“As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you” – John 20:21
I never understood why the Catholic mass ends with the priest saying: “Go forth, the Mass is ended” and we, the people, respond with: “Thanks be to God.”
Rejoicing that the mass has ended felt like … sin? It felt “bad” and just plain weird.
My eighth book of 2020 helped me understand though . . . THANKS BE TO GOD!
In “A Biblical Walk Through The Mass,” Edward Sri describes our response as rejoicing in the fact that we’ve received the mass and are now being sent forth. He explains that “the Mass” receives its name from the word Missa which means “dismissal”/“sending” and explains the following: “This points to how the Mass ultimately should be seen as a sending forth” and quotes “‘because the liturgy in which the mystery of salvation is accomplished concludes with the sending forth (missio) of the faithful, so that they may fulfill God’s will in their daily lives’” (p. 147-148).
We say thanks to God because He has filled us and He has commissioned us. We are thankful for the mass and we are thankful for the mission.
Sri says: “It is a dismissal with a mission. It is a sending forth of God’s people to bring the mysteries of Christ into the world” (p. 148).
Thanks be to God! Light our way Father, I pray.