Stuffed in between the Offertory and the Preface is a short but ancient prayer most Catholics probably pay little attention to: the Orate Fratres. The name comes from the Latin and is translated as “Pray, brethren, that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable…” 

I contend that Catholics rarely see the coherence of Mass prayers. I suspect a lot probably see them as a jumble, not noticing their connectedness. But, if you look clearly, there is a dynamic to the Offertory: the presentation of the gifts by the faithful to the priest; his offering them; his invitation that “my sacrifice and yours” be made acceptable to God; and the prayer to God over the gifts. With that, we move from the Offertory to the Eucharistic Prayer, the heart of the Mass, where those gifts will be consecrated. As Josef Jungmann observed, the Orate Fratres in fact bridges the offertory and consecration: the mediating priest who offered the gifts of the faithful now prays they be accepted for consecration through his priestly ministry as alter Christus.

So, why do I ask whether the Orate Fratres might go away? Two reasons.

First, it’s hierarchical presuppositions. Priestly improv notwithstanding, the normative text for the priest’s invitation is to pray “that my sacrifice and yours” be acceptable to God. The text does not say “our” sacrifice. The pronouns are specific, differentiated, and ordered: “my sacrifice and yours.”  

He who offers them is a priest. He is not a “presider” or a “president.” Offering sacrifice is not just his “job,” it is his identity. And there is a dynamic to the process. The faithful bring the gifts for offering to God to the priest. He offers them. And, having offered them, the priest invites the faithful to pray that “my sacrifice and yours” be acceptable to God. They may have been offered by the faithful, but their offering by the priest clearly has a unique and irreducible character: he’s not just acting in loco fidelium. The faithful themselves pray that God accept “the sacrifice from your [not “at” or “from our”] hands.”

Vatican II is explicit: “Though they differ from one another in essence and not only in degree, the common priesthood of the faithful and the ministerial or hierarchical priesthood are…interrelated” (Lumen Gentium 10). There is a qualitative, essential, and ontological distinction between the priesthood of the faithful derived from Baptism and the hierarchical priesthood derived from Holy Orders. Yes, the ordained priest offers the gifts with and for the priesthood of the faithful, but without the former, there can be no Eucharist. There is, therefore, a difference between “my” sacrificial offering and “yours.” And that difference is sanctioned by the teaching of the Second Vatican Council. There is a qualitative, essential, and ontological distinction between the priesthood of the faithful derived from Baptism and the hierarchical priesthood derived from Holy Orders. Tweet This

There has, of course, been a leveling in this understanding of the priesthood and—let’s not deny it—a certain contemporary bent indulgent toward it, one that gets its hackles raised when the ordained priesthood is accentuated. Criticizing “clericalism” in the Church is in a certain fashion, but how often does that criticism imply a downplaying of the ordained priesthood?  

Second, the Orate Fratres explicitly emphasizes the Eucharist as sacrifice. “Sacrifice” is used both in the priest’s invitation and the people’s response. The Eucharist is not called a “meal.” It is not a “supper.” It is not a “gathering” symbol. It is a sacrifice. Priests offer sacrifices. This is an altar, not a table. Priests are mediators—and the idea of sacerdotal mediation is long theologically sanctioned.

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That, too, runs against a certain trajectory of Eucharistic theology that downplays the Mass as sacrifice. I’d argue all sorts of problems follow in its wake—from not understanding the meaning of sacrifice, why atonement is necessary (which implies the loss of a sense of sin), the significance of suffrages, and an “all-dogs-and-people-go-to-Heaven” eschatology that has reduced the Four Last Things to two: death and Heaven.  

The Orate Fratres explicitly affirms theological truths that have experienced a certain de-emphasis in our times. Perhaps as a prayer lodged into the Mass, people don’t necessarily notice what it says or the implications it bears. But lex orandi, lex credendi—how we pray expresses what we believe; and the Orate Fratres has long expressed essential Catholic beliefs.

Of course, I do not expect the Orate Fratres to go away. It still matters—and not just because it has been too long a part of the liturgy to undergo a modern disappearing act. But if it is there, perhaps we need to take seriously what it says—and recognize it also is a hermeneutical key to how we understand the Eucharist.