The Grandeur of the Mass

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GRANDEUR OF THE MASS

Hoc est Corpus Meum; Hic est Sanguis Meus.
Hoc fácite in meam commemoratiónem.

O the grandeur and simplicity of the Mass of the Divine Power! With words so brief and so unostentatious Our Lord gave fulfillment to one of the solemnest of prophecies:

“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” (Malach. 1:2).

The glory of God’s Name and knowledge of It spread throughout the world: these are the fruits of the Holy Sacrifice of the New Covenant. It is the divine bestowal in answer to the first petition of the Our Father: Hallowed be Thy Name. How often of my Jesus, I have felt ashamed of the fruitlessness of my priesthood! I made a sad mistake. With just the daily celebration of the Mass I co-operate to bring about the greatest good of God and of creatures: the furtherance of the glory of the Lord.

To consecrate the Body and Blood of Christ is the Church’s mightiest exercise of power. To approach with imperiousness, with three words, the Right Hand of God, the Bosom of the Father, and there to lay hold, in a certain sense, on the Only-Begotten Son and bring Him down to earth; to renew each day, each hour, each moment, over the face of the earth, the most glorious, the most meritorious feat of the Word of God, His Sacrifice; to earn, to seek, and find, for all Her countless children their daily Bread, and to feed them with It… almost force It upon them, lest they hunger, faint and die. O Lord! For this alone Thy Church is worthy to be named mankind’s chief Benefactress, and this our priestly dignity, the greatest and holiest power for good on earth.

The Holy Mass, besides being the chief act of adoration and submission to God, and therefore the primary expression of worship, is the most effectual of supplication. It has been the Church’s tactics in every age to put before the eyes of God the Name of His own Son; She has never dared to pray without this recommendation: per Dóminum nostrum Jesum Christum Fílium Tuum. How much greater, then, will Her appeal be in the sight of the Father when She presents to Him not merely the Name and remembrance of His Son but the very Son in Person, real and consubstantial with Him, seated on His Right Hand and likewise offering Himself on Calvary!

Such is the grandeur of the August Sacrifice of Our Altars that God has brought the downfall of every other religious sacrifice in Its trail. Polytheistic religions fell, and with them their sacrifices, human sacrifices very often as in ancient America. The new religions appearing after Christ, even heterodox Christian cults, are without sacrifice and sacrificer. But in Thy Church, O Lord, Thou hast wished to perpetuate the Offering of the Pure and Only Victim, the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world.

RESPECT FOR THE MASS AND THE CELEBRANT

Pope St. Gregory says: “Who will doubt that at the moment of the Immolation the Heavens open? Or that the Angelic choirs are in attendance at this Mystery of Jesus Christ? And that the highest and the lowest, the visible and invisible, become one thing? Et summa et ima sociáre unúmque ex invisibílibus et visibílibus fíeri?” St. John Chrysostom, Augustine, and other Fathers expound the same ideas. According to them, during the Holy Sacrifice, the Altar is surrounded by legions of glorious spirits. What wonder that Angels should attend, and attend with infinite self-abasement, where the very Lord of the heavenly choirs stoops to such depths of infinite condescension! I quite believe it. What I find difficult to believe is that a worm of the earth like me should be invested with such an awe-inspiring dignity, and that in my hands should become incarnate, as it were, the “full of grace and of truth,” the Only-Begotten of the Womb of the Virgin Mary.

Let us consider the tremendous respect with which the Church, in Her Liturgy, surrounds the Celebrant. He can be the humblest of priests, an unknown chaplain or curate, one lacking in virtue and learning and without social standing; but scarcely has he reached the Altar to say Mass, when he is given all the honors and preferences. Would Jesus Christ Himself be given better treatment were He to appear in Person as Sacrificer, robed in the Sacred Vestments? All the faithful, without exception: kings, princes, bishops, and even the Roman Pontiff, if present, will remain on bended knees while the Celebrant stands; and in reciting the Confíteor, the Pope himself will bow towards him and say: Et tibi, Pater… et te, Pater, and will prostrate to receive his blessings. How clearly the rubrics and ceremonies give to understand that during the most Holy Sacrifice only two persons demand attention and supreme respect: Jesus Christ, under the Sacramental Species, and the Priest, whose voice is instrumental of Christ’s Presence!

The Mass is the very Immolation of Calvary, and therefore, the goal of Christ’s coming to the world and living in mortal flesh. And in the Mass, the same as on Golgotha, there can intervene, at least attend, a great variety of people in a variety of roles. What is the role of the Priest when celebrating? Will he be one of Christ’s executioners? One of the soldiers offering the Victim gall and vinegar? One of those cruel adversaries who mock at His sorrows and blaspheme? One of the crowds of the merely inquisitive who get a thrill from the tragic details of an execution? Or will he be found among those good souls who believe in Christ and accompany Him in His prayer and Agony? Will he stand between the Mother and the beloved Disciple? NO. My place and role, when saying Mass, is pre-eminent: I have identified myself with the Divine Victim and Sacrificer, with the Lamb of God and the Eternal Priest Who immolates It; through my lips speak the lips, the Omnipotence, and the Heart of Christ: Hoc est Corpus Meum; Hic est Sanguis Meus.

