At a recent Sunday Mass, our curious kindergartener leaned over to me and asked why we trace a small cross on our forehead, lips and heart as the Gospel is about to be proclaimed. I remember asking my own mother the same thing at a similar age, and I still remember her response: “So that Jesus is in our minds, words and heart.”
There are a variety of little gestures at Mass that we can miss or take for granted. I was so encouraged that our daughter was interested in the meaning of this simple, easily overlooked gesture. And I was renewed in appreciating its significance as I pondered her question in prayer.
Words matter. “I love you,” a husband says to his wife. Words create. “Let there be light,” God began the cosmos. Words have power. “This is my body,” as priests echoing Christ’s own confect the Eucharist. The Word was made flesh and dwelled among us. “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life,” Christ instructs.
The Word proclaimed, especially so when among the assembly of believers at Mass, is truly Christ’s presence. It is “living and effective,” as Hebrews explains (Heb 4:2). “Dei Verbum,” the Second Vatican Council’s dogmatic constitution on Divine Revelation, explains that “the Church has always venerated the divine Scriptures just as she venerates the body of the Lord” and “unceasingly receives and offers to the faithful the bread of life from the table both of God’s word and of Christ’s body” (No. 21).
Much of our “practice” of Catholicism is cooperating with God’s grace so that the Word is made flesh in us. While we hope to say, like St. Paul, that “it is Christ who dwells in me” (Gal 2:20), it also requires us to put our whole entire self into this work.
Thinking of the crosses we trace on ourselves at the Gospel at Mass, my mind immediately came to that image of Christ as Way, Truth and Life. It seems most fitting that as we prepare to receive Christ’s presence in the word to call with a prayer that he comes to live more fully in us — in our minds, in our words, in our actions.
We pray that as we hear Christ in the Gospel, he orders and instructs our minds. When Christ dwells there, we commit anew to following his way. In taking on the attitude of Christ, we take him as our model and example.
We pray that as we hear Christ in the Gospel, he forms and informs our words. Christ is the truth we are called to speak at all times. From our lips all should know Christ dwells in us. Jesus left crowds “astonished” because he taught “as one having authority” (Mt 7:29). When we speak, we must reflect that authority we have given him.
We pray that as we hear Christ in the Gospel, he shapes and recreates our hearts. Christ, the bread of life, bestows life upon all who eat his flesh and drink his blood. Christ lives in us when we live his life, when we love as he loves. In our eucharistic living, we take up Christ’s life of love: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (Jn 15:13).
Hearing Christ in the Gospel, allowing his words to transform us — as they change bread and wine into his body and blood — is to embody Christ in all things.
The Mass is one act of worship, in two parts: Word and Eucharist. It is upon these that the door to salvation hinges. As each of us endeavors to more fully seek conformity with Christ in our mind, our will and our heart, may we remember this truth. And by his grace, especially that made present in the Eucharist, may we allow the Word made flesh to be embodied in us more each day.
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