After we pray the prayer called the “collect” at Mass, we listen to readings from Sacred Scripture. While the exact number of readings and the specific way they are proclaimed has changed over time, this is on of the most ancient practices of our Church. We find evidence of it in the Acts of the Apostles when St. Luke writes, “They devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to the communal life, to the breaking of the bread and to the prayers.” (Acts 2:42) We also find reading from the “teaching of the apostles” mentioned to by St. Justin Martyr in the mid-100s, when he writes of the Sunday worship of Christians, “And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits.” (First Apology, n. 67) St. Justin tells us that these memoirs are called “the Gospels,” and in them we find the instructions from our Lord to receive the Eucharist, which “is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh.” (n. 66)

For many years, the Gospel was proclaimed facing what we call “liturgical” north. I’ll write about what I mean by “liturgical” north next week, but there are two reasons we proclaimed the Gospel to the north. In the Old Testament and other ancient texts, we often hear of “going up to the mountains” when people are going up to find the gods. The idea was that the gods of old lived on the mountain tops, and these mountains were in the northern part of Israel. We even see places in the Old Testament where the children of Abraham thought that their God lived there. One of the things that our God spent much time trying to teach his children was that he does not live in the mountains or in one place, but that he is always and everywhere with his children. The original Greek word for Gospel was normally reserved for victory proclamations from the emperor which announced the defeat of an enemy. Proclaiming the Gospel to the North, then, was like proclaiming victory over the false gods of the pagans.

Later on, especially when Christianity has spread throughout the Roman Empire, the “barbarians”, who were generally pagans, lived to the north of the empire’s borders. Preaching the Gospel to the north at this time took on a new symbolism of bringing the Good News of salvation to the pagans, and it reminded the Christian people of their missionary call by Christ: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20)

FM