Resolution

1) I promise my Lord, and I promise myself, in my great representative capacity at the Altar, at least a profound interior respect. And exteriorly, I shall see to it that wherever the Mass is concerned there shall be absolute conformity with the prescriptions [Rubrics] of the Liturgy, especially in connection with the cleanliness of vestments, sacred vessels, altar clothes, corporals, purificators, etc.; and also in the tidy appearance of the church and its Altars. I shall bear out the truth of my daily declaration: Dómine, diléxi decórum domus tuæ (Ps. 21:8).

2) And since the veneration which the Mass inspires the faithful depends, in no small measure, upon the priest’s pious observance of the rubrics, I propose to revise the ceremonies of the Missal, so that in all earnestness, and as soon as possible, I may examine my conscience on how I abide by them.

I desire, for the Savior’s sake, to win the compliment paid to St. Vincent de Paul: “There indeed you have a priest who says Mass well!”

Summórum Pontíficum Cura

SUMMORUM PONTIFICUMAPOSTOLIC LETTER
SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM

MOTU PROPRIO "SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM"

Agimus Tibi gratias, Omnípotens Deus, pro univérsis benefíciis Tuis.

"...So our Mass goes back, without essential change, to the age when it first developed out of the oldest Liturgy of all. It is still redolent of that Liturgy of the days when Cæsar ruled the world and thought he could stamp out the Faith of Christ, when our fathers met together before dawn and sang a hymn to Christ as to a God. The final result of our enquiry is that, in spite of unsolved problems, in spite of later changes, there is not in Christendom another Rite so venerable as ours." ~Fr. Adrian Fortescue, The Mass

Prayer taken from www.juventutemchile.blogspot.om

Rendido a Vuestros piés, Oh Jesús mío, considerando las inefables muestras de amor que me habéis dado, y las sublimes lecciones que me enseña de continuo Vuestro adorabilísimo Corazón, Os pido humildemente la gracia de conoceros, amaros y serviros como fiel discípulo Vuestro para hacerme digno de las mercedes y bendiciones que generoso concedéis a los que de veras os conocen aman y sirven. Mirad que soy muy podre dulcísimo Jesús y necesito de Vos como el mendigo de la limosna que el rico le ha de dar; mirad que soy muy rudo O Soberano Maestro y necesito de Vuestras divinas enseñanzas para luz y guía de mi ignorancia; mirad que soy my débil O poderosísimo amparo de los frágiles y caigo a cada paso y necesito apoyarme en vos para no desfallecer. Sedlo todo para mi Sagrado Corazón: socorro de mi miseria, lumbre de mis ojos, báculo de mis pasos, remedio de mis males, auxilio de toda necesidad. De Vos lo espera todo mi pobre corazón. Vos lo alentasteis y convidasteis cuando con tan tiernos acentos dijiste repetidas veces en Vuestro Evangelio: "venid a Mí, aprended de Mí, pedid, llamad". A las puertas de Vuestro Corazón vengo pues hoy, y llamo, y pido, y espero. Del mío os hago, Oh Señor, firme, formal y decidida entrega, tomadlo Vos y dadme en cambio lo que sabéis me ha de ser bueno en la tierra y dichoso en la eternidad. Amén.

Creation

God brought all creatures out of nothing by His impersonal command: Let there be light, let there be a firmament, let there earth bring forth, etc. But when creating man, He begins with Let us make, not let there be; and, with Himself as Model – to Our Image and Likeness. But man is not yet, not even after that ample phrase so full of power and majesty. God bends His Heavenly Might, no, not to touch the summits of lofty mountains, but down to the depths where, from the slime of the earth, He fashions the body of Adam… This indeed was something beautiful, but lifeless. God contemplated the work of His hands with delight and, bending over it He breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul – (Gen. ii, 7) ~Fr. Escribano

My spirit is not, like the Heavens, the work of God’s Fingers – ópera digitórum tuórum – my soul cannot say to its Maker, like the body: Manus tuæ plasmavérunt me: my spirit God breathed into me from the depths of His own Being, like a breath that I exhale from the recesses of my lungs; that is what my soul is: spíritus, spiráculum, the Breath of God. Has anything more mysterious, more profound and beautiful ever been said about the nature of my soul? Is it possible to go further without touching pantheism? … Recognise, my soul, thy dignity; regret having trailed thy mantle of glory through earthly mire. ~Fr. Escribano

To the foregoing proofs of ineffable love on the part of God, there is another, tenderer still. More than a hundred years ago, more than a thousand, a million, a thousand million… how will my imagination encompass the thought, the magnificent reality?... From all eternity… God thinks of me… Before the first break of the first dawn; before the coverlet of the skies was spread, God thought of me! ~Fr. Escribano

I have learnt that Thou, my God and my Father, though in need of nought that is mine – quia bonórum meórum non eges (Ps. xv, 2) – has nevertheless a longing for something which only I can give, just one small thing: my love, my heart; and Thou dost long for this with such intensity as to stoop down and beg it of me… ~Fr. Escrbano

