While it is no longer the practice for all priests to offer prayers while vesting for Mass, many do offer these "vesting prayers." The prayers are a good occasion for them to be enriched with a profound humility and willing availability to act in the very Person of Christ at the Holy Sacrifice. In this series, we look at each vesting prayer and its corresponding vestment, as an intimate insight into the spiritual lives of priests at their most vulnerable moment every day, helping all the rest of us also to understand just who we are before God and neighbor.
PRAYER 2 – "Ad amictum" (Prayer used for the amice)
"Impone Domine, capiti meo galeam salutis, ad expugnandos diabolicos incursus." ("Place upon my head, O Lord, the helmet of salvation, for conquering diabolical assaults.")
The amice is a piece of cloth placed over the head like a helmet, then put around one's neck and shoulders. The word comes from the Latin "amictus," which refers to a covering in the sense of military headgear.
The idea is not that we have the power to beat down whatever diabolical assaults there may be during the ultimate religious battle during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, what with all of hell broken out on Calvary, and all of heaven watching as the Soldier, Christ Jesus, lays down His life for us. Instead, the concept for this prayer is that we cannot ourselves beat down any diabolical assaults, so we humbly ask the Lord that He Himself cover us with the grace of salvation, which, of itself, conquers the assaults of the Evil One. We are reminded of St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians 6:12-17: "For our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens. Therefore, put on the armor of God, that you may be able to resist on the evil day and, having done everything, to hold your ground. So stand fast with your loins girded in truth, clothed with righteousness as a breastplate, and your feet shod in readiness for the gospel of peace. In all circumstances, hold faith as a shield, to quench all (the) flaming arrows of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God."
Just as a helmet protects the head, a spiritual helmet fends off untoward assaults of a spiritual nature. Such spiritual assaults can be mind games the devil puts before us, about which St. Paul instructs and reprimands us: "For our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with the ... evil spirits in the heavens."
As it is, the temptation is for us to dumb down the spiritual battle to that of flesh and blood, laying ourselves wide open to diabolical assaults, having us be filled with rancor and discord, political correctness and horrific clericalism of every kind and, to justify ourselves, disobedience to the faith, ignoring the Living Truth who is Christ Jesus. It can and does happen that priests offer Holy Mass with such a deficient attitude. We need prayer.
When St. Paul speaks of taking on "the helmet of salvation," he immediately adds taking up "the sword of the Spirit," which is the word of God. The priest, who offers the Word of God to our Heavenly Father during Mass, leads others into reverence before these sacred mysteries by the word of God he preaches. In times past, a cleric would receive the amice from his bishop, who would call the amice "a castigatio vocis" – "a castigation of the voice" – for if one's mind is preoccupied with all that is heavenly, one's speech will edify the mystical body of Christ.
Sin entered the world through the deception of Satan, who tried to get flesh and blood to battle with flesh and blood, with rancor and discord. This prayer is a mockery of Satan's assault against Adam and against all of mankind throughout time. This prayer points to the promised Redeemer of Genesis 3:15. Having taken the initiative to crush the head of Satan and to be crushed while He does that – what is happening at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass we priests prepare to offer with this prayer – our Lord provides us with the helmet of salvation so as to repel the deceit of the Evil One.
When our Lord Himself was especially assaulted by Satan during those 40 days in the desert, the temptation was about things of flesh and blood (the bread), about egoism (gaining the whole world) and rancor and discord (mocking God). Jesus' response to each temptation was about His bond of union in all charity with the Father: God will not be mocked. Love conquers all mind games. The helmet of salvation means to have one's mind focused on loving God and loving one's neighbor with the same act of love, love which is the Living Truth.
Father George David Byers is administrator of Holy Redeemer Church in Andrews.
While it is no longer the practice for all priests to offer prayers while vesting for Mass, many do offer these "vesting prayers." The prayers are a good occasion for them to be enriched with a profound humility and willing availability to act in the very Person of Christ at the Holy Sacrifice. In this series, we look at each vesting prayer and their corresponding vestment, as an intimate insight into the spiritual lives of priests at their most vulnerable moment every day, helping all the rest of us also to understand just who we are before God and neighbor.
