THE THREE R'S

Sometimes we don't see things unless they are pointed out.

Millions of Catholics go to Mass every Sunday; sometimes more often than that. They hear the prayers over and over again. I don't blame them if they never noticed that there is often a pattern to these prayers. Some things just need to be pointed out.

Take, for example, the opening prayer at Mass, called the Collect. It's the first time at Mass (in the Ordinary Form) that the priest says, "Let us pray," and then proceeds to say a prayer.

All Collects have some sort of address; a way we call out to God. Most of the time, it's to God the Father. These addresses are usually short, sometimes one word!

All Collects also have a conclusion and, since most Collects are addressed to the Father, the conclusion is often a reference to Christ in unity with the Holy Spirit.

But besides the opening address and the conclusion, many Collects have a three-part structure or pattern.  We can call this pattern the Three R's, because the three parts are words starting with R.

First comes a RECALL; a remembering of some truth about God or something that God has already done in the past. A more traditional way of calling it is "acknowledgement." The purpose of this recall is to understand that the God we are speaking to in our prayer is a good God, a powerful God, a merciful God, who has shown these things to us in the past. The Collect can become specific about a characteristic of God, or a specific thing He has done for us in the past. If God has done good things for us in the past, then we have every reason to believe fervently that He can and will give us good things today.

Next comes the REQUEST. Many times the request is spiritual in nature. That God pour out His mercy; that God help us to love Him above all things; that God fill us with holy joy. There are times in the rest of Mass that we ask for earthly or material blessings, and at times even the Collect asks for them. But the Collects make the spiritual connection with God most important because, by being united to God, the creator of both the material and the spiritual, blessings of all kinds come to us, including the material, but especially the ones that last forever. The traditional word for this part of the Collect is the petition.

Finally comes the RESULT; what happens after the blessing we requested is given to us by God. The gifts of God produce results. One good thing leads to another. This the nature of goodness. It spills over; it spreads itself. In traditional terminology, the result is called the aspiration (something hoped for).

Let's take a look at two examples of the Three R's at work in the Collect.

First, we see that this prayer is addressed to God the Father and so we're not surprised that it concludes stating that we pray through God the Son.

We recall in this prayer that God is the giver of every good gift. Therefore we have confidence that we are going to the right person seeking good things. He is also the God of might; He has the power to give good gifts. The address also contains something we should recall.

Next comes the request. We ask God to put a certain type of love into our hearts. It's a love for God's name. Why do we ask that? What will be the benefit of loving God's name?

We find the answer in the result of that request. We will deepen our sense of reverence for God. He will increase and develop in us what is good, and He will keep safe from all threat and harm the good which He has nurtured in us. This Collect is from the 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time.

And now, from the 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time, another Collect.

Here, we address God the Father once again, as the Almighty and Ever-living God. And the Collect concludes in the name of God the Son, in union with the Holy Spirit.

Then we recall that the Father has given us the Holy Spirit who taught us to call God our Father. Since it was God Himself, in the person of God the Holy Spirit, who taught us to call God our Father, we have no hesitation in calling God our Father. This was revolutionary. People in the past had no fear calling God "Lord," "God," "King" and other such grand names. But to call this Almighty God who created us, before whom we are but tiny, insignificant creatures, "Father" is to make us His children, not merely His creatures! How could man dare to be so bold, as to claim such an intimate relationship with God!

But the believer has the courage to make that claim, because Jesus sent us the Holy Spirit, who made us the adopted children of God, enabling us to cry out, "Abba! Father!"

If, then, God is so good as to adopt us as His beloved children, being for us not only creator and ruler, but also a loving and merciful Father, then we can move on, after recalling this, to make a request.

That request is for God to perfect in us the spirit of adoption as His sons and daughters. We were made His adopted children in baptism. That was the beginning. But children grow. They develop, they mature. And so we ask God to do this in us.

Why? What is the result hoped for? The aspiration? The result we hope for is to inherit what God has promised His obedient children; life eternal.

So this is the pattern, but it is not the rule for every single Collect, all the time.

In some Collects, the order is changed, as when the request comes first! But some mention of God who is addressed in the prayer is made, even if not at the very beginning.

In some Collects, no result connected with the request is mentioned.

But the Three R's is a pattern, in some form, for many of the Collects.

THE THREE R'S IN THE TRADITIONAL MASS

Just so that we can see that the pattern of the Three R's is an old one, such that it appears often in the Traditional Latin Mass, whose prayers go back in some cases 1500 years ago, let's look at the Collect for the 2nd Sunday of Lent in the 1962 Missal.

Here we see, once again, an absolutely simple and straightforward address. "O God." At the end, the prayer is concluded in the name of the Son of God.

Next comes the recall. We recall that God knows that we humans have no power from ourselves. We know it, and God knows it. That's key. Because if we have no power in ourselves, then God surely has to come to the rescue. And that motivates us, then, to make the Request. We ask of the one person who has the power - God.

In older language, "to keep" also meant "to protect, to preserve, to guard" and many similar things. We say that a clean, maintained house is "well-kept." So the request is that God keep both our bodies and souls, the outer and the inner, protected and safe.

What is the result, if God does protect us? Harm of the body (troubles or adversities) and harm of the soul (evil thoughts) won't come to us.