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At Low Mass the thing is all rather telescoped, but you can tell something important is happening all the same. The priest prepares himself for the reading of the Gospel by saying two prayers, as he bows to the Cross on his way over from one side to the other. They both ask that he may have the right kind of heart and the right kind of lips for proclaiming the holy Gospel. In theory, you see, the deacon or priest who reads out the Gospel is doing what the Christian ministry exists to do before everything else-he is preaching Christ. I always wonder whether the idea of the Gospel being read at the north end of the chancel may not have been partly due to the fact that Christianity started in the south; I mean, it was the south of the known world. Our religion started in Palestine, spread in Asia Minor and round the Mediterranean. For a long time, it seemed like a kind of Polar expedition to preach the Gospel of Christ to Russians, or Germans, or the inhabitants of Britain. All those dreadful heathen people up in the cold north-perhaps that was how the deacon was meant to think of it, as he shouted the day's Gospel at the northern wall of the sanctuary. And I think it is a good thing for us, when we see him doing that, to reflect on God's mercy in calling us, calling improbable people like us, to be Christians. In order to preach the Gospel well, the ministers of Christ want to have pure hearts and pure lips. Pure hearts, because in proportion as their consciences reproach them with the kind of life they are living, the kind of thoughts they are thinking, in that proportion they will feel false inside, and to feel false
St. Edmund Campion Missal & Hymnal for the Traditional Latin Mass : C C WAT ER S H ED.ORG / C A M P ION