What Mass Is
January 24, 2018
Last Supper, Valentin de Boulogne; 1625-26
KYLE writes:
The excerpt below is from a pre-Vatican II Catholic prayer book by Father F.X. Lasance titled, My Prayer Book (1907). The piece is titled “What Mass Is,” and it’s a superb summation of the Mass from an anonymous author. These traditional prayer books are indispensable tools in arming ourselves with the Holy Spirit in the spiritual warfare we’re constantly engaged in.
What Mass Is
Non-Catholics who are present at mass, not understanding the ceremony, wonder why we should be so diligent in assisting at it. To them, the idea of church and public worship is associated with preaching and hymn singing. They are surprised at a function in which a clergy man takes no notice of the people and at which there often is no sermon.
What, then, is the Mass that so attracts Catholics and attendance at which is made obligatory on them, at least once a week, under pain of deadly sin?
The Mass is the Last Supper over again. In it the priest takes bread and wine, and pronounces over them the sacred words of consecration used by the Lord in the upper chamber where He instituted the Eucharist and where first the elements were changed into His body and blood. So the memory of that supper and of the sacrament that was then instituted is perpetuated.
But the Mass is more than the Last Supper. It is the Sacrifice of Calvary all over again. In it, Jesus Christ is literally and personally offered to the eternal Godhead for the Almighty’s honor and glory, in thanksgiving for all His benefits and blessings, in satisfaction for the sins of mankind, and in supplication for the spiritual and temporal needs of His people. He is there on the altar, and He is sacrificed.
He is offered up to the Father as He was offered up on Golgotha, only that now the oblation is unbloody. But the same victim is presented, the same sacrifice takes place. -Anon.
