The General Instruction of the Roman Missal calls the Eucharistic Prayer the center and high point of the entire celebration: a prayer of thanksgiving and sanctification in which the whole congregation joins itself with Christ in confessing the great works of God and offering the sacrifice. The priest alone says it, in the person of Christ the head, while the people take part through the acclamations and above all through the great Amen at the end. All listen in reverent silence. The Instruction sets out its constant elements. Thanksgiving is expressed in the Preface; the acclamation is the Sanctus; the epiclesis calls down the Holy Spirit that the gifts may become the Body and Blood of Christ and that those who receive them may become one body; the Institution Narrative and Consecration repeat the Lord's words and actions at the Supper; the anamnesis recalls his Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension; the oblation offers the spotless Victim to the Father; the intercessions name the Pope, the bishop, the living and the dead, and the whole Church in heaven and on earth; and the final doxology, "Through him, and with him, and in him," closes the prayer. Eucharistic Prayer I is the Roman Canon, in substance the prayer of the Roman Church from at least the time of Saint Gregory the Great, with its lists of saints and its proper insertions on Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, the Ascension, and Pentecost. Eucharistic Prayer II is a shorter prayer modeled on a very ancient anaphora preserved in the Apostolic Tradition, with its own preface; its brevity suits weekdays. Eucharistic Prayer III was newly composed in the reform after the Council and may be used with any preface; it is especially suited to Sundays and feasts and contains a strong petition for the dead. Eucharistic Prayer IV, drawing on the style of the Eastern anaphoras, recounts the whole history of salvation in one sweep and has a fixed preface that may not be replaced. The Missal also provides two Eucharistic Prayers for Reconciliation, valuable in Lent and at penitential celebrations, and the Eucharistic Prayer for Masses for Various Needs, which appears in four forms with different prefaces and intercessions. The priest may choose among these according to the day and the pastoral circumstances, following the rubrics; the texts themselves are never to be altered, since they are the Church's own profession of faith, not the celebrant's composition.

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mass_structure