ARE PROCESSIONS REALLY NECESSARY DURING MASS?
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PROCESSION - A SYMBOL OF A JOURNEYProcessions in Scripture
One biblical image, common in
scripture but often overlooked in our contemporary consciousness, is that
of God's people on a
journey,
moving together in an orderly fashion toward
a longed-for destination. One
particularly important journey in our religious history is the Exodus
"procession" of God's chosen people through the Red Sea, from
slavery in Egypt to freedom. After the
Israelites settled in the Promised Land, the pilgrimages
to the temple in Jerusalem
could be seen as a form of procession to the place where the paschal lambs
were
sacrificed, in fact, Psalms
120-134 all have the title of "a song of ascents" and were
probably used during the processions of pilgrims moving up the hillside
toward Jerusalem for major religious feasts.
In
our personal history, our life can be seen as a journey, a
"procession," from
One procession that still can affect people more widely in contemporary society is the final procession taken by family and friends with the body of a deceased relative from the church to a cemetery. Even with the numerous disruptive traffic jams associated with our modern life, in many places the funeral procession still is given the final courtesy of precedence, a stark, public reminder that we ourselves must all one day participate in that ultimate procession to our final resting place. The Church is on a JourneyDuring Eucharistic Prayer III, the priest prays that God may "strengthen in faith and love" his "pilgrim Church on earth." Envisioning the Church as a people on pilgrimage, a people journeying in procession toward the "new Jerusalem" (Rev 21:2), namely heaven, has been an honored image throughout our religious history (see GIRM no. 318). Hence, any procession that is part of the liturgy is never merely a practical means to move certain people from one place to another, but always a symbol of our on-going journey toward God and toward the heavenly Jerusalem. PROCESSIONS DURING MASSThe
Entrance Procession
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clamation of the Gospel, there is the formal procession by the
deacon with the Book of the Gospels (sometimes accompanied by incense and
candles) from the altar to the ambo while the assembly 
ost often is purely
pragmatic, the concluding procession of the ministers from the sanctuary
to the sacristy (and of the assembly from the church into the world).
Typically, there is little reference to this action since it is, in a real
sense, anti-climactic and primarily functional, and this is one reason why
the Roman