Page 12 - 2024-12-OrdScotReview

News from The Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham in Scotland
Why do we say certain phrases
three times during Mass?
By Walter Sánchez Silva (Catholic News Agency)
HY DO WE say certain phrases three times 12:18 we find that, when the people’s covenant
W Wduring Mass? These phrases are repeated
with expressions such as “through my fault,”
“Lamb of God,” or “Holy, Holy, Holy.” Friar Nelson
Medina, a Dominican priest who holds a doctorate Daniel had the habit of praying three times a day.”
in fundamental theology and is known for his vast
apostolate on social media, explained that “the
number three appears several times in the Bible
and is associated with a process that is complete.
That’s why it makes a lot of sense that, also in the
liturgy, some actions are done three times.”
“It’s like a way of saying a complete, perfect
action. It’s the general meaning of the number
3, which is so characteristic of the Bible and
definitely of the liturgy,” he explained. As an
example, he cited Deuteronomy 16:16, where
“it states that three times a year all the men of
Israel had to appear before the Lord as a way
of renewing the covenant” or “I Samuel 20:41,
where we find David saying farewell to his friend
Jonathan, who was the son of King Saul. And
when David has to take leave of his friend, he
prostrates himself three times as if praying, as if
asking the Lord for the strength he needs.”
“In I Kings 17:21, the prophet Elijah performs
a miracle, which is the resurrection of a boy who
had died. What Elijah does is cover the boy’s
body with his own body and he does this action
three times,” Medina continued. In I Chronicles
In the beauty of holiness
NCENSE SERVES as a reminder that
I Iwe are entering the mystery; magic is not
far away, the sacred is everywhere! It’s no
longer a question of celebrating Mass but of
attending it, as when you go to the cinema,
the theatre, or a concert to enjoy a fine show.
It’s a feast for the eyes and ears, a “divine
.
theatre”
Ph. Martin, Le théâtre divin: Une histoire de la messe worshipped, and that all that is being done, is
XVIe-XXe siècles, Paris: CNRS Editions, 2010 performed to render the easier, a response to
ND BEYOND ALL, I want the
A Asanctuary, especially at sung mass and at
vespers and benediction, to speak to people
of the glories of Heaven, and that, as far as
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with David is ratified, the people exclaim three
times: ‘Peace, peace to you and peace to the one
who helps you!’” and in “Daniel 6:10 we find that
Referencing an example from the Gospels,
Medina pointed out that “Jesus tells Peter that he
will deny him three times” (Matthew 26:34 and
Mark 14:30). Later, “when Peter confirms his love
and adherence to Christ in John 21, he also says to
Jesus three times: ‘You know that I love you.’”
Monsignor Fernando Ocáriz of Opus Dei also
explained, “Throughout the Bible, striking one’s
breast is a gesture of humility and sorrow for sins.
Why three times? As Edward Sri points out, the
threefold repetition of guilt ‘expresses more fully
the sorrow for our sins.’ This line of the liturgy
helps us to recognise that sinning against God is
no light matter,” the priest emphasised.
In his book “The Reason for All the Ceremonies
of the Church and Its Mysteries,” Spanish priest
Antonio Lorera y Abio notes that in the Mass the
“Lamb of God” or “Agnus Dei” is said three times
so that God would free us “from present, past,
and future evils and forgive us the sins committed
by thought, word, and deed.”
This story was first published by ACI Prensa,
CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has
been translated and adapted by CNA
is humanly possible, there shall be gathered
there a splendour of colour and light, beauty
of vesture, and ordered movement that
compels the most wandering and distracted
of undisciplined minds to realise that
something far, far more than the satisfaction
of human devotion is being accomplished –
that the eternal and invisible GOD is being
the invitation “Sursum Corda!” There, at all
events, is and has been my great endeavour.”
Fr Clement Lloyd Russell (1884-1965),
St George’s, Sudbury, a former Anglican priest
writing in his parish magazine in the 1940s