By Rev. Francis A. Baker
Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost
“What shall I offer to the Lord that is worthy? With what shall I kneel before the High God?” Micah 6:6
I
A
Such is the question which mankind has been asking from the creation of the world. God is so high, so great, so good, so beautiful. He made us. He created us by His Word, and we hang upon His Breath. How shall we worship Him? How shall we express the thoughts of Him that fill our souls? Alas! The words of the lips, the postures of the body, are all inadequate.
B
What shall we do? Shall we, like Cain, gather the fairest fruits and flowers, and bring the basket before the Lord? Or, like Able, shall we take the firstlings of our flocks, and slay them in His honor? Shall we dress an altar, and pile upon it the smoking victims? Shall we make our children pass through the fire in His Name? Or, like the Indian devotee, shall we throw ourselves under the wheels of the car that carries the image of the Divinity?
C
Such has been the ways in which men have tried to express their devotion to God, but all have been either insufficient or vain. Man’s thoughts about God have found no fitting expression. A fire has burned in his heart which no words can utter.
D
Now here, as in so many other ways, Christianity comes to our aid, and places within our reach a perfect and all-sufficient mode of expressing our devotion, a perfect worship. Do you ask me to what I allude? I answer, to the Sacrifice of the Mass.
II
A
Let me remind you what the Sacrifice of the Mass is. We Catholics believe that in the Mass Jesus Christ offers His real Body and Blood, under the species of bread and wine, to His Eternal Father, in remembrance of His Death on the Cross. Our Lord’s Death on the Cross was in itself complete, and all-sufficient for the purpose for which it was undergone, and need not, indeed could not, be repeated; but His Priestly Office was not exhausted by that offering. In the language of Scripture: “He ever lives to make intercession for us.” (Hebrews 7:25) And, “He is a Priest forever.” (Hebrews 7:17)
B
In what, then, does our Lord’s Priesthood since His Crucifixion consist? In heaven, it consists in presenting Himself to His Father directly and immediately, to plead the merits of His Death and Passion in our behalf; but on earth it consists in representing that Death and Passion in a mystical action which we call the Eucharistic Sacrifice or the Mass; thus fulfilling words of the prophet in reference to our Lord: “Thou art a Priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek.” (Hebrews 7:17)
III
A
The offering, then, which takes place in the Mass is the very same that was made on Calvary, only it is made in a different manner. On the Cross, that offering was made in a direct and absolute manner, it was a bloody Sacrifice; in the Mass, it is made in a mystical and commemorative way, without blood, without suffering, without death.
B
Therefore, in order to understand what takes place in the Mass, we must go back to the Cross. What was it that took place on the Cross? You answer, perhaps, Christ shed His Blood there for the remission of sins. True: the Blood of Christ was for the material cause of our Redemption, but that which gave the Blood of Christ its value, that, indeed, which made it a Sacrifice, was the interior dispositions of the Soul of Christ.
C
The Blood of Christ taken as a mere material thing, could never have effected our reconciliation. What does the Scripture say? “Sacrifice and oblation you did not desire. Burnt-offerings and sin-offerings you did not require. (Psalm 40:6) Then I said: Lo, I come to do your will O God!” (Hebrews 10:7) It was by the obedience of Christ, an obedience practiced through His whole life, but of which His Death and Passion were the fullest expression, that Christ, as our elder brother, repaired our disobedience.
D
While our Lord was hanging on the Cross, He exercised every Divine virtue which the soul of man can exercise. He loved. He prayed. He praised. He gave thanks. He supplicated. He made acts of adoration and resignation. In one word, He performed the perfect act of worship.
IV
A
Well, it is just the same in the Mass. It would be the greatest mistake to think of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Mass as a sort of dead offering. It is living, and offered by the living Christ. Christ is the Priest of the Mass as well as the victim. It is Christ who celebrates the Mass, and He celebrates it with a warm and living Heart, the same Heart with which He worshipped the Father on Mount Calvary.
B
It is this that makes the Mass what it is. If it were not for this, the Mass would be a carnal sacrifice, infinitely superior, indeed, to those of the Old Law, but of the same order. It is this which makes the Sacrifice of the Mass a reasonable service, a Spiritual Sacrifice.
V
A
And now you are prepared to understand my assertion that the Mass supplies the want of the human soul for an adequate mode of approaching God. As a creature before its Creator, you are oppressed with your own inability to worship Him worthily. Do you want a better worship than that which His Eternal Son offers? In the Mass, the Son of God in His Human Nature worships the Father for us. He prays for us; asks pardon for us; gives thanks for us; adores for us. As He is perfect man, He expresses every human feeling; as He is perfect God, His utterances have a complete perfection, an infinite acceptableness.
