Gloria In Liturgical Catechesis
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By Rev. William M. Cwirla
loria in excelsis Deo! Glory to the Most High God! Anyone who knows the familiar Christmas story from Luke will recognize this as the song of the angels, sung to shepherds on the night Jesus was born. Early Christians sang it as a morning hymn, and then in the late 5th century as the first hymn of the Divine Service. According to tradition, it was first sung at a pontifical mass at Christmas midnight. Christmas comes to the Divine Service every Sunday with the Gloria in Excelsis.
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The Gloria is a hymn of praise and confession. It begins with praise to the Most High God (“in excelsis Deo”), which in Hebrew is El Elyon (Genesis 14:18), the God who is “way out there,” above and beyond it all. But this God who is way out there has reached all the way down to us here in the Person of His Son born of the Virgin in Bethlehem. And the same God who is above the highest heavens still reaches down to us in the same earthy, creaturely way
