THE SACRIFICE OF THE MASS.
Sacrifice is the oblation or offering made to God of some sensible object,
with the destruction or change of the object, to denote that God is the
Author of life and death. Thus, in the Old Law, before the coming of
Christ, when the Hebrew people wished to offer sacrifice to God they took
a lamb or some other animal, which they slew and burned its flesh,
acknowledging by this act that the Lord was the supreme Master of life and
death. The ancients offered to God two kinds of sacrifices, viz., living
creatures, such as bulls, lambs and birds; and inanimate objects, such as
wheat and barley, and, in general, the first fruits of the earth.
All nations—whether Jews, idolaters or Christians, except Mahometans and
modern Protestants—have made sacrifice their principal act of worship. If
you go back to the very dawn of creation, you will find the children of
Adam offering sacrifices to God. Abel offered to the Lord the firstlings
of his flock, and Cain offered of the fruits of the earth.(388)
When Noe and his family are rescued from the deluge which had spread over
the face of the earth his first act on issuing from the ark, when the
waters disappear, is to offer holocausts to the Lord, in thanksgiving for
his preservation.(389) Abraham, the great father of the Jewish race,
offered victims to the Almighty at His express command.(390) We read that
Job was accustomed to offer holocausts to the Lord, to propitiate His
favor in behalf of his children, and to obtain forgiveness for the sins
they might have committed.(391)
When Jehovah delivered to Moses the written law on Mount Sinai He gave His
servant the most minute details with regard to all the ceremonies to be
observed in the sacrifices which were to be offered to Him. He prescribed
the kind of victims to be immolated, the qualifications of the Priests who
were to minister at the altar, and the place and manner in which the
victims were to be offered. Hence, it was the custom of the Jewish Priests
to slay every day two lambs as a sacrifice to God,(392) and in doing this
they were prefiguring the great sacrifice of the New Law, in which we
daily offer up on the altar “the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of
the world.”
In a word, in all their public calamities—whenever they were threatened by
their enemies; whenever they were about to engage in war; whenever they
were visited by any plague or pestilence—the Jews had recourse to God by
solemn sacrifices. Like the Catholic Church of the present day, they had
sacrifices not only for the living, but also for the dead; for we read in
Sacred Scripture that Judas Machabeus ordered sacrifice to be offered up
for the souls of his men who were slain in battle.(393)
We find sacrifices existing not only among the Jews, who worshiped the
true God, but also among Pagan and idolatrous nations. No matter how
confused, imperfect or erroneous was their knowledge of the Deity, the
Pagan nations retained sufficient vestiges of primitive tradition to
admonish them of their obligation of appeasing the anger and invoking the
blessings of the Divinity by victims and sacrifices. Plutarch, an ancient
writer of the second century, says of these heathen people: “You may find
cities without walls, without literature and without the arts and sciences
of civilized life; but you will never find a city without Priests and
altars, or which has not sacrifices offered to the gods.”
The Indians of our own country were accustomed to offer sacrifice to the
Great Spirit, as Father Jogues and other pioneer missionaries inform us.
But all those ancient sacrifices were only the types and figures of the
great Sacrifice of the New Law, from which they derived all their
efficacy, just as the Old Law itself was the type of the New Law of grace.
Since the ancient sacrifices were but figures and shadows, they were
imperfect and insufficient; for “it is impossible,” says St. Paul, “that
by the blood of oxen and of goats sins should be taken away. Wherefore,
when He (Jesus) cometh into the world, He saith: Sacrifice and oblation
Thou wouldst not, but a body Thou hast fitted to me. Holocausts for sin
did not please Thee. Then said I: Behold, I come.”(394) As if He should
say: The blood of oxen and of goats is not sufficient to appease Thy
vengeance, and to cleanse Thy people from their sins; therefore I come,
that I may offer Myself an acceptable sacrifice for the sins of the world.
The Prophet Isaiah declared that the Jewish sacrifices had become
displeasing to God and would be abolished. “To what purpose,” says the
Lord by His prophet, “do you offer Me the multitude of your victims?... I
desire not holocausts of rams, ... and blood of calves and lambs and
buck-goats ... Offer sacrifice no more in vain.”(395)
But did God, in rejecting the Jewish oblations, intend to abolish
sacrifices altogether? By no means. On the contrary, He clearly predicts,
by the mouth of the Prophet Malachias, that the immolations of the Jews
would be succeeded by a clean victim, which would be offered up not on a
single altar, as was the case in Jerusalem, but in every part of the known
world. Listen to the significant words addressed to the Jews by this
prophet: “I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of hosts, and I will
not receive a gift of your hand. For, from the rising of the sun, even to
the going down, My name is great among the Gentiles, and in every place
there is sacrifice, and there is offered to My name a clean oblation; for
My Name is great among the Gentiles, saith the Lord of hosts.”(396) The
prophet here clearly foretells that an acceptable oblation would be
offered to God not by Jews, but by Gentiles; not merely in Jerusalem, but
in every place from the rising to the setting of the sun. These prophetic
words must have been fulfilled. Where shall we find the fulfilment of the
prophecy?
