The Missal offers a Prayer to be prayed over the People at the emd of each Mass duirng Lent. Prayed after the Post Communion Prayer and immediately before the dismissal this prayer invokes God’s blessing and protection of the assembly.
In the prayer prayed yesterday, the 2nd Sunday of Lent, we prayed for the blessing of God so that we might attain the glory of Christ.
Prayer over the People
Bless your faithful, we pray, O Lord,
with a blessing that endures for ever,and keep them faithful
to the Gospel of your Only Begotten Son,
so that they may always desire and at last attain
that glory whose beauty he showed in his own Body,
to the amazement of his Apostles.
Through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
That is quite something to ask for. For us to achieve it would surely be to the amazement of many more than the Apostles!
And yet this is God’s hope. That through his love, through the Incarnation, through the grace shared with us in so many ways, we should assume and attain the fullness of life in Christ.
Crucifix. Church of St Peter and Paul, Wolverhampton. (c) 2015, Allen Morris
Living Eucharist 