PRAYER 3 – "Ad albam" ("Prayer used for the alb")
"Dealba me, Domine, et munda cor meum; ut, in Sanguine Agni dealbatus, gaudiis perfruar sempiternis." ("Brighten me, O Lord, and cleanse my heart, that being made resplendent in the Blood of the Lamb, I may thoroughly rejoice in eternal joy.")
The body-length white garment which a priest wears for Mass is called an alb. The word comes from the Latin "albus," which refers to a resplendent brilliance. We recall the transfiguration of Jesus on Mount Tabor, when His face became as bright as the sun and His clothing as white as light. Mind you, this was also when He spoke with Elijah and Moses about the dark time to come on Mount Calvary, the exodus that He was to accomplish in Jerusalem (see Lk 9:31), the very completion of the Sacrifice of the Last Supper: His body being handed over and His blood being poured out.
The alb is among the priestly garments of old, with which Aaron and his sons were clothed for their service in the great liturgy mandated by God Most High (see Ex 40:12-15). But Jesus belongs to the House of David, and He is in the priestly line of Melchizedek (see Hb 5:6), a priest after the heart of God Most High (see 1 Sm 2:35). The irony here is intense. The priest today wears an alb of the priestly order to which Jesus did not belong, but by which He suffered: the chief priests paid Judas to betray Jesus, with Caiaphas proclaiming the "prophetic" expedience that it is better that one man die than that a whole nation should perish; it is they who mocked Jesus while he forgave them from the cross (see Mk 10:33-34; Lk 23:34-35).
Though ceremonial uncleanness of the priests and their garments – due to the sin offering and the exodus of the scapegoat – was symbolically washed away with water (e.g. Lv 16), it was the blood of a ram which would consecrate the priests and the liturgical garments (see Ex 29:19-21). It was the blood of a goat with which the most famous garment of Joseph was drenched by the other sons of Jacob so as to fake Joseph's death, making him their scapegoat (see Gn 37:31), for they forgot that their great grandfather Abraham had a ram sacrificed in place of their grandfather Isaac (see Gn 22:8.13). So much sin and betrayal using goats, but so great the promise of redemption using rams! The mere washing with water of the priests and their garments would have to give way to being washed by the blood of the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world (see Jn 1:29).
In the great book of the divine liturgy in heaven and on earth, the Apocalypse, we read of "a great multitude, which no one could count from every nation, race, people, and tongue, who always stand before the throne and before the Lamb, wearing white robes" (Ap 7:9). One of the priests explains to John that those wearing the white robes "are the ones who have survived the time of intense tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb" (Ap 7:14). These are the ones who loudly cry out: "Salvation comes from our God, who is seated on the throne, and from the Lamb" (Ap 7:10).
The blood of that Lamb of God began to flow from Him like great drops of sweat during His intense tribulation in His agony in the Garden of Gethsemane at the moment of His betrayal by Judas. Betrayal only comes from friends, who dip their bread in the dish with Jesus as did Judas. By our sins, all of us priests have betrayed Jesus. Wearing the alb is an occasion to be humble and contrite of heart. Being vested in the alb is also about being willing to be betrayed with Jesus, even by one's friends. It is an invitation to know intimacy of friendship with Jesus such that we, with His grace, would call a betrayer "friend" as Jesus called Judas at the very moment of that deadly kiss (see Mt 26:49-50).
What a great preparation it is for us priests to recite this little prayer while vesting for Mass. We have the hope that our darkened souls will be brightened, that our filthy hearts will be cleansed, that in the very sacrifice of the Blood of the Lamb we ourselves are made resplendent, and that, finally, we will thoroughly rejoice in eternal joy. The intense tribulation we have in dying to ourselves so as to do only the will of "Abba, Father" (Mk 14:36), brings us to rejoice in the peace provided by the goodness and kindness – and patience – of Jesus even for us priests.
Father George David Byers is administrator of Holy Redeemer Church in Andrews.