B
Thus, when we offer Mass, we worship the Father with Christ’s worship. It seems to me that the Catholic can have a certain kind of pride in this. He may say, “I know I am weak and as nothing before God, yet I possess a treasure that is worthy to offer Him, I have a prayer to present to Him all-perfect and all–powerful, the prayer of His Only-Begotten Son in whom He is well pleased.”
VI
A
Nor is this all. Christ worships the Father for us in the Mass, not to excuse us from worshipping, but to help us to worship. You remember how, the night before our Savior died, He took with Him Peter and James and John, and going into the garden of Gethsemane, He said to them, “Wait here, while I go and pray yonder.” And how, being removed from them about a stone’s throw, He began to pray very earnestly, so that He was in an agony, and the drops of blood fell from His body to the ground and how He went to them from time to time to urge them to watch and pray along with Him.
B
The weight of all human sorrows was then upon His soul. He was presenting the necessities of the whole human race to His Father, but He would have the apostles, weary as they were, borne down by suffering and fatigue, to join their feeble prayers with His.
C
So, in the Holy Mass, He is withdrawn from us a little distance, making intercessions for us with groanings which cannot be uttered, and He would have us kneel about the temple aisles, adding our poor prayers to His. Our prayers, by being united to His, obtain not only a higher acceptance, but a higher significance.
D
Our obscure aspirations He interprets. What we know not how to ask for, or even to think of, He supplies. What we ask for in broken accents, He puts into glowing words. What we ask for in error and ignorance, He deciphers in wisdom and love. And thus our prayers, as they pass through His Heart, become transfigured and divine.
VII
A
Oh, what a gift is the Holy Mass! How full an utterance has Humanity found therein for all its woes, its aspirations, its hopes, it affections! How completely is the distance bridged over that separating the creature and the Creator! It was to the Mass that Our Lord alluded in His conversation with the woman of Samaria. You remember the incident. The Samaritans were a schismatic sect. They had separated from the Jews, had built a temple on Mount Gerizim, in opposition to the temple of the Jews at Jerusalem, and there they offered sacrifices.
B
Now, this Samaritan woman, when our Lord had entered into conversation with her, put to Him the question which was then the controversy. Which was the right temple? Which was the acceptable sacrifice? Which was the place where men ought to worship - on Mount Gerizim, or Mount Zion? And how does our Lord answer her? “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming, when you shall neither in this mountain nor yet in Jerusalem adore the Father.
C
The hour is here 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.” (Malachi 1:11)
D
And the whole tradition of the Christian Church, from the very first, tells us that this clean oblation is none 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.
VIII
A
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.
B
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.
C
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 Savior 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?
D
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.
IX
A
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; and 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.
B
The Catholic does not come to church to hear a man pour forth an extemporaneous 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.
X
A
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.
B
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 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 that the intercession of the Blessed Virgin and all the saints of Paradise together.
C
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.
XI
A
And here, too, in these ideas 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 weather. 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.
B
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 Savior is with us, and you do not. We believe this with a certain, simple faith.
C
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.
D
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.
E
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.
F
Yes, strip our altars, leave us only the Wheat 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.
G
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!
H
“The sparrow has found her a home and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young, even your altars, O Lord of Hosts, my King and my God!” (Psalm 84:3) Man’s heart has found a home and a resting-place in this vale of tears. To us the altar is the vestibule of heaven, and the Host its open door.
XII
A
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.
B
But oh! when there shall be no Mass anymore, 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.
C
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.
XIII
A
Such be our thoughts, my dear brethren, about the Holy Mass. I have alluded to the efforts which mankind has made to offer a worthy offering to God, sometimes to the extent, even, of sacrificing their own lives and their children. While we abhor these excesses, let us not forget the earnestness which inspired their misguided devotion.
B
And we, to whom God has given a perfect worship, a worship not cruel, but beautiful, inviting, consoling, satisfying, shall we be less devout in offering it? No! Come to Mass, and come to pray. When the Lord drew near to Elias on the mount, the prophet wrapped his face in his mantle; so when we come to Mass, let us wrap our souls in a holy recollection of spirit.
C
Remember what is going on. Now pray; now praise; now ask forgiveness; now rest before God in quiet love. So will the Mass be a marvelous comfort and refreshment to you.
D
You know the smell of the incense lingers about the sacred vestments worn at the altar long after the service is over; so your souls shall carry away with them as you leave the church a celestial fragrance, a breath of the odors of Paradise, the token that you have received a blessing from Him whose “fingers drip with sweet-smelling myrrh.”