Lesson 24
ON THE SACRIFICE OF THE MASS

262 Q. When and where are the bread and wine changed into the body and
blood of Christ?
A. The bread and wine are changed into the body and blood of Christ at
the consecration in the Mass.

263 Q. What is the Mass?
A. The Mass is the unbloody sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ.

The Holy Sacrifice is called Mass probably from the words the priest
says at the end when he turns to the people and says, "Ite Missa est";
that is, when he tells them the Holy Sacrifice is over.

*264 Q. What is a sacrifice?
A. A sacrifice is the offering of an object by a priest to God alone,
and the consuming of it to acknowledge that He is the Creator and Lord
of all things.

"Sacrifice." From the very earliest history of man we find people--for
example, Abel, Noe, etc.--offering up sacrifice to God; that is, taking
something and offering it to God, and then destroying it to show that
they believed God to be the Master of life and death, and the Supreme
Lord of all things. These offerings were sometimes plants or fruits, but
most frequently animals.

When men lost the knowledge of the true God and began to worship idols
of wood and stone, they began or continued to offer sacrifice to these
false gods. Very often, too, they sacrificed human beings to please, as
they imagined, these gods. They believed there was a god for
everything--a god for the ocean, a god for thunder, a god for wind, for
war, etc.; and when anything happened that frightened or injured the
people, they believed that some of these gods were offended, and offered
up sacrifice to pacify them. They had a temple in Rome called the
Pantheon, or temple of all the gods, and here they kept the idols of all
the gods they could think of or know. At Athens, they were afraid of
neglecting any god whom they might thus give offense, and so they had an
altar for the unknown god. When St. Paul came to preach, he saw this
altar to the unknown god, and told them that was the God he came to
preach about. (Acts 17). He preached to them the existence of the true
God, and showed them that there is only one God and not many gods.

They did not have these idols of wood and stone in their temples for the
same reason that we have images in our churches, because they believed
that the idols were really gods, and offered sacrifice to them, whereas
we know that our images are the works of men. Near the city of Jerusalem
there was a great idol named Molech, to which parents offered their
infants in sacrifice. We know, too, from the history of this country
that the Indians used to send a beautiful young girl in a white canoe
over the falls of Niagara every year, as a sacrifice offered to the god
of the falls. Even yet human sacrifices are offered up on savage
islands. Sometimes certain animals were selected to be heathen gods. The
people who worship idols, animals, or other things of that kind as gods
are called pagans, idolaters, or heathens.

The Israelites, who worshipped the true God and offered Him sacrifices
because He made known to them by revelation that they should do so, had
four kinds of sacrifice. They offered one for sin, another in
thanksgiving for benefits received, another as an act of worship, and
another to beg God's blessing. It is just for these four ends or objects
we offer up the one Christian sacrifice of the holy Mass. In the
beginning the head of the family offered sacrifice--as Noe did when he
came out of the Ark--but after God gave His laws to Moses He appointed
priests to offer up the sacrifices. Aaron, the brother of Moses, was the
first priest appointed, and after him his descendants were priests. When
Our Lord came and instituted a new sacrifice He established the
priesthood of the New Law, and appointed His own priests, namely, the
Apostles, with St. Peter as their chief, and after them their lawfully
appointed successors, the bishops of the world, with the Pope as their
chief. The sacrifices of the Old Law were figures of the sacrifice of
the New Law, and were to cease at its institution; and when the ancient
sacrifices ceased the ancient priesthood was at an end.

265 Q. Is the Mass the same sacrifice as that of the Cross?
A. The Mass is the same sacrifice as that of the Cross.

But how is the Mass a sacrifice? It is a sacrifice because at the Mass
the body and blood of Our Lord are offered to His heavenly Father at the
consecration, and afterwards consumed by the priest. In offering up the
body and blood of Our Lord the bread and wine are consecrated
separately, and kept separate on the altar at Mass to signify their
separation at Our Lord's death in the sacrifice of the Cross, when His
sacred blood flowed from His body. The Holy Eucharist is also a
Sacrament, because it has the three things necessary to constitute a
Sacrament; namely, (1) The outward sign--that is, the appearance of
bread and wine. (2) The inward grace; for it is Jesus Christ Himself,
the Author and Dispenser of all graces. (3) It was instituted by Our
Lord.

The Holy Eucharist is therefore both a sacrifice and a Sacrament. It is
a sacrifice when offered at Mass, and a Sacrament when we receive it and
when it is reserved in the tabernacle.

*266 Q. How is the Mass the same sacrifice as that of the Cross?
A. The Mass is the same sacrifice as that of the Cross because the
offering and the priest are the same--Christ Our Blessed Lord; and the
ends for which the sacrifice of the Mass is offered are the same as
those of the sacrifice of the Cross.

On the Cross the offering was the body and blood of Our Lord; the one
who offered it was Our Lord; the reason for which He offered it was that
He might atone for sin; the one to whom He offered it was His heavenly
Father. Now, at Mass it is the same. The object offered is Our Lord's
body and blood, the one suffering is Our Lord Himself, through the
priest; it is offered for sin, and it is offered to the heavenly Father.
All things are the same, except that the blood of Our Lord is not shed,
and Our Lord does not die again.

*267 Q. What are the ends for which the sacrifice of the Cross was
offered?
A. The ends for which the sacrifice of the Cross was offered were:
first, to honor and glorify God; second, to thank Him for all the graces
bestowed on the whole world; third, to satisfy God's justice for the
sins of men; fourth, to obtain all graces and blessings.

