The Greeting of the Congregation by the Priest at the Beginning of the Mass
Fr. Roch Kereszty, O. Cist.

After an entrance hymn is sung or the entrance antiphon is recited, which sets the tone for the celebration, the priest greets the congregation. A short form of the greeting “The Lord be with you” in the original Latin Dominus vobiscum is both a statement and a wish. Mary was greeted with these words by the angel Gabriel. By addressing us with the words of the angel, the celebrant implies that we are already in intimate communion with the Lord, that the Lord is present within us, that He lives within us analogously to the way He was present in the womb of the Virgin Mary. But these same words also express a wish: “If you are not in the state of sanctifying grace, may you be reconciled with God so that the Lord may dwell in you. If you already are, may the Lord intensify his presence in you.”

The longer form of the initial greeting explains the mode of God’s presence within us: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”

The source of Christ’s presence within us is the love of the Father. He sent the Son among us as our brother and redeemer; and the crucified and risen Lord breathes the Holy Spirit upon us so that the Spirit of Christ may build us up as the Mystical Body of Christ. “The fellowship of the Holy Spirit” is a rather weak paraphrase of the original Greek terms he koinonia tou hagiou pneumatos (2 Cor 13:13), which means a communion more intimate than any natural human fellowship can be, a communion that is caused by the Holy Spirit’s presence within us. The same Holy Spirit dwells in each individual member, and from within He inspires us, transforms us and molds us into one community. That is why we are more closely united (provided, of course, that we do not resist the work of the Spirit) than any kind of friendly gathering could be. The Holy Spirit (called the “finger of God” in an ancient Christian hymn) shapes and forms in each one of us the features of Jesus Christ and enables us to share in the heart of Christ, in his love that embraces foe and friend alike. By molding us unto the likeness of Christ, the Holy Spirit joins us to Christ. To the extent, then, that we are united to Christ, we also share in the way Christ relates to his own history. To the risen Christ who now lives in the eternal presence of his Father his own history is present just as Christ is present to the end of all history. His earthly life with its decisive events, his Last Supper that he celebrated with his disciples, his Agony in the Garden and his Crucifixion are present to him just as is the end of all history, the final judgment and the splendor of the heavenly Jerusalem. However, his passion is present to him in his glorious consummation: Christ stands before the throne of the Father as the Lamb was slain but now lives forever (Rev 5:6); his wounds are shining like jewels as ancient Christian art has visualized it.

Thus, as we are united to Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, through faith we also enter into Christ’s relationship to history. We are with him at the Last Supper, at his Crucifixion and in the heavenly Jerusalem that shines with the glory of all the redeemed. In the Eucharistic celebration we are indeed at the intersection of time and history. As Pope John Paul II said in his encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia:

For over a half century, every day, beginning on November 2, 1946, when I celebrated my first Mass in the Crypt of Saint Leonard in Wawel Cathedral in Krakow, my eyes have gazed in recollection upon the host and the chalice, where time and space in some way ‘merge’ and the drama of Golgotha is re-presented in a living way, thus revealing its mysterious ‘contemporaneity’ (Ecclesia de Eucharistia, 59).

But John Paul knows also about the heavenly dimension of the Eucharistic celebration:

In celebrating the sacrifice of the Lamb, we are united to the heavenly ‘liturgy’. . . . The Eucharist is truly a glimpse of heaven appearing on earth. It is a glorious ray of the heavenly Jerusalem which pierces the clouds of our history and lights up our journey (Ibid., 19).

We should then enter the church conscious of the presence of the full mystery of Christ: the Last Supper, the Cross and the heavenly Jerusalem are present to us to the extent that we are in Christ. It is not only remembering, not a make believe psychological trick. Padre Pio lived the mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection every day: those who were present at his Mass could see on his face the agony of Christ and at communion the heavenly joy of the resurrection. We cannot expect to experience the mystery of Christ so often and so intensely as Padre Pio did, but in faith we can always embrace it. If only we knew what we are preparing to celebrate, we would always want to be there, and we would have a greater desire for eternal life where we will see Christ in his saving mysteries face to face.