Sexagesima
Sunday
Evening, 30 January 2016
Church of St John / Agawam
The last time we were together, we
spoke about the reality of preparation as it related to two prayers during the
Offertory. We will return to the Offertory sometime in the future. But for
today, it might be useful if we stepped back a moment to consider one aspect of
our worship that concerns the whole Mass, rather than simply one part of it.
That aspect is the gesture that we call the orans,
the extension of the arms and hands that the priest uses a very often during
the Eucharistic Sacrifice.
I haven’t run the numbers, but I
would expect that that priest spends at least half of his time before the altar
with his arms extended in the orans position.
The word orans is simply the present
participle for the word orare: so it
means speaking, or pleading, or praying. The rubrics specify that, when executing this gesture, the
priest’s hands are not to extend either beyond or above his shoulders. To some
this seems a little strained and constricting. But we always have to remember
that the Roman Rite does indeed have that aspect of noble simplicity that liturgists sometimes like to talk about. Our
worship favors conservative, restrained, understated gestures, rather than
expressions that are more free-flowing, elaborate, and showy. Part of this has
to do with the Roman way of thinking, which favors law and uniformity and
precision.
You see, there are two ways that the
human being can approach God, and these two differences are typified, I
believe, in the differences between East and West, between rites that are
western and Roman and the rites that are eastern and Greek. When we approach
the mystery and perfection of God, one way of doing so is to exhaust oneself in
trying to describe it. Generally speaking, we might say this is the Greek way
of doing things. The Byzantine liturgies contain many long texts of hymns and
sacred poetry, composed over the centuries by the saints and others. Like all
poetry, it is filled with images and metaphors, symbols and parallelisms, and
all the other literary devices that poetry uses to convey a truth. With the
sacred poetry of the East, we see the human spirit enthralled before the
mystery of God, prayerfully telling forth the glory it beholds.
We Romans are a little different. As
we said a moment ago, the imprint of the ancient Roman mind is still with us
today. Like the Latin language in which we celebrate, our worship prefers
density and terseness. Before the mystery of God, the Roman Rite prefers to be say
only so much—and when our liturgy does presume to speak, more often than not it
uses direct quotations from Scripture. For instance, all the proper texts that
we use for the day are taken straight from the Bible, thus the artistry of the
Roman rite comes especially with the arrangement of the texts. So while the
Greek liturgies approach God with prayerful poetry, we approach him with an
astonished understatement.
It is the same with the gestures and
rubrics of our worship. While the Byzantine liturgies tend to be drawn out and
intricate, the Roman Rite favors sobriety and simplicity. This is why the orans position is the way it is—not out
of a desire to be stuffy and constricting, but to avoid distraction and
approach God with a reverent and holy restraint.
But what does this gesture mean?
Admittedly, this gesture is very ancient, and it precedes even Christian usage.
The ancient false religions used it; the ancient people of God used it. But
why? Because it gives expression to the
fundamental posture of man before God. The human being is the only creature
on earth that worships God, of course, in a rational way; some have called man
the religious animal. So, what does this gesture teach us about what it means
to worship God? The answer is threefold.
First, it is an expression of
guiltlessness. The human creature stands before God with arms and palms
outstretched to show that his hands are bloodless and without stain. Think of
Cain and Abel. What do the Scriptures tell us? After Cain kills Abel, the Lord
says: “‘The voice of your brother’s blood calls from me from the ground . . .
which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand.’”[1] We as human beings know in
our heart of hearts that, if we have harmed another human being, we are
unworthy to approach God. So the gesture of the orans is an expression of that awareness: we show God our clean
hands because we realize that our worship of God has as much to do with the
lives we live as with the words we speak to him in prayer.
Second, the orans is an expression of poverty. When the hands are held out in
this gesture, it is impossible to hold anything in them. We are not holding a
weapon to do anyone harm, and we withhold from God no sacrifice that we might
bring him. Our hands are open and empty before him, waiting for him to fill us
with his blessing and grace. It is as if we are showing him our empty hands,
begging him—another word for orans—to
be with us and to sustain us in all that we do. What know that what our Lord
says is true, “apart from me you can do nothing.”[2]
Third, the orans is a gesture of self-surrender. If we are poor, the only
option for us is to surrender ourselves to God. When any culture placed a
sacrifice on any altar, it was naturally accompanied by this gesture, as if to
raise the sacrifice before heaven. It means the same today, except that it has
been finally perfected in Jesus Christ, true God and true man. With our arms
outstretched we say to God, “See, I give you everything; not only do I withhold
nothing from you, but I insist that you receive me as a sacrifice.”
We have reached Sexagesima Sunday:
that’s sixty more days till the solemn, joyful celebration of Easter. But for
the moment, we are preparing ourselves (as we always are) to live lives that
are well-pleasing to God. Our post-Communion prayer says exactly that: “We humbly beseech Thee, almighty God, to
grant that they whom Thou dost refresh with Thy sacraments, may worthily serve
Thee by lives well-pleasing to Thee.”
The orans position expresses just that. By it, without even speaking a
word, we beg God to make our lives well pleasing to him, in this life and in
the life to come.
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