In the powerful TV series The Chosen*, a breathless Andrew comes running to exclaim to his brother: “Simon, it’s happened! We are saved! I saw him with my own eyes...the Lamb of God.

He who takes away the sin of the world.” He tries to describe being at the Jordan river with John the Baptist and seeing John point out Jesus with this title. Simon, stressed out about his finances, sick mother-in-law, recent argument with his wife, and the lack of good catches lately (he’s a full-time fisherman), dismisses his brother’s testimony as irrelevant to his personal troubles.

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During the middle of Mass (after the Liturgy of the Word and the preparation of the altar) comes the Eucharistic prayer, which the General Instruction of the Roman Missal calls “the center and high point of the entire celebration...the prayer of thanksgiving and sanctification.” (GIRM 78)

This prayer begins with a dialogue in which the priest exhorts us to lift up our hearts. Then the celebrant chants or speaks the Preface, “in which the Priest, in the name of the whole of the holy people, glorifies God the Father and gives thanks to him for the whole work of salvation or for some particular aspect of it, according to the varying day, festivity, or time of year.”

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