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.