The Institution of the Mass

Why the Mass was Instituted

Why do I believe? In considering the purposes Our Lord had in mind when instituting this wonderful Sacramental Sacrifice, I shall discover a further motive of credibility, and not the least of them:

1^st purpose: To convert every square foot of earth and sea into a Calvary purpled with the steaming Blood of the Lamb. O Lover of this our earthly dwelling, it did not satisfy Thee to shed Thy Blood on one Golgotha, it was Thy desire to turn the whole earth into a Golgotha and an Altar of Thy Sacrifice

2^nd purpose: To establish the New Covenant: Novum Testaméntum. The Old Covenant was made for the observance of the Law; the New Covenant was made for the sake of pardoning sins, in virtue of the Redeeming Blood: in remissiónem peccatórum.

3^rd purpose: To erect a monument to the greatest of all achievements: Christ’s Passion and Death, the divine work of the Redemption: Hoc fácite in mean commemoratiónem.

For as often as you shall eat this bread and drink this chalice, you shall shew the death of the Lord, until he comes (1 Cor. 11:26).

A monument that will last as long as the human race. It is so natural for the human heart to want to erect lasting monuments! What are those monoliths, menhirs, mausoleums, pyramids, obelisks, and statues in such materials like granite, marble, and iron, erected in every age to kings, travelers, pioneers, and inventors, but the unquenchable human longing to eternalize an achievement, to perpetuate a name? And what monument will the King of Kings erect to His enterprise, the world’s Redemption? Bronze from the old Colossi? Stones from the eternal wonders of Egypt? ... No, Christ’s monument will be unique: His porphyry, His diamonds, His bronze, will be but a tiny consecrated Host – the meager appearances of bread and wine… And the pyramids will crumble, and the colossi will be thrown to the ground, and the marble statues will turn into dust, and the monoliths will be buried by the sands of the centuries; and even if the cataclysm should fail to consume them, there will be the implacable beat of the weather eroding and pulverizing them all. BUT the Monument to the Death of Christ, with all its fragile appearances, remains; with the passing of the years and after every hour It becomes still more gigantic; each Consecration and Communion is a new ashlar that nothing will move.

4^th purpose: To infuse into my being the germ of a New Life, the life of grace, eternal life, the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of God, the Holy Ghost.

St. John, the Priest Model in his Dealings with the Holy Eucharist:

Let us read St. John’s Gospel and his other writings:

So steeped was he in the profound mysteries of his Divine Master’s Heart that, when he takes up the pen to relate the Life-story of Christ, the very first thing that comes to his mind is Christ’s Divinity: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God! How truly this is fulfilled in the beloved Disciple!

We should learn from St. John how to deal with Jesus Christ hidden under the Sacramental Species: The essential purpose of the priest is to offer Sacrifice. There is no priesthood without sacrifice. So the more perfectly [the priest] perform[s] this essential duty the better priests [they] are, and the better priests [they] are the nearer [their] approach to the Holiness and Greatness of the Victim [they] offer and of the Father to Whom It is offered. For the victims and oblations of old have vanished like shadows before the Light of the New Covenant, which, in abrogating them, substituted in their place the One Clean Oblation prophesied by Malachias (1:2), Christ our God, the Holy One born of the Virgin Mary, the Divine Victim of our altars.

Taken from The Priest at Prayer by Fr. Eugenio Escribano