Several years ago, once my boys were old enough not to need the steadying presence of my husband and me in the pew, I joined my church choir. I had sung in my middle school and high school choruses, and in my home parish alongside my mom, who has been gone 17 years now. So, returning to choral singing meant returning to a different time, before marriage and children, when I lifted my voice for me, mostly.
Singing delighted me—it still does—and made Mass go by more quickly. Singing was the thing, the star, the Mass a backdrop I did not pay very close attention to as a young person and a young artist. There was the opening hymn and communion hymn. Somewhere in there, we shook hands and received communion, and then there was the closing hymn, like a curtain falling to the stage. End of scene, end of show.
But in the years since I have come to understand: The Mass is not a show. The Mass is a miracle. But that miracle is part of a drama, one of communion and sacrifice, conducted in the language and form of ritual. The dramatic elements make a scaffolding on which the art—the mystery, wonder, glory and awe—is hung.
Learning the structure of the Mass, knowing the parts and their purpose, has freed me up for prayer and nourishment. It has freed me up to revel in the miracle of the Mass because I know where this story is leading, uniting us congregants with God and with each other through the Holy Eucharist, every single time.
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Rebecca Moon Ruark is a writer and Mass cantor. She lives with her husband and twin sons in Maryland.
With thanks to America, where this article originally appeared.
