Imagine walking up to someone & greeting them saying, “The Lord be with you.” In the store, on the street, when we walk in our house that greeting might seem somewhat strange. “Hi,” or “How are you?” or “What’s going on?” are the more usual greetings that we might use, but in Mass our greeting goes beyond a simple, “How are you doing?”

  At Mass, the very first words we hear after we make the Sign of the Cross are that greeting, “The Lord, be with you.” We might say it so much that it might seem like the “Mass code” way of saying “Hello” or “How are you,” but what those words lead to is a much deeper reality than a simple cursory greeting. “The Lord be with you,” comes straight from the Scriptures and are typically addressed towards someone who is about to be asked to do something great, like our Blessed Mother Mary. When we come to Mass, God has great plans for us as well. As we talked about in the article about why we call Mass Mass, God is sending us out on mission into the world and so it is appropriate that we are greeted that way.

  “The Lord be with you,” reminds us of that deep reality that God is with us. They remind us that God wants to send us, that God wants to use us, that God calls us. God’s call isn’t dependent upon our strengths or our abilities, the Lord is with us, all of us, because God wants to do something great in our lives. Maybe we come to Mass with a number of problems, struggles, worries, or fears. When we hear the Priest say, “The Lord be with you,” we are reminded that whatever we might bring with us to Mass, none of it discounts, discourages, or downgrades God’s presence in our lives. In the back of our mind when we hear those words we can say to ourselves, “I am not alone, God is with me.” All too often it’s not God who excludes us, it’s us who exclude or discount the ability of God to work in our lives. We discount ourselves because of our greeting of Mass is about much more than just the Priest saying “Hi” to the congregation, it’s about that deep reminder that no matter who we are and where we’ve been the Lord is with us.”

  So, until we pick up again, “The Lord, be with you.”