Reflections on the Mass: The Gloria, Part 1

After the Penitential Rite, we sing the Gloria, at least on Sundays (except during Advent and Lent) and solemnities. The Gloria is a beautiful hymn of praise that allows us to express our awe and wonder before the Holy Trinity as we join the angels and saints in worship.

Glory to God in the highest,

We begin this hymn by echoing the angels who sang over the hills of Bethlehem on the night of Jesus' birth. We give glory to God, meaning that we recognize and proclaim His great glory, basking in it with great joy and striving to immerse ourselves in all the gifts of love He provides for us. We adore God because He is omniscient and omnipotent. We praise His great love. We honor His perfect authority and His immense holiness. We cannot grasp His nature, but we can proclaim His glory.

And on earth peace to people of good will.

We also join the angels in praying for peace to people of good will. Peace here is more than an absence of war or violence. Rather it is the state of being rightly ordered according to God's will. In this kind of peace, there is a completeness. Everything is as it should be: whole and holy.

We praise You, we bless You, we adore You, we glorify You,

We cannot proclaim God's greatness enough. We cannot worship Him enough. We almost stammer as we try. Yet we continue to sing, knowing that God blesses our efforts, weak as they are.

We give You thanks for Your great glory.

As we recite or sing these words, we should sincerely thank God for Who He is and what He has done for us. We can never thank Him enough. We can never even come close. We should be especially mindful of how God's great glory has touched our lives and has transformed us, and we might think, too, of the encounter that we are about to have with our Lord Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, in the Eucharist. He conceals His glory so that we can receive Him under the appearance of bread and wine, but He is really present, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. He truly enters into us in His glory.

Lord God, heavenly King, O God, almighty Father.

We then break out into a recital of some of God's many titles. He is our Lord and our God, the King of Heaven. He is so far beyond us that we cannot even imagine. Yet at the same time, He is our almighty Father Who loves us more than we can imagine. He is transcendent and imminent, reigning on high yet stooping down to us in love.