As the liturgy moves towards the table, the priest/pastor and congregation enter into a section called the “Great Thanksgiving,” “Eucharistic Prayer,” or anaphora (ἀναφορά). The Great Thanksgiving, as both the Anglican Book of Common Prayer and the Lutheran Book of Worship indicate, properly begins with a dialogue generally called by its Latin name sursum corda. The dialogue begins with the traditional greeting of the chief celebrant, “The Lord be with you,” and the people’s response, “And with your spirit.” “Lift up your hearts” (sursum corda) is the invitation to the assembly to join in the anaphora, the Eucharistic offering. It is an invitation to the people of God to raise their minds to “things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God” (Colossians 3:1-3).
This dialog between the presider and congregation is found in prayers from the liturgies from the earliest centuries of the Church. In the fourth century, St. Cyril of Jerusalem (c. A.D. 313 – 386) commented in his Mystagogical Catecheses: “For at that most awesome moment we must indeed raise our hearts high to God, not keep them intent on the earth and on earthly matters. So the priest is virtually commanding you at that moment to lay aside the cares of this life, your domestic worries, and to keep your heart in heaven on God who loves men.”[1] 1,200 years later, John Calvin (A.D. 1509 – 1564) was even more explicit in his Genevan liturgy. The following passage has found its way into the Eucharistic liturgies of most churches of Calvin’s Reformed tradition: “Let us raise our hearts and minds on high, where Jesus Christ is, in the glory of his Father…Our souls will only then be disposed to be nourished and vivified by his substance, when they are raised high as heaven, to enter the kingdom of God where he dwells.”[2] As Mitchell notes, the many comments across history related to the “uplifting” nature of this dialogue suggest that “in the eucharist we are brought into the presence of God in Christ, not by our bringing Christ ‘down’ to our eucharistic assembly, but by God’s lifting us ‘up’ to heaven.”[3]
In the fourteenth century, German Dominican mystic Henry Suso (c. A.D. 1295 – 1366) wrote this (in the third person) about his emotional reaction to the sursum corda:
He was asked what his reaction was when he sang mass and before the canon of the mass introduced the preface with sursum corda. In the vernacular these words are commonly interpreted thus: sursum—aloft, into the heights all hearts to God! The words left his mouth so full of longing that those who heard it could have received a special spirit of devotion. He answered the question with a deep sigh and said, ‘When I sang these venerable words sursum corda at mass, it usually happened that my heart and soul dissolved in tearful longing for God, a longing that immediately caused my heart to flee out of itself. Three uplifting fantasies usually arose in me then. Sometimes one would come, sometimes two, sometimes all three, in which I was lifted aloft into God and through me all creatures.’”[4]
Suso then continued to write in beautiful imagery and prose about the visions that he experienced.
The dialogue then continues with “Let us give thanks,” a direct bidding to participate not only in the earthly action of the earthly priest in giving thanks, but also in the heavenly action of Christ the heavenly high priest (Hebrews 8:1-2, 9:10-11). Following the sursum corda is the preface, a response of which is found in nearly every liturgy and was expanded by St. John Chrysostom (c. A.D. 347 – 407) and St. Basil of Cæsarea (A.D. 330 – 379) to include reference to the creed: “It is meet and right to worship the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the consubstantial and undivided Trinity.”[5] The Book of Common Prayer states this first part as: “It is right, and a good and joyful thing, always and everywhere to give thanks to you, Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.”[6] Following this, the Western Church includes a “proper” which adopts the appropriate tone and themes of the church calendar, and this is typically a declaration of the glory of God.
The preface (also called the “contestation”) is “strictly and properly,” according to Chrysostom, the commencement of the Eucharist.[7] The preface follows ancient patterns of prayer—both Jewish and Christian—by filling the prayer with a tribute of God’s movement and work (compare 1 Kings 8:15-21, Acts 4:24-30, or Ephesians 1:3-18, among many possible examples). However, the preface is not called as such because it is an “introduction,” but because the Latin root of preface means “proclamation,” indicating that it in itself is a great proclamation of the activity of God. While this proclamation is performed by the priest/pastor, it is also completed by the entire congregation, who respond and participate by giving their assent as the preface flows into the sanctus and the people join the hymn of the heavenly host.[8]
The most important purpose of the sursum corda and the preface is simple: it begins the Eucharistic liturgy by carrying the participants to heaven, and reminding them of the cosmic nature of this meal. As Chrysostom wrote: “When thou beholdest our Lord sacrificed, the priest occupied in the sacrifice, and pouring forth prayers, dost thou think thou dost converse with mortal men, and to be on earth? Art thou not rather forthwith transported into heaven?”[9] May we be ever in awe of this great meal in which heaven and earth collide as we too, “lift up our hearts.”
[1] Edward Yarnold, Awe-Inspiring Rites: The Origins of the R.C.I.A. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark Ltd., 1994), 89.
[2] R. C. D. Jasper and G.J. Cuming, Prayers of the Eucharist: Early and Reformed (London: Collins, 1975), 142.
[3] Leonel L. Mitchell, Praying Shapes Believing: A Theological Commentary on The Book of Common Prayer (New York; Harrisburg, PA; Denver: Morehouse Publishing, 1985), 151.
[4] Henry Suso, Henry Suso: The Exemplar, with Two German Sermons, ed. Frank Tobin and Bernard McGinn, trans. Frank Tobin, The Classics of Western Spirituality (New York; Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1989), 78–79.
[5] William Edward Scudamore, “Preface,” ed. William Smith and Samuel Cheetham, A Dictionary of Christian Antiquities (London: John Murray, 1875–1880), 1694.
[6] The Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church (New York: Church Publishing Incorporated, 2007), 361.
[7] Scudamore, 1694.
[8] Mitchell, 152.
[9] John Cosin, The Works of the Right Reverend Father in God, John Cosin, Lord Bishop of Durham, vol. 5, The Works of Bishop Cosin (Oxford: John Henry and James Parker, 1855), 104.
Ex Vitæ Verborum 