Charity or the Love of God

What is Charity? A supernatural habit of the mind whereby we love God above all things for His own sake, and ourselves and our neighbor for Him. It is a theological virtue like [Faith and Hope], but higher than they, and the only eternal one of the three. Faith and Hope will take us as far as the threshold of eternity, but when we actually enter it they will have fallen away. Only of Charity St. Paul has said: Charity never falleth away, never dies; it is eternal, like God Himself, like the Holy Spirit Who pours it into our hearts; and of such surpassing excellence that only the Divine Spirit can infuse it; of a quality that no human force or even the strength of the seraphim, the spirits of love, can impart to us. ~Fr. Escribano

Even supposing -an impossible supposition, of course- that every virtue were enshrined in my soul, my whole existence a most fertile soil and limitless source of heroism, if I lack Charity, nihil mihi prodest, nihil sum; it would avail me nothing, I should count for nothing (Cor. xiii, 3). Charity is necessary -necessitate medii- for my justification and salvation. Who does not love God is in sin.... Whoever appears before the Judgment-seat of God without the cloth-of-gold garment of divine love will have his part and lot with the hypocrites in the unquenchable fire. ~Fr. Escribano

O God, let the solemn, imperative, and burning proclamation which accompanied the issuing of the great precept of love on Mount Sinai serve to impel my entry into the Kingdom of those that love Thee: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole strength and with thy whole mind (Deut. vi, 5)... for this is the greatest and the first commandment (Matt. xxii, 37). ~Fr. Escribano

The act of least outward significance, for instance, to give someone a drink of water, if done out of supernatural charity is of greater value in the sight of the Supreme Judge than the tortures of a St. Laurence if endured without Charity. ~Fr. Escribano

...Because it is so necessary to love [to have Charity] in man's life, God has imposed it upon him as a precept... and has placed it at the head of His commandments... and He has even summarized in it all the other (precepts). He who loves, keeps already all the other commandments. ~Fr. Villar

The fool, the Innocent, the Wise

He who knows not and knows not that he knows not is a fool. Shun him.

He who knows not and knows that he knows not is a child. Teach him.

He who knows and knows not that he knows is asleep. Wake him.

He who knows and knows that he knows is a wise man. Follow him.

Greed; Avarice

Avarice is "that love of money which makes a man an idolater." ~Eph. 5:5.

"Money is a good servant, but a bad master"

"Once [avarice] dominates over me .... My spiritual faculties will live a life of dedication to the worship of my idol [money]. This will be the pursuit of my probing mind day and night. This will be my love above all other loves. My heart, created for the God of Heaven, will be full of the craving for wealth -- auri sacra fames -- and this will be my despicable god, whom I shall love with my whole heart, with my whole soul, with my whole mind, and with all my strength.... To this idol I shall sacrifice not only my own soul with its understanding, will, and affections, but the Word of God as well; yes the very Person of the Word, if avarice becomes my ruling passion." ~Fr. Escribano

"The craving for money is darkness to the soul -- Tenebræ animæ est pecuniarum cupido." ~St. John Chrysostom

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-->Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.
-->It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven.

"It is the first of all the beatitudes to which Christ solemnly promised the possession of the Kingdom of Heaven. Poverty constituted one of the most important themes of His preaching... How he anathematized the rich!... How difficult did He make it for them to enter Heaven... more difficult than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle." ~Fr. Villar

The Roman Mass

"...So our Mass goes back, without essential change, to the age when it first developed out of the oldest Liturgy of all. It is still redolent of that Liturgy of the days when Cæsar ruled the world and thought he could stamp out the Faith of Christ, when our fathers met together before dawn and sang a hymn to Christ as to a God. The final result of our enquiry is that, in spite of unsolved problems, in spite of later changes, there is not in Christendom another Rite so venerable as ours." ~Fr. Adrian Fortescue, The Mass

"Sine Domínica non póssumus"

The four ends of the Mass

"If there is anything divine among man's possessions which might excite the envy of the citizens of heaven (could they ever be swayed by such a passion), this is undoubtedly the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, by means of which men, having before their eyes, and taking into their hands the very Creator of Heaven and earth, experience, while still on earth, a certain anticipation of Heaven. How keenly, then, must mortals strive to preserve and protect this inestimable privilege with all due worship and reverence, and be ever on their guard lest their negligence offend the Angels who vie with them in eager adoration!” ~Pope Urban VII

Mass during the Penal Days in Ireland

Mosaic of the Mass during the early centuries of the Church

Coronation Mass of Paul VI

Cristeros

"[The Mass] came forth out of the grand mind of the Church, and lifted us out of earth and out of self, and wrapped us round in a cloud of mystical sweetness and the sublimities of a more than angelic Liturgy, and purified us almost without ourselves, and charmed us with the celestial charming, so that our very senses seemed to find vision, hearing, fragrance, taste, and touch beyond what earth can give." ~Fr. Faber

"Such is the grandeur of the August Sacrifice of our Altars that God has brought down the downfall of every other religious sacrifice in its trail. ~Fr. Escribano