Sermons of the Rev. Francis A. Baker, Priest of the Congregation of St. Paul / With a Memoir of His Life

by Francis A. Baker

The time is coming when a new Sacrifice, a new worship, shall be established, a worship of Spirit and Truth, a worship that shall put to rest the controversy between Samaria and Jerusalem, for it shall be offered in every place. What is that sacrifice? What is that worship? The prophet had foretold it long before: "From the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof, My Name is great among the Gentiles, and IN EVERY PLACE THERE IS SACRIFICE, and there is offered to My Name A CLEAN OBLATION." [Footnote 236]

[Footnote 236: Mal. ii. 11.]

And the whole tradition of the Christian Church, from the very first, tells us that this clean oblation is no other than the Eucharistic Sacrifice, a worship of "Truth," if the presence of Christ can make it true; and of "Spirit," if the Heart of Christ can make it spiritual; a worship that meets all man's wants and befits all God's attributes.

With this conception of the Mass in your minds, you see at once the explanation of some of the ceremonies attending its celebration which seem to Protestants strange and senseless. A Protestant enters a Catholic Church during the time of Mass. The Priest is at the Altar. You cannot hear what he says, he speaks so low and rapidly; and perhaps it would do you no good if you could, for he speaks in Latin; and you say: "What mummery!" "What superstition!" "What an unmeaning service!" But stop awhile. Take our view of the Mass, and see if our custom is so strange. We believe that there is an invisible Priest at the Mass, Christ, the Son of the Living God, Who offers Himself to His Father for us. You know it is related in the Old Testament, that on one day in the year the Jewish High-Priest used to enter into the Holy of Holies, which was separated from the temple by a veil, and there in secrecy perform the rites of expiation, while the people prayed in silence without. So it is at the Mass. You see the Priest lift up the Host before the people. Well, that is the white veil that hides the Holy of Holies from our eyes. Within, our Lord and Saviour mediates with the Father in our behalf. Oh, be still! Speak low! Let not the priest at the altar raise his voice, lest he drown the whispers from that inner shrine. What need for me to know the very words the priest is using? I know what he is doing. I know that this is the hour of grace. Earth has disappeared from me. Heaven is open before me. I am in the presence of God, and I am praying to Him in my own words, and after my own fashion. I am pouring out my joys before Him, or opening to Him the plague of my own heart.

Yes, the Catholic Church has solved the problem of worship. She has a service which unites all the necessary conditions for the public worship of God—a common service, in which all can join; an external service, which takes place before our eyes, which is celebrated with offerings which we ourselves supply, and by a Priest taken from among ourselves; an attractive service; and yet a service perfectly spiritual. The Catholic does not come to church to hear a man pour forth an extempore prayer, and be forced to follow him through all the moods and feelings of his own mind; nor to join in a set form of prayer, which, however beautiful and well arranged, must, from the very nature of the case, fail to express the varying wants and feelings of the different members of the congregation; but he comes to join, after his own fashion, in Christ's own prayer. At the Catholic Altar there is the most complete liberty, the greatest variety, combined with the most perfect unity.

Come, then, children, come to Mass, and bring your merry hearts with you. Come, you that are young and happy, and rejoice before the Lord. Come, you that are old and weary, and tell your loneliness to God. Come, you that are sorely tempted, and ask the help of Heaven. Come, you that have sinned, and weep between the porch and the altar. Come, you that are bereaved, and pour out here your tears. Come, you that are sick, or anxious, or unhappy, and complain to God. Come, you that are prosperous and successful, and give thanks. Christ will sympathize with you. He will rejoice with you, and He will mourn with you. He will gather up your prayers. He will join to them His own Almighty supplications, and that concert of prayer shall enter heaven, louder than the music of angelic choirs, sweeter than the voice of those who sing the song of Moses and the Lamb, more piercing than the cry of the living creatures who rest not day or night, and more powerful and prevailing than the intercession of the Blessed Virgin and all the saints of Paradise together. The Mass a formalism! The Mass an unmeaning service! Why, it is the most beautiful, the most spiritual, the most sublime, the most satisfying worship which the heart of man can even conceive.

And here, too, in this idea of the Mass, we have the answer to another perplexity of Protestants. They cannot understand why we make such a point of attending Mass. They see us go to Mass in all weathers. They see us so particular not to be late at Mass. They see us on Sunday, not sauntering leisurely, as if we were going to a lecture-room, but pressing on with a certain eagerness, as if we had some great business in hand; and they ask what it all means. Is it not superstition? Do we not, like the Pharisees, give an undue value to outward observances? May we not worship God at home just as well? Ah! if it were really only an outward observance. But there is just the difference. There stands one among us whom you know not. We believe that the Saviour is with us, and you do not. We believe this with a certain, simple faith. Come to our churches, and look at our people, the poorest and most ignorant, and see if we do not. It is written on their faces. They may not know how to express themselves, but this is in their hearts. You think we come to Mass because the Church is so strict in requiring us to do so; but the true state of the case is that the law of the Church is so strict because Christ is present in the Mass. You think it is the pomp and glitter of our altars that draws the crowd. Little you know of human nature if you think it can long be held by such things alone. No, we adorn our altars because we believe Christ is present. This is our faith. It is no new thing with us. It is as old as Christianity. It was the comfort of the Christians in the catacombs. It was the glory of St. Basil and St. Ambrose and St. Augustine. It was the meaning of all the glory and magnificence of the Middle Ages. And it is our stay and support in this nineteenth century of knowledge, labor, and disquiet. Yes, strip our altars, leave us only the Corn and the Vine, and a Rock for our altar, and we will worship with posture as lowly and hearts as loving as in the grandest cathedral. Let persecution rise; let us be driven from our churches; we will say Mass in the woods and caverns, as the early Christians did. We know that God is everywhere. We know that Nature is His Temple, wherein pure hearts can find Him and adore Him; but we know that it is in the Holy Mass alone that He offers Himself to His Father as "the Lamb that was slain." How can we forego that sweet and solemn action? How can we deprive ourselves of that heavenly consolation! The sparrow hath found her an house and the turtle a nest where she may lay her young, even thy altars, O Lord of Hosts, my King and my God! Man's heart has found a home and resting-place in this vale of tears. To us the altar is the vestibule of heaven, and the Host its open door.

Yes, and to us the words of the prophet, when he calls the reign of Antichrist "the abomination of desolation," because the Daily Sacrifice shall then be taken away, has a peculiar fitness. It is our delight now to think that, as the sun in its course brings daylight to each successive spot on earth, it ever finds some priest girding himself to go up to the Holy Altar; that thus the earth is belted, from the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same, with a chain of Masses; that as the din of the world commences each day, the groan of the oppressed, the cry of the fearful and troubled, the boast of sin and pride, the wail of sorrow—the voice of Christ ascends at the same time to heaven, supplicating for pardon and peace. But oh! when there shall be no Mass any more, when the sun shall rise only to show that the altar has been torn down, the priests banished, the lights put out; that will be a day of calamity, of darkness and sorrow. Then the beasts will groan, and the cattle low. Then will men's hearts wither for fear. Then will the heavens overhead be brass, and the earth under foot iron, because the corn has languished, the vine no longer yields its fruit. The tie between earth and heaven is broken; sacrifice and libation are cut off from the House of God.