First, then, I assert that the spirit of sacrifice is necessary. God requires it of us. On this point I think some people make a mistake. They seem to think that a willingness to make sacrifices for God is one of the ornamental or heroic parts of religion, and that everyday people are not required to have it. But this is not so. The Spirit of Sacrifice is required of everyone. I infer this from the fact that an external sacrificial worship is necessary. It is frequently said that there is no religion without a sacrifice. And this is true. There never has been, nor indeed could there be, a true religion without having some external act of sacrificial worship. But why is this necessary? Not simply because we are sinners and need propitiation, for some theologians have thought that sacrifices would have been necessary, though man had never sinned. What religion requires a sacrifice for, is this—to express our sense of God's supreme Sovereignty. In a Sacrifice there is something offered to God and destroyed, thus signifying that God is the Author of Life and Death, our Creator, our Ruler, our Supreme Judge. The excellence of the Christian Sacrifice—the Sacrifice of the Mass—consists in this, that the victim offered is a living, reasonable, Divine Victim, even the Son of God Incarnate, Who by His Life and Death rendered most worthy homage to the Divine Majesty, and still in every Mass, continually, offers it anew.
This, then, is what the Mass is given us for, and this is why we are required to assist at the Mass, that we may in a perfect and worthy manner recognize God's Sovereignty and our dependence on Him. When we assist at Mass, the meaning of our action, if put into words, would be something like this: "I acknowledge Thee, O God, for my Sovereign Lord, and the Supreme Disposer of my Life and Death, and because I am not able worthily to express Thy Greatness, I beg of Thee to accept, as if it were my own, all the submission with which Thy Son honored Thee on the Cross, and now again honors Thee in this Holy Sacrifice." Now, it cannot be imagined that we are required to make this profession to God without at the same time being required to have in our hearts that sentiment of God's greatness and sovereignty which we express with our lips. Our Lord did not come to suffer and die, and give His life [as] a sacrifice to the Father, to dispense us from the obligation of worshipping God ourselves, but to give to our worship a perfect example and a higher acceptability. Without our worship the Mass is incomplete. On our Lord's part, indeed, the Sacrifice of the Mass is always efficacious, for He is present wherever it is celebrated; but on our part it is empty and unmeaning if no one really fears God, submits unreservedly to Him, is willing to do all He commands, and acknowledges that all that could be done for Him is too little. A worship of Sacrifice implies a life of sacrifice. This is beautifully illustrated in the life of St. Laurence, whose Martyrdom we celebrate to-day.
St. Laurence was one of the seven deacons of the city of Rome in the third century of the Christian era. As deacon, it was his office to serve the Mass of St. Xystus, who was at that time Pope. "When the persecution broke out under the Emperor Valerius, St. Xystus was seized and carried off to martyrdom. As he was on his way, St. Laurence followed him weeping and saying: "Father where are you going without your son? Whither are you going, O holy priest, without your deacon? You were not wont to offer sacrifice without me your minister, wherein have I displeased you? Have you found me wanting to my duty? Try me now and see whether you have made choice of an unfit minister for dispensing the Blood of the Lord." And St. Xystus replied: "I do not leave you, my son, but a greater trial and a more glorious victory are reserved for you who are stout and in the vigor of youth. We are spared on account of our weakness and old age. You shall follow me in three days." And, in fact, three days after, St. Laurence was burnt to death, his faith rendering him joyful, even mirthful in his sufferings.
Now, I do not look on this conversation as poetry. Times of affliction are not times when men look around for fine ways of expressing themselves. At such times words come straight from the heart. I see, then, in the words of St. Laurence the sentiments with which he was accustomed to assist at Mass. As he knelt at the foot of the altar at which the Pope was celebrating, clothed in the beautiful dress of a deacon, his soul was filled with the thoughts of God's greatness and goodness, and along with the offering of the heavenly Victim, he used to offer to God his fervent desire to do something to honor the Divine Majesty, the color sometimes mounting high in his youthful cheek as he thought how joyfully he would yield his own heart's blood as a sacrifice, if the occasion should offer. Martyrdom to him was but a natural completion of Mass. It was but the realisation of his habitual worship.
In the early history of the city of St. Augustine, in Florida, it is related that a priest, who was attacked by a party of Indians, asked permission to say Mass before he died. This was granted him, and the savages waited quietly till the Mass was ended. Then the priest knelt on the altar steps and received the death-blow from his murderers. With what sentiments must that priest have said Mass! with what devotion! with what reverence! with what self-oblation! So, I suppose St. Laurence, and St. Xystus, and the Christians of the old time were accustomed always to assist at Mass, with the greatest desire to honor God, the most complete spirit of self-sacrifice. Now, I do not say we are all bound to be as holy as these great saints. I do not even say we are bound to desire martyrdom; but I do say there is not one kind of Christianity for the saints and another for ordinary Christians; one kind, all self-denial for them, and another kind, all self-indulgence, for us. I say God is to us what He is to the saints—our Creator and our Sovereign; and He demands of us the worship of creatures and subjects—the worship of sacrifice—a willingness to do all He demands of us now, and a readiness to do greater things the moment that He makes it known to us that such is His Will.
How many difficulties, my brethren, such a spirit takes out of the way of Christian obedience! It cuts off at One blow all our struggles with the decrees of God's providence. How much of our misery comes from murmurings against the providence of God! One is suffering under sickness and pain, another is overwhelmed with reverses and afflictions, another is irritated by continual temptations. No one can deny that these are severe trials; but see how the spirit of sacrifice disposes of them. It says to the sick man, to the suffering man, what Isaac said to his father Abraham on the mountain: "See, here is fire and wood, but where is the victim for a burnt offering? Here are the materials for a beautiful act of sacrifice. It wants only a meek heart for a victim, and love to light the flame, to turn the sickbed, the house of mourning, the soul agitated by temptation, into an altar of the purest worship, and the language of complaint into the liturgy of praise. Again: it sometimes happens that a man gets involved in relations of business or friendship, or becomes addicted to some indulgence, which threaten to ruin his soul, and he is required to renounce them, to give up the intimacy, to change his business, to deny himself that indulgence. The command of God is distinct and peremptory: "If thy hand or thy foot scandalize thee, cut it off and cast it from thee. And if thy eye scandalize thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee." [Footnote 190]
[Footnote 190: St. Matt. xviii. 8.]