Not so long ago, when the priest said to the people in Mass “The Lord be with you”, we used to reply “And also with you”. Then in 2011 it was changed in line with the Latin to “And with your spirit”. We were told “It is more accurate”. But, if you think about it, it is also more meaningful.

I know people complain that it is not how we speak in English. It isn’t. But it is how we speak as Christians. A lot of English has been purged of Christian meaning. In fact when I say to you “The Lord is with your Spirit”, I am acknowledging you as a wondrous, sacred being. Your origin is from the breath of God, and your destiny is to dwell forever with angels, you are awesome (in the true sense of the word). Deeper than your physical body that I see, and your mind and feelings that I perceive, is your spirit, the innermost part of your being where you relate to God, and, through him, with all of his creation.

English language is very good at expressing practical and scientific thought. It has a wonderful history of poetry, which gives flight to imagination and emotions. But it has difficulty expressing spiritual realities. That is because the British mind has been dominated by humanistic thought with its constant demolition of the sacred. It is no surprise that our popular songs are so bleak and our popular drama is so fixated on violence and depravity. When we say that the true measure of all things is humanity, things begin to feel very flat, but then the flat gradually inclines towards destruction. It is no surprise that there are reports of increasing mental sickness in our population.

Water cannot exist without oxygen; it would just be hydrogen - and we know how explosive that is. Similarly, it is only in relation to God that humanity truly flourishes. I think the nearest English comes to the spiritual in human relationships is in the Catholic Wedding Promise, “I take thee to be my lawful wedded husband (or wife)”. It is at that point that a man and woman give eachother the sacrament of marriage, a sacrament which they will continually minister to eachother until death parts them. When I refer to you as thee, I acknowledge you as that sacred being, whom I will honour and “worship” (to use the old form of the promise). It is close to the command of God to Moses at the burning bush, “Take off your shoes, for you are on holy ground”. Such awe is at the heart of the Sacrament of Matrimony.

When we, the people, reply to priest’s “The Lord be with you” with the words “And with your spirit”, we are not talking to the priest only. We are uttering the cry of the Church, the Body of Christ, in response to the priest’s wake-up call. We are throwing off the self-centeredness which the world presses on us, and stepping into our real identity as beings of heaven on earth, who are bonded into one sacred family. We are brother and sisters birthed from the pierced side of Jesus. It is the sanest way to start the Mass.

Next follows more sanity. The priest says “Let us call to mind our sins”. I used to think that I had to attempt a quick confession then in those few seconds, but really I am called to reflect further on the nature of the body I am a part of. Each of us is unfinished. Each of has multiple defects which are still to be healed as we are led together by Christ toward the fullness of the eternal heaven.

At that moment, while I take off my shoes in the presence of the holiness of my brothers and sisters in Christ, I know that I must love them into perfection, and they me. I am professing that this is our hope and it will be fulfilled. But this can only happen because, as we pray “Lord have mercy”, then, we are opening our hearts to the huge cascade of love by which our Father is cherishing humanity into perfection, in the Mystical Body of his Son.

We name this short rite the “Right of Penance”. “Penance” does not mean bemoaning our sins, but rather turning to our Father in our sin to be lovingly washed clean, refreshed and empowered.

All these short exchanges with which we begin the Mass are a reality-check. We are remembering and rejoicing in the real world, the world that is God-filled. That joy is expressed in the Gloria. It should be sung, to lend depth to the outpouring of our family rejoicing.

Again and again the reality-check of “The Lord be with you/And with your spirit” is repeated throughout the Mass: before we listen to the words of Jesus at the Gospel, before the appearance of Jesus in the Eucharistic, before the Communion at the Kiss of Peace, and before we the members of Christ’s Body are sent out at the end of the Mass to renew the face of the earth.

And let us not forget the Sign of the Cross at the beginning of Mass. It is the shortest act of faith and yet the most meaningful. The words remind us of the deepest revelation that God is the family of the Trinity, and the action reminds us that the profoundest fact of humanity is our redemption on the cross.