all the traditional elements and the rich theology of ancient Eucharistic Prayers. Later, more Eucharistic Prayers were composed by the Holy See or by local episcopal conferences for special occasions, such as the Eucharistic Prayer for Masses of Reconciliation and two short Eucharistic Prayers for children’s masses.

It is important to clarify that no priest or even a single bishop has the right to change the text of the official eucharistic prayers, even less may he draw up his own composition. Such a restriction does not derive from bureaucratic rigidity but from the basic reality of the Eucharist. We do not create the eucharistic liturgy but rather enter into it. The Eucharist is Christ’s gift to His Church, not the product of our own creativity. Only higher Church authority, ultimately only the Holy See, to whom the supreme gift of the Eucharist has been entrusted, has the right to shape and form the liturgy within the limits defined by Scripture and Tradition.

Today, I would like to talk about the first part of each Eucharistic Prayer, the part that begins with the dialogue between priest and congregation (“The Lord be with you. . . .Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. . . .Lift up your hearts. . . .”) and ends with the Sanctus, the “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of power and might . . .”

This first part of the Anaphora (=Eucharistic Prayer) is called the Preface, not because it is a preface to a book, but because it is a Praefatio, a solemn thanksgiving prayer in front of God the Father. In Eucharistic Prayers 1, 2 and 3 the priest is supposed to select the Preface according to the liturgical season or feast. The Fourth Eucharistic Prayer has a fixed preface that cannot be replaced because the permanent Preface forms part of a single chain of thought that must not be interrupted or truncated.

Every Preface is addressed to the Father through Jesus Christ, and every Preface is a solemn thanksgiving prayer. At times it is for some great deed God has worked in history, such as the Incarnation, Passion, or the Resurrection; at other times, it includes the marvels of creation.

Here I would like to insert a few words about thanksgiving in general. According to the liturgy thanksgiving should not be an occasional prayer. The Preface insists that “we do well always and everywhere to give you thanks.” To give the Father thanks always and everywhere means that we cannot omit any detail, any event from our lives. There should not be anything in our lives excepted from this thanksgiving that is “always and everywhere.” All of my life is valuable, all of it is worth living, no matter what the external circumstances are: joyful and hurtful moments, all come from God, at least in the sense that He allows the evil thing to happen for a greater good.

Not only the first moment of my existence is God’s gift to me as if the rest were just the result of natural forces. All the natural causes are upheld in being and actualized by God. Every moment of my existence is poured into me by God. I would fall back into nothingness if God stopped holding me in the palm of his hand. All achievements, all successes, all my virtues are from God. We all know this in theory but deny it in practice. Whenever I brag about my achievements, whenever I place myself above a single human being regarding goodness and holiness, I reveal that I am not really acknowledging the source of my virtue and goodness. I am stealing for myself what belongs to God. St. Bernard explains that no matter how little I boast, I am still committing a theft because I am stealing for myself the goodness that belongs to God. Ever since the first sin of humankind, we are plagued by this ingratitude, by the tendency to become our own gods, acting as if we were the source of our own being and goodness.

Perhaps we better understand now why we need to give thanks to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. God himself had to become man to teach us how to be true human beings, how to act as true creatures who are able to give back to God their whole being, all that they are and all that they have. Only the Son of God made man knows how to acknowledge wholeheartedly that all that he has is from the Father. Only the Son does not seek his own glory, only the Son knows how to thank, love and praise the Father as the Father deserves to be thanked, loved and praised.

It is in the Eucharist that we can unite in a sacramentally tangible and visible way our feeble efforts of thanksgiving to the Son’s own perfect thanksgiving. Only through the Son, with the Son and in the Son can we really place our whole being, our whole existence, into the Father’s hands. With Jesus as He prayed on the cross, we should say, “Into your hand O God I place my life.” The Mass is for us a daily training, a daily “work-out” helping us to mean this surrender and thanksgiving always more sincerely and wholeheartedly.