The Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass: A Primer for Clueless Catholics

It’s 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 God’s 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.

The Sacrifice at Calvary that occurs during the Mass

Holy Communion --- Receiving the Real Body and Blood of Jesus Christ

(click any graphic above to expand it)

What we have learned today:

The Mass is a Sacrifice

Part 2: The Sacred Darkness: Who is there? And where?

IMPORTANT NOTE:

If you can find a Traditional Latin Mass in your diocese (the Tridentine Mass of 1962, prior to the many unfortunate 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

Sacred Heart Traditional Catholic Church, Lawrence, MA

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.

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.

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.

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:

**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)

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