The Mass in Latin, Greek, Coptic, Armenian, Abyssinian, Sclavonic, is almost identical, and in all rites claims to have been instituted by the apostles by divine authority. The form is the same, though varying parts have varied. The Jewish worship was simply action; the Christian worship has, from the earliest period, combined action and a form of words. The language of the Mass is older than any of the books of the New Testament. Is it unworthy of the great act? The answer will best be a challenge to produce anything, from the days of the Reformation, which can at all approach it in grandeur; in its recognition of all the attributes of God and of the nothingness of man in his sight; in all and everything that could embody the idea of worship. It has, perhaps, the most sublime thought ever written. Longinus quoted the “Let there be light, and there was light,” as a sublime thought that paganism admired. Yet this record of the creative act is less sublime than “We thank thee for thy great glory.” That man, the creature of God, should thank him for existence, for his intellect and body, for truth imparted, for life, health, happiness, for loved ones and their love, for all the blessings ever bestowed on him, or, soaring higher, ever bestowed on men and angels, might be admirable; but when man, losing sight entirely of himself and of all created things, looks up to God, and, overwhelmed with love, thanks him for his great glory, for his attributes, for being what he is, he soars from the depths of nothingness to the height of sublimity. One of the modern objections to religion is its selfish character; the Mass answers this by its utter abnegation of self, just as it formally disavows the sufficiency of human works.
The action is worthy of divine worship. A man stands at the altar, not self-instituted, but called as Aaron and his race were—stands there with powers traced back through the apostles to Christ. He approaches as a sinner among sinners, acknowledging his unworthiness, striking his breast with the publican, not vaunting himself with the Pharisee. Then follow soon the glorious canticle, in which the sinner rises, in thought and hope, to God, prayer, lessons from the Old Testament or the New, a portion of the gospels, a solemn profession of faith. Then properly begins the Sacrifice, at which, in early days, only the baptized could be present, and not even such of them as were subjects of public penance.
Bread and wine appear on the altar. Even among the pagans, fruits of the earth were offered to inferior deities alone. In the Bible, they mark the sinful race, like Cain, or men without the chosen people, like Melchisedec. It is in itself an inferior offering, and bears the stamp of man's fall. Bread and wine are doubly suggestive. It is not merely fruits of the earth raised by man's toil and the sweat of [pg 331] his brow; it is food prepared by still further toil.
The priest stands there as the type of fallen man, with such offering as fallen man can give; but if this were all, his sacrifice would be but that of Melchisedec. His language shows that the sacrifice has, so to speak, no beginning or end; that it is one act, and that time is not regarded. The bread and wine are treated, not as what they are, but what they are to become. It is not that the sacrifice of guilty Cain may become that of the pious Abel, the sacrifice of the uncalled Melchisedec become that of Abraham the elect; not that this sacrifice of fallen man may become the Paschal lamb, but Christ our Pasch himself; and such it is in thought already when the priest offers the bread as an immaculate host, and the wine as the chalice of salvation—offers them for his own sins and those of all Christians; for the salvation of those present and that of the whole world. He offers it again in memory of the passion, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord, and in honor of all who have faithfully served him on earth.
He never separates himself from the people for whom he offers it. From the commencement to the end, it is their sacrifice and his; in fact, as if to prevent any forgetfulness of this, he turns, as the awful moment of consecration approaches, to say: “Brethren, pray that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God, the Father Almighty.”
Then, with the Preface that sounds like the triumphant march of an approaching monarch, comes the consecration. The types of sinful man disappear, and Jesus Christ is all. He is the priest; he is the victim. He makes the only oblation that can take away sin. He offers the only victim which can render his Eternal Father due adoration, homage, and honor; which can alone call down graces and blessings.
The priest and people, adoring the divine High-Priest and Victim, offer through him that sacrifice of Calvary for all mankind, for the living and the dead, for the church and all its members. Then, repeating the prayer he himself enjoined, the divine Victim is consumed, and the solemn rite hastens to a close.
Sublime in its conception, sublime in all its parts, sublime alike in action and in words, the world has never beheld a more adequate public worship of God. In itself, in its antiquity, its wide extent, it is one of the strongest arguments in favor of the church. Its wonderful adaptability to all nations and all conditions of social elevation are no less striking. A public worship, in which the most polished and cultivated minds of civilized nations can join, absorbed and taking part, while the poor peasant enters as well into its spirit, and offers it for all his wants; a sacrifice that can come home to the savage and the sage, to men of the frozen North and the parching tropics, which makes the church a home in all lands where not a syllable uttered in the streets falls familiar on the ear—such is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass of the Catholic Church—a worship distinct from any other service, offered to God alone, and combining in the highest degree everything that can be conceived as fitting in that great act—divine institution, the character of sacrifice, identity with the oblation of Calvary—the only adequate worship ever offered to God.