We may divide the inhabitants of the world into five different classes of
people, professing different forms of religion—Pagans, Jews, Mohammedans,
Protestants and Catholics. Among which of these shall we find the clean
oblation of which the prophet speaks? Not among the Pagan nations; for
they worship false gods, and consequently cannot have any sacrifice
pleasing to the Almighty. Not among the Jews; for they have ceased to
sacrifice altogether, and the words of the prophet apply not to the Jews,
but to the Gentiles. Not among the Mohammedans; for they also reject
sacrifices. Not among any of the Protestant sects; for they all distinctly
repudiate sacrifices. Therefore, it is only in the Catholic Church that is
fulfilled this glorious prophecy; for whithersoever you go, you will find
the clean oblation offered on Catholic altars. If you travel from America
to Europe, to Oceanica, to Africa, or Asia, you will see our altars
erected, and our Priests daily fulfilling the words of the prophets by
offering the “clean oblation” of the body and blood of Christ.
This oblation of the New Law is commonly called _Mass_. The word Mass is
derived by some from the Hebrew term _Missach_ (Deut. xvi.), which means a
free offering. Others derive it from the word _Missa_, which the Priest
uses when he announces to the congregation that Divine Service is over. It
is an expression indelibly marked on our English tongue from the origin of
our language, and we find it embodied in such words as _Candlemas_,
_Michaelmas_, _Martin-mas_ and _Christmas_.
The sacrifice of the Mass is the consecration of the bread and wine into
the body and blood of Christ, and the oblation of this body and blood to
God, by the ministry of the Priest, for a perpetual memorial of Christ’s
sacrifice on the cross. The Sacrifice of the Mass is identical with that
of the cross, both having the same victim and High Priest—Jesus Christ.
The only difference consists in the manner of the oblation. Christ was
offered up on the cross in a bloody manner, and in the Mass He is offered
up in an unbloody manner. On the cross He purchased our ransom, and in the
Eucharistic Sacrifice the price of that ransom is applied to our souls.
Hence, all the efficacy of the Mass is derived from the sacrifice of
Calvary.
It was on the night before He suffered that our Lord Jesus Christ
instituted the Sacrifice of the New Law. “Jesus,” says St. Paul, “the
night in which He was betrayed took bread, and, giving thanks, broke and
said: Take ye and eat; this is My body which shall be delivered for you.
This do for the commemoration of Me. In like manner also the chalice,
after He had supped, saying: This chalice is the new testament in My
blood. This do ye, as often as you shall drink, for the commemoration of
Me; for as often as ye shall eat this bread, and drink the chalice, ye
shall show the death of the Lord until He come.”(397)
From these words we learn that the principal motive which our Savior had
in view in instituting the Sacrifice of the Altar was to keep us in
perpetual remembrance of His sufferings and death. He wished that the
scene of Calvary should ever appear in panoramic view before our eyes, and
that our heart, memory and intellect should be filled with the thoughts of
His Passion. He knew well that this would be the best means of winning our
love and exciting sorrow for sin in our soul; therefore, He designed that
in every church throughout the world an altar should be erected, to serve
as a monument of His mercies to His people, as the children of Israel
erected a monument, on crossing the Jordan, to commemorate His mercies to
His chosen people. The Mass is truly the memorial service of Christ’s
Passion.
In compliance with the command of our Lord the adorable Sacrifice of the
Altar has been daily renewed in the Church, from the death of our Savior
till the present time, and will be perpetuated till time shall be no more.
In the Acts it is said that while Saul and others were ministering (or, as
the Greek text expresses it, _sacrificing_) to the Lord, and fasting, the
Holy Spirit said to them: “Set apart for Me Saul and Barnabas.” St. Paul,
in his Epistle to the Hebrews, frequently alludes to the Sacrifice of the
Mass. “We have an altar,” he says, “"whereof they cannot eat who serve the
tabernacle.”(398) The Apostle here plainly declares that the Christian
church has its altars as well as the Jewish synagogue. An altar
necessarily supposes a sacrifice, without which it has no meaning. The
Apostle also observes that the priesthood of the New Law was substituted
for that of the Old Law.(399) Now, the principal office of Priests has
always been to offer sacrifice. Priest and sacrifice are as closely
identified as judge and court.
