Introduction
to "The Sacred Ceremonies of Low Mass"
By
Rev. Felix Zualdi, CM
The
august Sacrifice of the Mass comprises in itself all that is most sublime and
sacred in our Holy Religion. All the sacrifices of the Old Testament were only
shadows of that of the new, which, as St. Leo says, really offers to God what
the Jewish sacrifices only promised. The offering should bear some proportion
to the person to whom it is made; but since the ancient sacrifices were only
weak and needy elements, they could in no way satisfy for man’s debts to God
and hence another sacrifice was required. The old victims were insufficient,
the Levitical priesthood was impotent in the sight of God, therefore it was
necessary, as the Fathers of the Council of Trent express it, that by the
ordination of God the Father of Mercies, another Priest, according to the order
of Melchisedech, our Lord Jesus Christ, should arise, who would consummate and
bring to perfection all who were to be sanctified. Although Our Lord fully
consummated the sacrifice by offering Himself to God the Father, and by dying
on the altar of the Cross for our redemption yet His priesthood was not to
expire with His death, but was to continue visible in His Church to the end of
ages, as He Himself promised at His Last Supper when, instituting the
Eucharistic Sacrifice, He gave the same Divine authority to the Apostles and to
their successors. Every Priest can, therefore, say to himself when ascending the
altar: I am no longer a mere man of clay, a weak creature—being identified with
Jesus Christ through the power and the infinite value of the Victim I am about
to offer. With what a high degree of virtue ought such a dignity be
accompanied!
There
are four kinds of worship given to God in the Sacrifice of the Mass. The first
is called Latreutic, which is due to Him and can be given to His Infinite
Majesty alone, and which is rendered by the Sacred Victim along with the
adoration of the faithful, of the Saints, and of the Angelic Hosts, who,
according to the opinion of the Fathers, reverently surround the altar. The
second form of worship is termed Eucharistic, by which man raises his
voice in perfect thanksgiving to his most generous Benefactor. In it, the
excess of the Divine Goodness invests us with the power of offering abundant
satisfaction to Him; and the greatest advantage we derive from this benefit is,
that we can thereby make an adequate return for what we have received from God.
God delivers us from the abyss; we present to Him the Deliverer. He opens
Heaven to us; we offer to Him the Heir. So much does the supreme goodness shine
forth in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, that not only is our act of
thanksgiving in keeping with the great benefits conferred upon us, but forms a
return in some way suitable for the great love manifested in His conferring them
upon us. We do this not merely once, as St. Gregory Nazianzen remarks, as when
our Blessed Lord offered Himself in the Incarnation to His Eternal Father, but
a thousand times, when we offer that Divine Son in the Mass, impassible and
glorious as a worthy victim of thanksgiving.
The third act of worship
is Propitiatory—to appease
the anger of God, to satisfy the demands of His justice, and to obtain the
pardon of our sins. Man should appease the Lord to whom he has been ungrateful,
and avert His anger lest he might be cast off forever. All other creatures
cried for vengeance against sinful man: Jesus Christ appeared and immolated
Himself upon the Cross; peace came upon the world, man’s sins notwithstanding,
and the unbloody Sacrifice of the Mass pours out on him the grace of repentance
and reconciles him with Divine justice. The Sacrifice of Calvary supplied the
treasures, that of the Mass distributes them. From the treasury, judge of the key;
and if the Passion of Jesus Christ fits us for the benefits of Redemption, the
Sacrifice of the Mass enables us to enjoy them, for St. Chrysostom says : “Tantum valet celebratio Missae quantum mors
Christi in cruce,” and the Church herself moreover assures us of it in
these words: “Quoties hujus hostiae
commemoratio celebratur, opus nostrae Redemptionis exercetur.”
But
the worship we render to God, as the Author of every good gift, is based upon
our prayers, serving as we do a Lord who wishes us to pray to Him, uniting His own
glory with our best interests. “Call upon
Me,” He says, “in the day of trouble;
I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me.” Prayer constitutes the
fourth act of worship, called Impetratory, for the due rendering of which
to God the Mass furnishes us with the best of all means of moving the Divine
liberality in our favour. We are unworthy not only to be heard but even to ask,
and consequently unworthy of receiving, from the very fact that we are obliged
to ask. The Word of God prayed for us, and “was
heard for His reverence.” In the Mass He prays to the Father continually
for us, in the same manner as He did, bathed with tears and blood, on the
Cross, and we through Him are heard. On the altar the word of Salvation is
raised, the life-giving Host is laid, and there is worked the most sublime
miracle, ravishing in ecstasy of wonder earth and heaven. The Son of God, the
invisible High Priest, the Holy Pontiff, just, innocent, separated from
sinners, higher than the heavens, and able to compassionate us in our
infirmities, intercedes for us with unutterable groanings, and becomes our propitiation,
our victim: and the Eternal Father, who promised to hear everyone invoking Him
in the name of His Son, cannot refuse the Son Himself praying, and offering
Himself for us. “O Father!” we may
suppose Him to exclaim in the Mass, “O
Father! wilt Thou not remember the sacrifice which I consummated on Calvary? Look
down on the renewal of it, that Thou mayst bestow on My brethren the graces I
gained by My death.”
