Cardinal Vincent Nichols made an appeal last Saturday. “We ask you, Almighty God,” he said, “command that these gifts be borne by the hands of your holy angel to your altar on high.”

Cardinal Vincent Nichols made an appeal last Saturday. “We ask you, Almighty God,” he said, “command that these gifts be borne by the hands of your holy angel to your altar on high.”

He had just recited the words of institution from the Last Supper, and on the altar before him now lay the sacrament in which the body and blood of Christ were present. The occasion was the ordination as a Catholic priest of the popular Jonathan Goodall, until last September the Anglican Bishop of Ebbsfleet, a see taking its name not from the Eurostar station but from the place at Pegwell Bay where St Augustine arrived in 597.

But who was the angel the cardinal was talking about? We hadn’t been introduced. His words were hard to fathom partly because he was using the first Eucharistic Prayer, the so-called Roman Canon. For much of the time, I find it difficult to tell what it is going on about. The puzzle starts in the first three words: “To you, therefore.” What does it mean, “therefore”? The puzzle grows more intricate as it goes on.

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