WHAT IS IT?
WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
WHERE DID IT COMEFROM?
WHY DO WE DO IT?
Part I
What Do Amen, Hosanna, and Alleluia Mean?
In the Liturgy of worship, we call out three non-English words to the Lord God: Amen, Hosanna, and Alleluia, but do you know what they mean? We know from the Talmud (Shabbat 119b) that "Amen" is an acrostic formed from the first letter of the three Hebrew words El Melech Ne'eman, "God (is a) trustworthy King." It is why Jesus is called "the Amen" in the Book of Revelation: To the angel of the church in Laodicea, write this: "The Amen, the faithful and true witness, the source of God's creation, says this ..." (Rev 3:14 NABRE). Jesus is "God the Trustworthy King," who speaks only the truth. However, we usually use the word as a response to prayer (Ps 89:53) or as a declaration (Dt 27) to mean "truly" or "so be it. In the Old Testament, the word "amen" appears for the first time in Numbers 5:22 (also see Dt 27:15-26; 1 Kng 1:36; Jer 11:5; 28:6; 1 Chron 16:36; Neh 8:6; etc.). In the New Testament, Jesus used the word "amen" (in some versions translated as "truly") to give emphasis to his teachings (Mt 5:18, 26; 18:3; Jn 1:51). In the Book of Revelation, it occurs nine times (Rev 1:6, 7; 3:14; 5:14; 7:12 twice; 9:4; 22:20, 21). When Jesus made an emphatic statement, He often used a double amen! See Catechism of the Catholic Church 1061-65, and The Jewish Book of Why, Vol. I, page 152.
Hosanna is a Greek word meaning "save us." It is a liturgical invocation that occurs five times in the Gospels (Mt 21:9, 15; Mk 9:11; 11:10; Jn 12:13). The Jewish crowds chanted Hosanna, "Save Us!" as Jesus rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday (Mt 21:9), and it appears in the Old Testament Hebrew Bible in the Great Hallel (Praise God) Psalms of Psalm 118:25, We beg you, Yahweh, save us (hosanna), we beg you, Yahweh, give us victory (NJB). Therefore, in the Mass, when you call out "Hosanna (Save us) to God in the Highest," do so with earnest, heartfelt conviction because that is your greatest desire.
Alleluia is the Latin for Hallelujah (Hebrew = Halleluyah), a transliteration of two Hebrew words meaning "Praise Yahweh." Hallel comes from the Hebrew verb halal, "to praise," and yah is the first syllable of God's Divine Name, Yahweh. Halleluyah is a liturgical exclamation found at the beginning or end of several of the Psalms, including 104-106, 111-113, 115-117, 135, and 146-150. Halleluyah appears four times in the New Testament, each time in Revelation 19:1-6, where it alludes to the use of the Hallel Psalms in the Passover liturgy and the victory hymn sung by choirs of heavenly angels. Jesus gave the Jewish Passover its definitive meaning at the Last Supper, which was a prelude to His passing over to his father by his death and Resurrection celebrated in the Eucharist, which fulfills the Jewish Passover and anticipates the final Passover of the Church in the glory of His Kingdom (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1340).
Where Do Our Bible Chapter and Verse Divisions Come From?
Sacred Scripture was originally written without any punctuation or verse or chapter divisions. Even the New Testament was written in a style called scriptio continua, that is, without any breaks between words, sentences, or paragraphs, and without any punctuation. Systematic separation of words and sections of the Biblical text did not occur until the 11th century AD, and punctuation and accentuation were elementary until the 7th century AD.
Chapter divisions weren't introduced until the early 13th century. Stephen Langton, who later became the Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury, provided the chapter divisions in our Bibles. Langton introduced chapter divisions into the Latin Bible (the Vulgate) when he lectured at the University of Paris. Later, his divisions were transferred from the Vulgate to manuscripts and printed editions of the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament.
Verse divisions in the Hebrew Bible can be traced to the Jewish Mishnah, which dates to circa 200; see Megillah 4.4, which records: "He that reads in the Torah may not read less than three verses." Verse numbers are attributed to Rabbi Isaac Nathan, in about 1440. The current verse divisions in the New Testament come from publisher Estienne Stephanus, who published a Greek-Latin New Testament in Geneva in 1551. He divided the Old and New Testaments into numbered verses. The first English Bible to incorporate verse numbers is the Geneva Bible of 1560.