Such is the excellence of
the sacrifice of our altars. Would to Heaven that all the Priests going forth
every day with joy to the mystic Calvary, animated with sublime sentiments of
religion, and covered with the blood of Our Redeemer, would present themselves
to the Father, uniting, as St. Gregory the Great remarks, by an interior and
invisible sacrifice, their groans to those of the Victim who died for men, and
showing themselves alive to their solemn office and to the wants of poor souls.
Then would they, by the Mass, honour the majesty of God, thank Him for His
benefits, appease His justice, and implore His mercy. And since of all our
functions, the Mass is the most holy and the most divine, fulfilling, as it
does, the four great
ends already mentioned, it appears very clear that no study or diligence should
be omitted by the Priest in order that such a sacrifice may be celebrated with
the greatest possible interior purity and exterior devotion, as the Council of
Trent directs, declaring that the terrible anathemas fulminated by the Prophet
against those who perform negligently the functions prescribed for divine worship
apply rigidly to the ministers who celebrate Mass with irreverence. In order
then that the Priest may avoid so great a fault, and the divine malediction
consequent on it, let us remind him in the Introduction to this work what he
ought to do before celebrating, while celebrating, and after having celebrated.
All may be reduced to these three points: 1st, Preparation; 2nd,
Reverence and Exactness; 3rd, Thanksgiving.
1. The Preparation is
remote and immediate; the remote consists in the pure and virtuous life, which
should be led by the Priest, in order that he may celebrate worthily.
Therefore, his acts, his words, his thoughts should breathe of purity, that he
may be fit to celebrate with proper dispositions. If he who handled the sacred vessels
of old should be pure, how much more so must the Priest be, who bears in his
hands and in his breast the Incarnate Word of God? This purity of life
consists, first, in preserving himself undefiled from every sin, not only
mortal, as he is necessarily bound to—but also, to secure greater purity, every
deliberate venial sin, and even from every affection to venial sin; and
secondly, it consists in applying himself most diligently and constantly to the
acquisition of every virtue. “Qui justus est, justificetur adhuc, et sanctus, sanctificetur adhuc”
(Apoc. xxii. ii). For
the immediate preparation, mental prayer is requisite. The venerable John of
Avila prescribes an hour and a half; St. Alphonsus reduces the time of
immediate preparation to half an hour, and even to a quarter; but he adds,
indeed, a quarter of an hour is too little. The Passion of Jesus Christ should
be the continual thought of the Priest. Having finished his meditation it is
meet he should recollect himself for some time before proceeding to celebrate,
and consider the great action he is about to perform. He should seriously
ponder, says St. Augustine, these four thoughts: “Cui offeratur, a quo offeratur, quid offeratur, pro quibus offeratur.”
On entering the sacristy, he should say with St. Bernard: “Worldly affections and solicitudes, wait here until I have celebrated
Mass.” The Priest should likewise consider that he is about to call from
heaven to earth the Word Incarnate, to sacrifice Him anew to the eternal Father,
to be fed with His sacred flesh; he should in fine, reflect upon his most
serious responsibility in becoming at the altar the mediator between God and
man.
