Last week I shared a few thoughts about Eucharistic Prayer III. If you’ll allow me to jump around a bit in this informal “Eucharistic Prayers” series, let’s go back to looking at Eucharistic Prayer I. We will focus on one of the more distinctive features of Eucharistic Prayer I—you know, all those names! “Cyprian, Lawrence, Chrysogonus, John and Paul, Cosmos and Damian…” What’s with the names?

Eucharistic Prayer I is also known as “the Roman Canon”. Rome serves as an important early blossoming place for our faith, the place where both Peter and Paul were martyred, as well as many others. Many of those names you hear in Eucharistic Prayer I were the early Roman martyrs that the early Church venerated, often saying Mass right on their tombs secretly in the catacombs.

So why do all the saints in this prayer date back to before 400 AD? Why don’t we hear about any saints after that? I think this is pretty cool—because after 400 AD hadn’t happened yet! Eucharistic Prayer I is old, very old. To give some context, this is around the same time that the lineup of books of the Bible were being definitively nailed down by the Church. Christians have worshipped with this prayer for a long time—Eucharistic Prayer I was used almost exclusively throughout the Church in the West for 1500 years. I feel that gives it some heft and that it connects us with the many disciples of Jesus who have gone before us throughout the millennia.

The saints are first mentioned in the prayer which begins with “In communion with those whose memory we venerate… .” At the Mass, the doors of heaven are opened up and all the angels and saints pray with us. We participate in our own imperfect way with the perfect and eternal liturgy of Heaven, where God is worshipped and the saints experience a life of perfect blessedness. They are all there with us! This is why we say we pray “in communion” with them.

We’ll pick up this discussion where we left off next time. God bless!