There are many phrases that are found in the Liturgy of the Eucharist, and perhaps it is because we hear it so often, we pay scant attention to what they really mean and even imply. Of course, it is sad when this happens, because it means that we are not paying full attention to the words that make up the Liturgy of the Mass. What is it that I am referring to in particular? It is a phrase found in the embolism, which is a short prayer said or sung after the Lord’s Prayer. In the Roman Rite of the Mass, the embolism is followed by the doxology.
In the less literal or more informal English translation used prior to 2011, it reads:
Deliver us, Lord from every evil, and grant us peace in our day. In your mercy keep us free from sin and protect us from all anxiety as we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Saviour, Jesus Christ.
And in the Tridentine form of the Roman Missal, the embolism doesn’t feature the word ‘anxiety’, but we find the phrase ‘keep us safe from all disquiet.’
One can easily miss the feature of the word ‘anxiety’, and it happens easily because so many people go so frequently to Mass that it doesn’t strike them as important to wonder why the Church sees it important that God keeps us from anxiety.
Essentially, the Church sees the reality that a very large percentage of the human population suffers from a neurosis that sees us always striving to earn our place in God’s grace and that our names are safely written in the halls of Heaven.
Many of us live as though in the deep recesses of our being, God may one day look on this earth, and with genuine surprise, see that you or I are actually still existing, and may even acclaim in genuine surprise: “My divine breath is taken away! He/she is still alive! I had completely forgotten about him/her!”
The harsh truth is not that we have fallen off from God’s divine radar screen, but there is a nagging truth that we are in a constant, restless and unending worry that our lives are forgettable. We hanker after wanting to leave a legacy of permanence. We strive to be special, and we want to make a mark in the world through our lives, and will not stop in attaining greatness in the financial world, and that our words and our lives will always be remembered by the people we touch and encounter in life.
But that financial security, or that greatness that we strive to attain will never reach a point that we can safely say that “it is the end”. This neurosis can be summed up in one word that is in the Embolism prayer that the Priest celebrant utters after praying the Lord’s Prayer. And that one word is “anxiety”.
Our greatest fear lies in the horror that after we die and meet our divine judge, that we have been forgotten by God. This anxiety is the opposite of faith, and it is the opposite of believing in God. When we whittle away all the externals and trimmings of our lust for success, we are deeply unsettled because we are fearful that the God who gave us our lives, our desires and our personal talents, has not placed our names in heaven.
Coming to this realization is the “a-ha” moment that I wish every baptized person humbly strives for. But it won’t happen by just reading this blog reflection of mine. It’s a painful and humbling process that can require the need of a good spiritual director and a guide for souls.
Jesus tells his disciples to not be afraid, and that everything hidden will be shown and everything that is secret will be made known – Luke 12:2-3. Our lives have enough trouble on their own, so we really do not need to have this anxiety in our hearts.
Perhaps deep inside of us, there is this nagging fear that we are not loved, or worse, lovable. We strive to earn this by our works. We need to stop making an assertion of our lives and our talents and skills to prove anything, because God will prove it for us. We only need to fall into the divine and loving hands of God, and Jesus’ main task in his ministry was to show the people he ministered to how special and loved they are to God, his heavenly father.
Having read this reflection of mine in this blog, it is my hope that from now on, each time at Mass we hear the celebrant uttering the words of the Embolism after the Lord’s Prayer, we will be acutely attentive to our hearts and be sincere in praying that God will truly protect us from all anxiety.
This way, when at the end of the Mass we hear the celebrant say “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord”, we will respond with great confidence “Thanks be to God!”