2. Reverence and
Exactness.—It is necessary in celebrating, to manifest all the reverence
due to so great a sacrifice. This reverence means that due attention be paid to
the words of the Mass, and that all the ceremonies prescribed by the Rubrics be
exactly observed. As to the attention, the Priest sins by willful distractions
while saying Mass; and these willful distractions, if occurring at the
consecration of the sacred species, or during a notable portion of the Canon
are, according to a large body of theologians, mortal sins. It is not
considered possible that a Priest so acting could fulfil what is prescribed by
the Rubric in these words: “Sacerdos
maxime curare debet ut . . . distincte et apposite proferat . . . non admodum
festinanter, ut advertere possit quae legit.” Exactness regards the
fulfilment of the ceremonies enjoined by the Rubrics, in the celebration of the
Divine Sacrifice. The Bull of St. Pius V., found in the beginning of the
Missal, strictly commands that the Mass be celebrated according to the rite of
the Missal, so that no willful omission, even though it be trivial, of what is prescribed
for the actual celebration of Mass, whether in word or in action, can be
excused from the guilt of, at least, venial sin. It is commonly held this does
not apply to what we have said of the preparation for the sacrifice and
thanksgiving after it. Words half pronounced, genuflections half formed,
incomplete signs, and confused and hurried actions, may lead to grave
sacrilege. There are some who hurry over the Mass in such a way that the interrogation might be put regarding them
which Tertullian used for another purpose: “Sacrificat,
an insultat?” Of such ministers it might be said they are not Priests but
executioners, who insult the Passion of Jesus Christ; they are perfidious Jews,
who, instead of pleading for pardon, bring upon their souls everlasting malediction.
Add to this the scandal given by him who celebrates without devotion. The
people respected our Divine Saviour in the beginning of His public life, but
when they saw Him despised by the priests they lost all reverence for Him, and
cried out for His death. The greater number of authors, including Benedict
XIV., Clement IX., and other very learned Pontiffs, declare that the
celebration of the Sacrifice of the Mass should not occupy more than half an
hour, nor less than the third part of an hour. Such a space of time is
prudently considered sufficient, both to secure a due and reverent celebration and
to prevent weariness on the part of those assisting. Whoever fails herein
merits reprehension; but he who gets through the Mass in a less space of time
than a quarter of an hour is, as St. Alphonsus holds, guilty of mortal sin.
3. Fervour in Thanksgiving after Mass is a
sure proof that the Priest has offered the Sacrifice with a heart animated with
holy affections. If he has celebrated, with the fire of the love of God it will
not be easily extinguished in him. Every benefit claims its acknowledgment.
Now, let us consider what gratitude is due to God by the Priest who has been
just permitted to say Mass! “Oh! what an
abuse and what a shame,” cries out St. Alphonsus, “to behold so many Priests who, after having celebrated Holy Mass, after
having received from God the honour of offering to Him in sacrifice His own
Divine Son, and after having been fed with His most Sacred Body, with tongues
still purpled with His most Precious Blood, having hurried over some short
prayers coldly and inattentively, commence immediately to discourse of useless things
or of worldly business; or else go forth carrying about the streets Jesus
Christ, who is still reposing in their breasts under the sacramental species.”
With such might we deal, as the Venerable John of Avila once did with a Priest
who left the church immediately after having celebrated. He sent two clerics,
bearing lighted torches, to attend him, and they, when asked by the Priest what
they meant, replied: “We accompany the
Blessed Sacrament which you carry in your breast.” Alas! How sad: and yet
this is the fittest and most precious time to treat of our eternal salvation
and to gain new treasures of grace. This is the propitious hour in which we
should present to our Saviour devout offerings and thank Him for the privileges
just conferred. After Communion, as St. Teresa says, let us not lose so good an
opportunity of treating with God, since His Divine Majesty is not wont to
reward sparingly him from whom He receives a hearty welcome.
As long as the Sacramental
Species remain every act of virtue possesses greater value and merit, because
of the strict union which then exists between the soul and Jesus Christ, as He
Himself declared: “Qui manducat meam
carnem et bibit meum sanguinem, in me manet et ego in illo.” Therefore acts
performed at this time have the highest degree of efficacy and value, for, says
St. Chrysostom; “Ipsa re nos in suum
efficit corpus.” Jesus places Himself in the soul as on a throne, and He
seems to say to her, as He formerly did to the man born blind, “Quid tibi vis faciam?” . . . Would it
not then be most advisable that every Priest should entertain Himself with
Jesus Christ for half an hour after Mass, says St. Alphonsus; or even for a
quarter of an hour?
The first portion of the
time of thanksgiving should be devoted by the Priest to the recital, more with
his heart than with his lips, of the customary prayers proposed by the Church,
which are found in all Missals and Breviaries. The second part should be spent
in loving communion with Jesus, in sentiments of adoration, of thanksgiving, of
oblation, and of supplication. The Priest should pray for himself and for the
Church; he should pray for all the people in general, and in particular for
those of his own diocese, of his country ; for his relatives; for the living
and for the dead; for all the members of the Catholic Church; particularly for those under his own charge
(parishioners, penitents, etc.); he should pray for all, that all may come to
know, to love, and to serve God on earth, and so afterwards to glorify Him with
the angels and saints in Heaven.
