The Complete Manual of Catholic Piety / Containing a Selection of Fervent Prayers, Pious Reflection, and Solid Instructions, Adapted to Every State of Life. To Which is Annexed a Supplement, Containing Excellent and Approved Devotions, With the Epistles and Gospels for All the Sundays and Festivals of the Year.

by William Gahan

C. Amen.

End Of The First Part Of Catholic Piety.

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Supplement To The
Manual Of Catholic Piety.

On The Sacrifice Of The Mass
And The Use Of The Latin Liturgy.

From the beginning of the world, the servants of God, were always accustomed to offer sacrifice to him, by way of acknowledging his sovereignty, and paying their homage to him. In the law of nature, and in the law of Moses, there was a great variety of sacrifices; some bloody, others unbloody; some were called Holocausts, or Whole-burnt Offerings; others, Sin Offerings; others, Offerings of Thanksgiving; others, Pacific or Peace Offerings. All these sacrifices of the law of nature and the law of Moses, were of themselves but weak and feeble elements, and figures of the great sacrifice of Jesus Christ, offered afterwards on the altar of the cross for the sins of the whole world.

It was to renew the memory of this great sacrifice of the cross, and to apply the fruits of it to our souls, that Christ our Lord instituted the Eucharist and commemorative sacrifice of the Mass; for as the ancient sacrifices were required to represent the sacrifice of the cross, and to prefigure the death of Christ, then to come; so, in like manner, a commemorative sacrifice was required in the new law, to be a standing memorial of the sacrifice of the cross, and to represent the death of Christ, already past. This is the solemn liturgy of the Catholic Church, and the pure offering that is made to God in every place among the Gentiles, according to the prophecy of Malachy, chap. i. ver. 10, 11. By it Christ is a priest for ever, according to the order of Melchisedech, (Psalm 109,) whose sacrifice was bread and wine. (Gen. 15.) It is the same in substance with the sacrifice of the cross, because both the victim offered, and the priest, or principal offerer, is the same Jesus Christ. The difference is only in the manner of offering: in the sacrifice of the cross, Christ offered himself in a bloody manner, and actually died; in the sacrifice of the Mass, he offers himself on our altars in an unbloody manner, by the ministry of the priests of his church, under appearances that mystically represent and show forth his death.

The sacrifice of the Mass is still celebrated in the ancient language which was universally used throughout the Roman empire, and in which the liturgy and public offices of the church were performed in all the western parts of Europe, when the Christian religion was first published to the world. All sermons, exhortations, and instructions which regard the faithful, are regularly delivered to them in the vulgar or maternal language which they speak and understand; but it is deemed an expedient point of discipline, to retain the same ancient, fixed, and unchangeable language, in the celebration of the divine mysteries, and in the solemn prayers which are addressed immediately to God, and which regard the office of the clergy. The chief reasons which induce the Catholic Church to make choice of the Latin, in preference to any of the mixed languages that sprung from it after the dismemberment of the Roman empire, and are now in use in the European nations, are the following:

1st—She is the church of all ages, and of all nations; and therefore, to show her antiquity and catholicity, as well as her aversion to novelty and changes in religious matters, she still retains the same ancient and universal language which the saints have used for so many ages from the apostles' days, and which is fixed and unchangeable, taught every where in public schools, generally learned by persons of all conditions, and the best known and most universally understood in the western parts of the world.