Q: One of the aspects of the new translation of the Mass I find strange is the answer “And with your Spirit” after the priest says “The Lord be with you”. Why such an unusual expression, when “and also with you” is more normal English?
A: There is a long history to this expression which occurs five times in the Mass: at the beginning, before the Gospel, before the Preface, in the Sign of Peace and before the Dismissal.
When Mass was said in Latin the priest greeted the people with “Dominus vobiscum” and the people replied “et cum spiritu tuo”, literally “And with your spirit”. When the Mass was translated into the vernacular after the Second Vatican Council, most versions translated the expression literally, English being one of the exceptions. Now we are simply joining the rest of the world in following the Latin more closely.
But what is behind this somewhat unusual expression? The greeting “The Lord be with you” goes back to Old Testament times. In the book of Ruth, Boaz says to the reapers, “The Lord be with you” and they reply “The Lord bless you”. It is a very spiritual greeting, a wish that God will be with the other person. In Bavaria, Germany, people still greet one another in the street with “Grüss Gott”, literally “Greet God”, or “God greets you”. It is much more spiritual than a mere “Hello” or “G’day”.
The expression “And with your spirit” is found in several of St Paul’s letters. For example, his second letter to Timothy concludes, “The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you” (2 Tim 4:22) and his letter to the Galatians finishes, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brethren. Amen” (Gal 6:18).
It is clear that the early Christians took up and used this expression. For example, the second reading for Holy Saturday in the Liturgy of the Hours is from an ancient homily which describes Christ descending to the Limbo of the Fathers. There he encounters Adam, who says, “My Lord be with everyone” and Jesus replies to Adam, “And with your spirit”.
The phrase “And with your spirit” refers to the soul, thus acknowledging that man is not a mere material being but one with a spiritual, immortal soul. It is a testimony to the dignity of the human person, made in the image and likeness of God. And it is a wish that God may be in the soul of the other person.
When we use this greeting in Mass we can consider that we are in union with the Church of the first centuries.
Although “And with your spirit” can be said to anyone, as we see in the letters of St Paul and in Christ’s response to Adam, in the early centuries the Fathers of the Church applied it to the grace of the Holy Spirit present in sacred ministers by the laying on of hands.
In the fourth century St John Chrysostom says in a homily, referring to Bishop Flavian of Antioch: “If the Holy Spirit were not in our Bishop when he gave the peace to all shortly before ascending to his holy sanctuary, you would not have replied to him all together, ‘And with your spirit’. This is why you reply with this expression not only when he ascends to the sanctuary, nor when he preaches to you, nor when he prays for you, but when he stands at this holy altar, when he is about to offer this awesome sacrifice.
“You don’t first partake of the offerings until he has prayed for you the grace from the Lord, and you have answered him, ‘And with your spirit’, reminding yourselves by this reply that he who is here does nothing of his own power, nor are the offered gifts the work of human nature, but it is the grace of the Spirit present and hovering over all things which prepared that mystic sacrifice” [Homily on Pentecost].
It is for this reason that since the early centuries only sacred ministers – bishops, priests and deacons – can greet the people by saying “The Lord be with you.”
In response to the minister’s blessing, wishing the people that God be with them, they respond with a similar wish, which is also a profession of faith in the special gift of the Holy Spirit received in the ordination ceremony, configuring the minister to Christ.
So there is a long history, one charged with meaning, in the simple greeting “And with your spirit”.