St. Paul, after David, calls Jesus “a Priest forever, according to the
order of Melchisedech.”(400) He is named a _Priest_ because He offers
sacrifice; a Priest _forever_ because His sacrifice is perpetual;
_according to the order of Melchisedech_ because He offers up consecrated
bread and wine, which were prefigured by the bread and wine offered by
“Melchisedech, the Priest of the Most High God.”(401)
Tradition, with its hundred tongues, proclaims the perpetual oblation of
the Sacrifice of the Mass, from the time of the Apostles to our own days.
If we consult the Fathers of the Church, who have stood like faithful
sentinels on the watch-towers of Israel, guarding with a jealous eye the
deposit of faith, and who have been the faithful witnesses of their own
times and the recorders of the past; if we consult the General Councils,
at which were assembled the venerable hierarchy of Christendom, they will
all tell us, with one voice, that the Sacrifice of the Mass is the centre
of their religion and the acknowledged institution of Jesus Christ.
Another remarkable evidence in favor of the Divine institution of the Mass
is furnished by the Nestorians and Eutychians, who separated from the
Catholic Church in the fifth century, and who still exist in Persia and in
other parts of the East, as well as by the Greek schismatics, who severed
their connection with the Church in the ninth century. All these sects, as
well as the numerous others scattered over the East, retain to this day
the oblation of the Mass in their daily service. As these Christian
communities have had no communication with the Catholic Church since the
period of their separation from her, they could not, of course, have
borrowed from her the doctrine of the Eucharistic Sacrifice; consequently
they must have received it from the same source from which the Church
derived it, viz., from the Apostles themselves.
But of all proofs in favor of the Apostolic origin of the Sacrifice of the
Mass, the most striking and the most convincing is found in the Liturgies
of the Church. The Liturgy is the established Ritual of the Church. It is
the collection of the authorized prayers of divine worship. These prayers
are fixed and immovable. Among others we have the Liturgy of Jerusalem,
ascribed to the Apostle St. James; the Liturgy of Alexandria, attributed
to St. Mark the Evangelist, and the Liturgy of Rome, referred to St.
Peter. There are various other Liturgies accredited to the Apostles or to
their immediate successors. Now I wish to call your attention to this
remarkable fact, that all these Liturgies, though compiled by different
persons, at different times, in various places, and in divers languages,
contain, without exception, in clear and precise language, the prayers to
be said at the celebration of Mass; prayers in substance the same as those
found in our prayer books at the Canon of the Mass.
We cannot account for this wonderful uniformity except by supposing that
the doctrine respecting the Mass was received by the Apostles from the
common fountain of Christianity—Jesus Christ Himself.
It was such facts as these that opened the eyes of those eminent English
divines who, during the present century, have abandoned heresy and schism
and rich preferments and who have embraced the Catholic faith, though, by
taking such a step, they had to sacrifice all that was dear to them on
earth.
The following passages from St. Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews are
sometimes urged as an argument against the sacrifice of the Mass: “Christ,
... neither by the blood of goats, or of calves, but by His own blood,
entered once into the Holies, having obtained eternal redemption.” “Nor
yet that He should offer Himself often, as the High Priest entereth into
the Holies every year.”(402) Again: “Every Priest standeth, indeed, daily
ministering, and often offering the same sacrifices, which can never take
away sins, but this Man, offering one sacrifice for sin, forever sitteth
at the right hand of God.”(403)
St. Paul says that Jesus was offered once. How, then, can we offer Him
daily? I answer, that Jesus was offered once in a bloody manner, and it is
of this sacrifice that the Apostle speaks. But in the Sacrifice of the
Mass He is offered up in an unbloody manner. Though He is daily offered on
ten thousand altars, the Sacrifice is the same as that of Calvary, having
the same High Priest and victim—Jesus Christ. The object of St. Paul is to
contrast the Sacrifice of the New Law, which has only one victim, with the
sacrifices of the Old Law, where the victims were many; and to show the
insufficiency of the ancient sacrifices and the all-sufficiency of the
Sacrifice of the new dispensation.
But if the sacrifice of the cross is all-sufficient what need then, you
will say, is there of a commemorative Sacrifice of the Mass? I would ask a
Protestant in return, Why do you pray, and go to church, and why were you
baptized, and receive Communion, and the rite of Confirmation? What is the
use of all these exercises, if the sacrifice of the cross is
all-sufficient? You will tell me that in all these acts you apply to
yourself the merits of Christ’s Passion. I will tell you, in like manner,
that in the Sacrifice of the Mass I apply to myself the merits of the
sacrifice of the cross, from which the Mass derives all its efficacy.