*268 Q. Is there any difference between the sacrifice of the Cross and
the sacrifice of the Mass?
A. Yes; the manner in which the sacrifice is offered is different. On
the Cross Christ really shed His blood and was really slain; in the Mass
there is no real shedding of blood nor real death, because Christ can
die no more; but the sacrifice of the Mass, through the separate
consecration of the bread and the wine, represents His death on the
Cross.

269 Q. How should we assist at Mass?
A. We should assist at Mass with great interior recollection and piety
and with every outward mark of respect and devotion.

If you were admitted into the presence of a king or of the Holy Father
you would be careful not to show any indifference or disrespect in his
presence. You would not be guilty of looking around or of talking idly
to those near you. Your eyes would be constantly fixed on the great
person present. So should you be at Mass, for there you are admitted
into the presence of the King of kings, our divine Lord. Your whole
attention, therefore, should be reverently given to Him, and to no
other. How displeasing it must be to Him to have some in His presence
who care so little for Him and who insult Him without thought or regard!
If we acted in the presence of any prince as we sometimes act in the
presence of Our Lord on the altar, we should be turned out of his house,
with orders not to come again. But Our Lord suffers all patiently and
meekly, though He will not allow any of this disrespect to go unpunished
in this world or in the next. Knowing this, some holy persons offer up
their prayers and Holy Communions in reparation for these insults, and
try to atone for all the insults offered to Our Lord in the Blessed
Sacrament. They have united in holy society for this purpose, called the
Apostleship of Prayer, or League of the Sacred Heart, now established in
many parishes. If you do not belong to such a society, you should make
such an offering yourself privately.

In the Old Law the people brought to the temple whatever they wished the
priests to offer up for them--sometimes a lamb, sometimes a dove,
sometimes fruit, etc. The offering or sacrifice was theirs, and they
offered it up by the hands of the priests. In the early ages of the
Church the Christians brought to the priests the bread and wine to be
consecrated and offered up at Mass. Now as the bread and wine used at
the Mass must be of a particular kind, namely, wheaten bread and wine of
the grape, there was some danger of the people not bringing the proper
kind: so instead of the people bringing these things themselves, the
priests began to buy them, and the people gave him money for his own
support; and thus you have the origin of offering money to the priest
for celebrating Mass for your intention. The money is not to pay for the
Mass, because you could not buy any sacred thing without committing sin.
The priest may use the money also for the candles burned, the vestments
and sacred vessels, etc., used at the Mass. To buy a holy thing for
money is the sin of simony--so called after Simon, a magician, who tried
to bribe the Apostles to give him Confirmation when he was unworthy of
it. To buy religious articles before they are blessed is not simony, nor
even after they are blessed, if you pay only for the material of which
they are made; but if you tried to buy the blessing, it would be simony.
When the Holy Mass is offered, the fruits or benefits of it are divided
into four classes. The first benefit comes to the priest who celebrates
the Mass; the second, to the one for whom he offers the Mass; the third
benefit to those who are present at it; and the fourth to all the
faithful throughout the world.

*270 Q. Which is the best manner of hearing Mass?
A. The best manner of hearing Mass is to offer it to God with the priest
for the same purpose for which it is said, to meditate on Christ's
sufferings and death, and to go to Holy Communion.

That is, to offer it up for whatever intention the priest is offering
it--for the dead, for the conversion of sinners, for the good of others,
etc.; but especially for the four ends of which I have already
spoken--to worship God, thank Him, etc. "Christ's death," of which it
reminds us. "Holy Communion," if we are in a state of grace, and have
prepared to receive Communion.

You should go to Holy Communion as often as possible, and you should try
every day to make yourself more worthy of that great Sacrament. Think of
it! To receive your God and Saviour into your soul, and to be united
with Him, as the word communion means! The early Christians used to go
to Communion very frequently. The Church requires us to go to Holy
Communion at least once a year, but we should not be satisfied with
doing merely what is necessary to avoid mortal sin. Do we try to keep
away from persons we love? Then if we really love Our Lord should we not
desire to receive Him? All good Catholics should go to Holy Communion at
least once a week, on Sunday. Persons wishing to lead truly holy lives
should go to Communion more often, or even every day.

When we cannot go really to Communion we can merit God's grace by making
a spiritual Communion. What is a spiritual Communion? It is an earnest
desire to receive Communion. You prepare yourself as if you were really
going to Communion; you try to imagine yourself going up, receiving the
Blessed Sacrament, and returning to your place. Then you thank God for
all His blessings to you as you would have done had you received. This
is an act of devotion, and one very pleasing to God, as many holy
writers tell us.

I cannot leave this lesson on the Holy Eucharist without telling you
something of the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, now so
universally practiced and so closely connected with the devotion to the
Blessed Sacrament. The Church grants many indulgences, and Our Lord
Himself promises many rewards to those who honor the Sacred Heart. But
what do we mean by the Sacred Heart? We mean the real natural heart of
Our Lord, to which His divinity is united as it is to His whole body.
But why do we adore this real, natural heart of Our Lord? We adore it
because love is said to be in the heart, and we wish to return Our Lord
love, and gratitude for the great love He has shown to us in dying for
us, and in instituting the Sacraments, especially the Holy Eucharist, by
which He can remain with us in His sacred humanity. When Our Lord
appeared to Saint Margaret Mary He said: "Behold this Heart, that has
loved men so ardently, and is so little loved in return." The first
Friday of every month and the whole month of June are dedicated to the
Sacred Heart.