Mass over the centuries, so that "one could find merely traces of the original sense of the Eucharist as a thanksgiving for the wonders God has wrought.” The General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM) notes that at the Council of Trent "manuscripts in the Vatican ... by no means made it possible to inquire into 'ancient and approved authors' farther back than the liturgical commentaries of the Middle Ages ... [But] traditions dating back to the first centuries, before the formation of the rites of East and West, are better known today because of the discovery of so many liturgical documents" (7f.). Consonant with these modern studies, theologians have suggested that there be a continuity in praise of God between the opening song and the praise of the Gloria. This is explained by Mark R. Francis of Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, speaking of the Kyrie: Its emphasis is not on us (our sinfulness) but on God’s mercy and salvific action in Jesus Christ. It could just as accurately be translated "O Lord, you are merciful!" Note that the sample tropes all mention what Christ has done for us, not how we have sinned. For example, “you were sent to heal the contrite,” “you have shown us the way to the Father,” or “you come in word and sacrament to strengthen us in holiness,” leading to further acclamation of God’s praises in the Gloria. In this same line, Hans Urs von Balthasar calls for a renewal of the focus at the Eucharist: We must make every effort to arouse the sense of community within the liturgy, to restore liturgy to the ecclesial plane, where individuals can take their proper place in it…. Liturgical piety involves a total turning from concern with one’s inner state to the attitude and feeling of the Church. It means enlarging the scope of prayer, so often narrow and selfish, to embrace the concerns of the whole Church and, indeed – as in the Our Father – of God.” In the New Dictionary of Sacramental Worship, the need to establish communion is reinforced as it quotes the GIRM to the effect that the purpose of the introductory rites is “to ensure that the faithful who come together as one establish communion and dispose themselves to listen properly to God's word and to celebrate the Eucharist worthily” (GIRM, 46, emphasis added). In various languages In addition