The
Most Holy Sacrifice
of the Mass
A Primer
for Clueless Catholics
Part I
We are Clueless
Admit
it ...
You havent
the foggiest idea what is going on during Mass.
You may not even know why you're there.
The reasons are many:
-
Its
what Catholics do and I am Catholic.
-
I want my
kids to grow up in this tradition that comes from my parents, grandparents,
and forebears throughout the 2000 years preceding my coming into
this world through them.
-
It is something
good to do and it is holy ... although why it is good and why it
is holy remains a mystery to me.
-
My friends
go ... although they do not know why either.
-
I need Gods
help, and if I go to Mass He will look favorably on me.
-
God is there
... although just how He is there, I do not understand after all,
God is everywhere, right? so why is this place so special?
Do not be ashamed.
It is not your fault. There are answers good answers for
all the questions this short list brings up.
You
were never taught.
It is really that simple. No one took the time to sit down and talk
with you about what is the most important event in your
life and it occurs every 7 days. In fact, whatever else
you do during the other 167 hours of the week (job, school, charity
in fact, every other responsibility, necessity, or good work)
however good, kind, lofty, noble, pales in significance
to the Mass.
The Basics:
Before you go
further in this brief study and it is a study that we invite
you to of the single most important thing in your life, we
must make a promise to you first: it will not be dry or boring,
nor will it be fraught with meaningless pieties. You will understand
what the Mass is, why it is holy, and why you must be there. This is
our promise to you.
It will not be
socially correct, sanitized to sensitivities, or keeping
in step with the passing fads that blow through the pews and across
the Altars as so many shifting winds following that elusive mantra of
what is in vogue. There is perpetuity in the Church, and unchangeable
elements of the Mass. Hopefully, we will enable you to see beyond the
Mass so often presented as entertainment, hosted by an entertainer,
to the deep and very sacred reality within it.
The
Mass,
as we most often call it, is really short for,
The
Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
Linger a
moment on those 7 words, for they contain quite nearly everything that
you will need to know in order to understand why you go to Church, or
why you ought to.
The Mass, first and foremost, is a Sacrifice.
Not a figurative sacrifice, not a mere remembrance of something done
long ago, and not a metaphor. It is a real sacrifice. At Mass you are
witnessing even participating in a sacrifice, very real and very
present.
Does that surprise you?
We do not hear very much about this but unless we understand
this most fundamental, this absolutely central
aspect of the Mass, nothing else makes sense. Our lack of understanding
the Mass as a Sacrifice contributes to most of the confusion
that surrounds our going there and being there.
But what is the nature of this Sacrifice, and how is it enacted? Who
does the sacrificing and who or what is sacrificed? How do we
ourselves participate in it?
Tomorrow we will
begin to understand.
(click any graphic above to expand
it)
What
we have learned today:
PDF Printer Friendly Version of the entire article
IMPORTANT
NOTE:
If you can find
a Traditional Latin
Mass in your diocese (the Tridentine Mass of 1962 or prior to the
many devastating changes and liturgical abuses common to nearly every Mass
celebrated in the vernacular subsequent to Vatican II) ... we have one suggestion:
GO! Find one!
If you are in the Greater Boston area, three immediately come to
mind:
321 South
Broadway Lawrence MA
01843 (Dominican Fathers, Brothers, and Sisters, O.P. Ordo Praedicatorum)
978-686-7921
 |
The distinctive white tunic, or habit, and
black scapular of the Dominicans
are the first intimation that things at Sacred Heart are different from
most parishes and distinctly different from Novus Ordo parishes
the more one enters into the Church. Holy statuary, beautifully crafted,
abounds. There is a Communion Rail!
An Altar of marble (an Altar
of Sacrifice!) majestically ascends to the Sanctuary in place of the dreary
wooden table of the Lord
that became the pseudo-Catholic equivalent of Protestant disdain for the
Sacraments ... and most especially the Holy Eucharist as really and truly
the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
And the Mass is entirely in Latin
(the homily in English)! It is Holy Mother Church in every way prior to
its appalling disfigurement by Vatican
II. In a word, it is unapologetically,
vibrantly, and refreshingly, Catholic.
|
282 Still River Road Still River, MA.
01467. 978-456-8296

The Benedictine
Abbey, and the Saint Benedict Center (Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of
Mary) for many valiant years retained the Traditional Latin Mass until
it relented to pressure from the Vatican and was eventually reconciled with
it. In turn it was eventually allowed to celebrate the Extraordinary Form
of the Mass (the last Traditional Catholic Latin Mass, dated 1962, and
re-instituted by Pope Benedict XVI in his Apostolic Letter Summorum Pontificum
in July 2007. From the junction of I-93 and 95 (Rt. 128) it is approximately
an hour drive west. It offers The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass
in Latin only.
-
Mary Immaculate of Lourdes,
270 Elliot Street, Newton, MA
02464 617-244-0558
See our review
here. Mary Immaculate
of Lourdes is a large parish that offers the Most Holy Sacrifice of the
Mass. Homepage: https://maryimmaculateoflourdes.org/en/
Sunday 10 AM High Mass in Latin
according to the Extraordinary Form of the Mass . The Novus Ordo
is also celebrated daily at Mary Immaculate of Lourdes. Approximately
15 minutes east from Rte 95 (128) and about a 45 minute drive south from
the junction of I-93 and 95 (Rt. 128) it is approximately an hour drive
west.
If
you have experienced little of sanctity ... and much in the way of silliness
... if you have encountered (wo)man more than you have encountered God ...
if you have left as empty as you had arrived ... go to a Tridentine
Latin Mass. If you were born after 1960 you will experience something
you have never before encountered; something of unutterable beauty, sanctity,
solemnity, and ceremony that your forbears knelt before for over 2 millennia.
You will find God.
Absolutely everything,
every gesture, every act, is directed to God Who is the sole focus
of the Most Holy Sacrifice that we call the Mass
and not to a music Ministry or a priest
as an entertainer most often a comedian
who demand your applause ... at the foot of the crucified Christ.
If you have never really and truly experienced the utterly sacred and
have no idea what it means, what that experience is ... the experience of
proximity to God Himself ... go to a Tridentine Latin Mass!
Your life in, with, and through Christ will never be the same again. You
will know what worship really is ... and how very different it
is from the many forms of self-adulation you have encountered in every vernacular
Mass (no two are exactly alike). Instead of the exaltation of man, you will
find the exaltation of God and come
to realize the vast gulf between the two and the paltry exchange that has
been traded off when man chose to worship God on his own terms and
sought to share the very Throne with Him.
For those who cannot find a Latin Tridentine
Mass, or whose bishop or pastor, in defiance of Rome, deliberately suppresses
it we offer the following as a way of attending the vernacular Mass without
losing your faith as a consequence of it:
Go to Part:
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII

Totally Faithful to the Sacred
Deposit of Faith entrusted to the Holy See in Rome
Scio
opera tua ... quia modicum habes virtutem, et servasti verbum
Meum, nec non negasti Nomen Meum
I
know your works ... that you have but little power, and yet
you have kept My word, and have not denied My Name.
(Apocalypse
3.8)
Copyright © 2004 - 2023 Boston Catholic Journal.
All rights reserved. Unless otherwise stated, permission is
granted by the Boston Catholic Journal for the copying and distribution
of the articles and audio files under the following conditions:
No additions, deletions, or changes are to be made to the text
or audio files in any way, and the copies may not be sold for
a profit. In the reproduction, in any format of any image, graphic,
text, or audio file, attribution must be given to the Boston
Catholic Journal.
|
|