Those of us old enough to remember the introduction of the Novus Ordo Missae (NOM) also remember some of the things that immediately stood out as different about the “new Mass.” One was the procession and presentation of the gifts. Suddenly, some of the sacred vessels—ciborium or cruets—were on a table in the back of the church rather than around the altar in the sanctuary. And lay persons would even touch them.

Back then, the latter idea was probably a novelty to many Catholics in the United States. Lots of emphasis was put on a priest’s “consecrated hands.” The traditio instrumentorum (“handing over of the instruments”), i.e., the bishop handing a chalice and paten with a host and wine to a man being ordained, was considered by many an essential part of the ordination rite.

(I also recall parishioners back then thinking they should go to Confession if they were going to volunteer to “carry” the gifts on Sunday, e.g., at a Mass celebrated for a deceased relative. I point that out not because it was a question of “cultic purity” connected with “touching” sacred vessels but reflected a more basic priority I fear lost in our approach that emphasizes “liturgy as doing” over “liturgy as being”—being in communion with God through grace, which is what liturgy is ultimately about and for.)¹

I recall that novelty because, 55 years after the NOM came into effect, we sometimes forget what it changed and why it did. That need for memory is especially important amid contradictory polarization in the contemporary Church: a remnant that fights a rearguard action against the NOM and a Vatican that pretends any deviation from the most expansionist reading of Vatican II makes one part of the “backwardists.” Neither view is justified.

At the same time, those theological tensions also encounter liturgical utilitarianism (often masquerading as “pastoral accommodation” but really how to do things “quickly and efficiently”) and other factors. So, let’s go back to the Presentation of the Gifts.

Account Balance

The Presentation of the Gifts marks the transition from the Liturgy of the Word to the Liturgy of the Eucharist. It begins the presentation that the priest continues on the altar which then leads into the Eucharistic Prayer, the heart of the Mass, starting with the Preface dialogue.

It should be noted that the General Instruction on the Roman Missal (GIRM) does not mandate that procession with the gifts. It merely says that it “is a praiseworthy practice for the bread and wine to be presented by the faithful” (73). It even takes countenance of the possibility “there is no procession with the gifts” (74).

So, the processional Presentation of the Gifts is rubrically recommended but not strictly required.² The rubrics allow for and deem the practice “praiseworthy.” It reaffirms the “active participation” of the faithful in the Mass (the criterion of Vatican II’s Sacrosanctum Concilium, 14, 30, 50). It affirms their role in providing for the Mass which the priest will now continue on the altar.

On the other hand, this “recommended-but-not-strictly-required” criterion is confusing. The contrast is generally stark at weekday Masses, where many priests simply have everything at the altar, to which they move seamlessly from the Universal Prayer. So, does that optional aspect weaken, even eviscerate, the meaning of the processional presentation of gifts when it does happen? Does it in fact encourage a kind of ecclesiological tug-of-war between those who see it as essential to “de-clericalizing” ministry versus those who want to reassert the sacerdotal role? How do we protect the meaning of this act without succumbing to the Scylla of ecclesiological polarization versus the Charybdis of empty symbolism? And is this compounded by the absence of gifts for the poor, or stricto sensu is that also only an occasional option?

Follow the Money?

What should be part of the Presentation of the Gifts? At times, I have even seen chalices and patens carried in the procession, though this practice appears to have declined with the revival of chalice veils. Fifty-some years ago, there were some liturgists even urging that people supply the bread and wine, something the GIRM (73) acknowledges is today “no longer” the case. Nor should we imagine it’s just a practical matter that has unfortunately become dormant. No, it should not be tolerated because it potentially could cause issues of sacramental validity through use of invalid matter (e.g., improper bread or wine). We’ve already been through a bout of baptismal invalidity because of failure to tamp down on ex tempore “celebrants.”³

GIRM, 72a says “bread and wine with water are brought to the altar, the same elements, that is to say, which Christ took into his hands.” This is usually accomplished by presenting the cruets and a paten with hosts or a ciborium. The GIRM also envisions that “[e]ven money or other gifts for the poor or for the Church, brought by the faithful or collected in the church, are acceptable; given their purpose, they are to be put in a suitable place away from the Eucharistic table” (73).

How to deal with money in the Presentation of the Gifts seems a real problem.

To start, the rubrics deem presentation of money “acceptable,” not required. From a strictly rubrical point of view, the collection basket need not be part of the Presentation of the Gifts.

That said, it should. In the early days of NOM, that idea seemed better understood: all the gifts should be presented at that moment. It’s why back then the general practice seemed to be to conduct and complete the collection before the procession with the gifts began so that the collections’ receipts were part of it.

That practice has eroded. It’s not uncommon for collections to follow the Presentation of the Gifts, sometime shuffling even into the Orate fratres or beyond. And I’ve seen parishes where the usher quietly carries the cumulative basket down a side aisle to the sacristy.

Strictly speaking, this might be acceptable, but I would argue it undermines good liturgical theology. In the strictest sense, the essential gifts are bread and wine with water.