Christ, indeed, by His death made full atonement for our sins, but He has
not released us from the obligation of co-operating with Him by applying
His merits to our souls. What better or more efficacious way can we have
of participating in His merits than by assisting at the Sacrifice of the
Altar, where we vividly recall to mind His sufferings, where Calvary is
represented before us, where “we show the death of the Lord until He
come,” and where we draw abundantly to our souls the fruit of His Passion
by drinking of the same blood that was shed on the cross?
In the Old Law there were different kinds of sacrifices offered up for
different purposes. There were sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving to
God for His benefits, sacrifices of propitiation to implore His
forgiveness for the sins of the people, and sacrifices of supplication to
ask His blessing and protection. The Sacrifice of the Mass fulfils all
these ends. It is a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, a sacrifice of
propitiation and of supplication; hence that valued book, the “_Following
of Christ_,” says: “When a Priest celebrates Mass he honors God, he
rejoices the angels, he edifies the church, he helps the living, he
obtains rest for the dead, and makes himself a partaker of all that is
good.” To form an adequate idea of the efficiency of the Divine Sacrifice
of the Mass we have only to bear in mind the Victim that is offered—Jesus
Christ, the Son of the living God.
First—The Mass is a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. If all human
beings in this world, and all living creatures, and all inanimate objects
were collected and burned as a holocaust to the Lord, they would not
confer as much praise on the Almighty as a single Eucharistic sacrifice.
These earthly creatures—how numerous and excellent soever—are finite and
imperfect; while the offering made in the Mass is of infinite value, for
it is our Lord Jesus, the acceptable Lamb without blemish, the beloved Son
in whom the Father is well pleased, and who “is always heard on account of
His reverence.”
With what awe and grateful love should we assist at this Sacrifice! The
angels were present at Calvary. Angels are present also at the Mass. If we
cannot assist with the seraphic love and rapt attention of the angelic
spirits, let us worship, at least, with the simple devotion of the
shepherds of Bethlehem and the unswerving faith of the Magi. Let us offer
to our God the golden gift of a heart full of love and the incense of our
praise and adoration, repeating often during the holy oblation the words
of the Psalmist: “The mercies of the Lord I will sing forever.”
Second—The Mass is also a sacrifice of propitiation. Jesus daily pleads
our cause in this Divine oblation before our Heavenly Father. “If any man
sin,” says St. John, “we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ
the just; and He is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only,
but also for those of the whole world.”(404) Hence the Priest, whenever he
offers up the holy sacrifice, recites this prayer at the offertory:
“Receive, O holy Father, almighty, eternal God, this immaculate victim
which I, Thy unworthy servant, offer to Thee, my living and true God, for
my innumerable sins, offences and negligences, for all here present, and
for all the faithful living and dead, that it may avail me and them to
life everlasting.”
Whenever, therefore, we assist at Mass let us unite with Jesus Christ in
imploring the mercy of God for our sins. Let us represent to ourselves the
Mass as another Calvary, which it is in reality. Like Mary, let us stand
in spirit beneath the cross, and let our souls be pierced with grief for
our transgressions. Let us acknowledge that our sins were the cause of
that agony and of the shedding of that precious blood. Let us follow in
mind and heart that crowd of weeping penitents who accompanied our Savior
to Calvary, striking their breasts, and let us say: “Spare, O Lord, spare
Thy people.” Or let us repeat with the publican this heartfelt prayer: “O
God, be merciful to me a sinner.” At the death of Jesus the sun was
darkened, the earth trembled, the very rocks were rent, as if to show that
even inanimate nature sympathized with the sufferings of its God. And
should not we tremble for our sins? Should not our hearts, though cold and
hard as rocks, be softened at the spectacle of our God suffering for love
of us, and in expiation for our offences?
Third—The Sacrifice of the Mass is, in fine, a sacrifice of supplication:
“For, if the blood of goats and of oxen, and the ashes of a heifer being
sprinkled, sanctify such as are defiled to the cleansing of the flesh, how
much more shall the blood of Christ, who, through the Holy Ghost, offered
himself without spot to God, cleanse our conscience from dead works to
serve the living God?”(405) If the prayers of Moses and David and the
Patriarchs were so powerful in behalf of God’s servants, what must be the
influence of Jesus’ intercession? If the wounds of the Martyrs plead so
eloquently for us, how much more eloquent is the blood of Jesus shed daily
upon our altars? His blood cries louder for mercy than the blood of Abel
cried for vengeance. If God inclines His ear to us miserable sinners, how
can He resist the pleadings in our behalf of the “Lamb of God who taketh
away the sins of the world.”
“Let us go, therefore, with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may
obtain mercy and find grace in seasonable aid.”(406)