Were the Three Hours of Darkness During Jesus's Crucifixion a Solar Eclipse?
Matthew 27:45 refers to the event during Jesus's crucifixion, which the Gospels indicate took place during the Jewish festival of Unleavened Bread, the day after the Passover festival, celebrated during a full moon in the spring (Lev 23:5-8). The Jews kept a lunar calendar, beginning every new month on the new moon with the full moon rising in the middle of the month. Jesus was crucified on Nisan the 15th. A new moon is needed for a solar eclipse, which means the moon is in the wrong phase and a total eclipse is impossible. In addition, according to Brother Guy Consolmagno, a noted astronomer and director of the Vatican Observatory, the darkness described during the crucifixion was too long to be a solar eclipse. A partial eclipse can last several hours; however, total darkness lasts only a few minutes. Therefore, the total darkness during Jesus's crucifixion was not a natural phenomenon but an act of God!
Why Does the Priest Kiss the Altar?
In the Middle East in Bible times (both in the Old Testament and New Testament) as well as in modern times, the kiss, exchanged between persons of the same sex or persons of opposite sexes, has been a common token of affection at greetings and farewells between persons of the same family or kin, proximate or remote, by blood or marriage. Biblical examples include:
This ancient greeting survives in the Catholic Mass in the ritual of the Pax: the sign of peace, a rite described in St. Justin Martyr's letter to the Roman Emperor Antonius Pius (AD 138-161), explaining how Christians worshipped circa AD 155.
A kiss also signified submission and homage. When a priest kisses the altar (and the Bible), he is in effect offering that kiss to Jesus as Savior and Lord. In 1 Samuel 10:1, Samuel anoints Saul as King: "Then Samuel took a flask of oil and poured it on Saul's head and kissed him saying, Has not the LORD anointed you leader over his inheritance?'" This act of submission was unfortunately also practiced by the Children of Israel who fell into pagan worship. 1 Kings 18:18, God tells Elisha, "Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel "all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and all whose mouths have not kissed him;" and in Hosea 15:2, "Now they sin more and more; they make idols for themselves from their silver, cleverly fashioned images, all of them the work of craftsmen. It is said of these people, They offer human sacrifice and kiss the calf-idols." Therefore, offering a kiss of homage and submission to a king, Yahweh, or the pagan gods was common practice. But I believe the strongest evidence for why our priest offers the kiss of obedience, homage, and submission to Jesus Christ, our King and High Priest, is because of the verse found in Psalms 2:11 and 12. This Psalm is frequently quoted in the New Testament, where it is applied to Christ as the great Son of David and God's Anointed: "Serve the LORD with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the SON, lest he be angry and you be destroyed in your way, for his wrath can flare up in a moment. Blessed are all who take refuge in him."
Did Jesus Descend to Hell as Recorded in the English Translation of the Apostles' Creed?
No, Jesus did not descend to the hell of the damned, but to the abode of the dead, called Sheol in Hebrew and Hades in Greek. Notice that it continues to function until the end of time and the Last Judgment (Rev 20:13-14). Sheol/Hades was a state in which the righteous awaited the coming of the Messiah, and the wicked suffered punishment for their sins (Lk 16:19-31; CCC 632-33). When Jesus descended to preach the Gospel of salvation to the dead in Sheol, He liberated the righteous dead from that state (1 Pt 3:18-20; 4:6; Apostles' Creed). At that time, both blessings and judgments became eternal. Sheol no longer held the righteous dead but became known as a place of purification for those destined for salvation who died with unconfessed venial sins, or for the atonement of confessed and forgiven mortal sins for which further atonement was still necessary (1 Cor 3:13-15). The Church identifies this state as Purgatory, from the Latin word for purification, where the fiery love of God cleanses those destined for Heaven (CCC 1030-32). When we, the congregation of the faithful, pray, "Save us from the fires of Hell/Hades," we are referring to the purifying fires of Purgatory. What Jesus's referred to as Gehenna, the pool of fire, is the hell of the damned from which there is no release (see Catechism of the Catholic Church 633, 1033-34).
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