But splitting the elements required for the Eucharist from the “money or other gifts for the poor” suggests an almost dualist separation between “sacred” (or soon to be) and “profane.” How often does the priest receive the cruets and ciborium but only looks at the collection basket? And where does the latter go? The GIRM poses a prepositional problem: somewhere “away from the Eucharistic table.” Clearly, the basket ought not to be on the altar. But should “away from” the altar mean the sacristy? If these, too, are gifts, it seems “away from” does not exclude “near” or “under” the altar, where it is clear that—though these gifts will not be transformed like the bread and wine—they, too, are gifts to be at the Church’s service.

Not-so-Filthy Lucre

Jesuit Father John Baldovin points out that in our world money is our gift.⁴ Money enables all sorts of charitable activities and works. It sustains the Church which also has debts to pay in carrying out its ministry. We ought not, then, to act as if the faithful’s money is something of a lesser “gift” to the Church. Baldovin notes there once was “reluctance” about a collection “at this point” in the Mass (p. 103), again suggesting the reticence about its profane nature. But, actually, what better “point” is there in the Mass for the collection—understood as the faithful’s gift to the Church—to occur? Honestly, it seems the optimal point that all collections occur and be finished. There are still parishes where a “second” or “special” collection sometimes occurs after Communion. Not only to the rubrics not envision that, but it is liturgically destructive: the period after distribution of Communion is a time for thanksgiving, first individually in silence, then gathered up in the Postcommunion Prayer. That period of individual thanksgiving is often given short shrift by celebrants who return to their chairs to sit upon them as if they were St. Lawrence’s gridiron. It should not be further undermined by “passing the basket.”

Let me suggest another way we also demote the “gift” nature of money: EFT and the “envelope system.” The transition to automatic Sunday collection deductions, accelerated after COVID, may create a more reliable “income stream,” but how does that modality express giving in an “active participation” sense in the local Church’s central act, the Sunday Eucharist? Should one “print out and deposit” the transfer slip? Or does the lack of concern about that question simply let the cat out of the bag, that “money is money” and only tangentially a “gift,” “business is business” and only marginally “liturgy?”

Even more broadly, parishes write in bulletins that registration and use of collection envelopes is demonstration of one’s parish membership and the basis for sacramental testimonial letters. How does that not reek of quasi-simony? Have Catholics in the United States reached the point where pastoral engagement is verified not by the pastor “smelling the sheep” but the parish accountant recording the contributions?

For all these reasons, I strongly urge priests to (a) complete all their collections before the procession presenting the gifts; (b) receive the collection basket along with the bread, wine, and water; and (c) let a minister of the altar lay it somewhere near the altar until the end of the liturgy.

Poor Performance

One last comment: “gifts for the poor.” GIRM 73 envisions their inclusion in the Presentation of the Gifts. Msgr. Kevin Irwin was once asked why it seems the only time we collect actual gifts for the poor is on Thanksgiving (or the prior Sunday).⁵ Good question, particularly since there is mention at the Evening Mass for the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday of inclusion of gifts for the poor in the presentation of the gifts. But even once or twice a year seems meager, given the demand.

No small number of parishes now also run food pantries. In the wake of Dobbs shifting abortion policy back to the states, pastoral parishes should recognize they need to do something practical for pregnant women in need. Pope Francis has refocused our attention on what St. Lawrence called the Church’s real treasure: the poor. The regular inclusion of actual gifts for the poor would serve to remind us that liturgy is also destined to empower us to do charitable good for our brothers and sisters. Our faith in the Real Presence should move us to provide concrete help to those in need (see James 2:14-26).

Adoremus’s editor Christopher Carstens reminds us that this point of the Mass is marked by “sacrifice,” by a readiness to give out of love of God, even when it hurts.⁶ Not only have we lost the theology of sacrifice as it pertains to the Eucharist, but we have also eroded sacrifice as our spiritual posture in approaching the Mass. What sense of “sacrifice” does the Presentation of the Gifts elicit in the average Mass-goer? When it is limited to priest-supplied future Eucharistic elements? When our financial “gifts” are sidelined? When real support for the poor is reduced to a practical pre-Thanksgiving symbol at best? Our Eucharistic renewal, including the sense of sacrifice, must also be marked by how we celebrate the liturgy and the understanding and spirit that animates it.

_{Image Source: AB/Catholic Church England and Wales on Flickr. © Mazur/catholicchurch.org.uk}

1. Aimé-Georges Martimort et al., The Church at Prayer: An Introduction to the Liturgy, trans. M. O’Connell, (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1985-88), vol. 1.
2. Please do not consider rubrical minimalism to suffice, must less be ideal. As Jesuit John Baldovin points out, lex orandi, lex credendi means our worship expresses our faith. Our faith should be rich, not minimal. Baldovin, Bread of Life, Cup of Salvation: Understanding the Mass (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003), p. 102.
3. John M. Grondelski, “’I Baptize’ Instead of ‘We Baptize’ Is God’s Will, Not Legalism,” National Catholic Register, August 24, 2020, at https://www.ncregister.com/blog/i-baptize-instead-of-we-baptize-is-god-s-will-not-legalism
4. Baldovin, Bread of Life, p. 103.
5. Kevin Irwin, 101 Questions and Answers on the Mass, rev. and updated ed. (New York: Paulist Press, 2010), p. 83.
6. Christopher Carstens, A Devotional Journey into the Mass: How Mass Can Become a Time of Grace, Nourishment, and Devotion (Manchester, NH: Sophia Institute Press, 2017), pp. 57-67.