An absolute revelation to most Catholics! Based on the Traditional Latin Mass, but actually about the essence of the Mass itself. Shows it is not just a prayer, but a powerful sacrifice given to us by Almighty God to fulfill all our spiritual needs. You will divide your life into "before" and "after" you read this book. Going to Mass will never be the same again, once you appreciate the significance of every Mass (as explained by this book). Every Catholic needs to read this! Impr.
Excerpt: CHAPTER I. THE NATURE OF HOLY MASS. THE Holy Mass is called in Latin sacrificium, a sacrifice, by which word a thing far greater and higher than an offering is signified. A sacrifice, in its full and proper signification, is an offering external to ourselves, made to the most high God, and consecrated or hallowed in a solemn manner by a lawfully appointed and duly qualified minister of the Church, to recognize and testify to the supreme dominion of Almighty God over all creatures. From this definition it will be seen that a sacrifice is much more than a simple offering. It represents a lofty and sublime act of worship, due to the infinite God alone, and not to any creature. That this solemn sacrifice may be offered to none other but God alone is proved by St. Augustine from the universal custom of all nations. Who, he says, has ever been found to assert that sacrifice should be offered to any one save the true God only, or to such false deities as are wrongfully held to be the true God? And in another place he says: The devil would not require sacrifices from his votaries if he did not know this to be a prerogative of the divinity. Many of the great and powerful ones of the earth have arrogated to themselves other acts of homage which are of right paid to God alone; but few indeed have presumed to command that sacrifice should be offered to them. Those who did this desired to be regarded as gods. Hence it may be seen that the offering of sacrifice is an act of divine worship, which it is not fitting to pay to men, to the saints, or to the angels, but to God alone. St. Thomas of Aquin says:”It is natural to mankind to make sacrificial offerings to the omnipotent God, and man is incited thereto by a natural instinct without an express command or special injunction. This we see exemplified in the case of Abel, Noe, Abraham, Job, and other patriarchs, who offered sacrifice, not in obedience to the law of God, but to the mere impulse of nature. And not only did those persons who were enlightened by God offer sacrifices to Him: the heathen also, simply following the light of nature, sacrificed to their idols, believing them to be true deities. In later times the law given by God to the children of Israel made it obligatory upon them to offer sacrifice to Him daily; on feasts a more elabourate ceremonial was to be observed. They were to offer to Him lambs, sheep, calves, and oxen; and these animals were not to be offered only, they were to be immolated by an anointed priest, with certain prayers and ceremonies. They were to be slaughtered, flayed, their blood was to be poured round about on the altar, and their flesh burnt upon the altar, amid the blowing of trumpets and chanting of psalms. These were the sacred oblations whereby the Jews were wont to pay to God the homage due to Him, and acknowledge Him to be the supreme Ruler over all creatures. Inasmuch as the idea of sacrifice is so deeply rooted in human nature that all peoples and nations, besides serving God with prayers, hymns, almsgiving, and works of penance, offered some kind of sacrifice whereby they honoured the true God or the false deities they venerated as such, it was meet, nay, it was even necessary, that Christ should institute in His Church a Holy and divine oblation as a visible service, whereby the faithful should give to God the glory which is His due, and express their own subjection to Him. No sensible man could imagine that Christ, Who ordained everything in His Church in the most perfect manner, should have omitted this highest act of worship, and left it wanting in so all important a matter. Were it so, the Christian religion would be inferior to Judaism, for the sacrifices of the Old Testament were so glorious that heathens of distinction came from distant lands to assist at them, and some heathen kings, as we read in Machabees (II 3:3), even paid out of their revenues the charges belonging to the ministry.
The first point that must be made of this book is that the dialect is older English."But now, my good uncle, the world is here waxen such, and so great perils appear here to fall at hand, that me thinketh the greatest comfort that a man can have is, when he may see that he shall soon be gone." (Pg 1-2)The reader will have to accustom themselves to a learning curve.In the first Chapter St. Thomas More, tells us that philosophers of old created ways to be comforted in tribulation. These pagan philosophers told their followers that they should place of little value on worldly goods and honors. But as the Saint continues on,"for they never stretched so far, but that they leave untouched, for lack of necessary knowledge, that special point which is not only the chief comfort of all, but, without which also, all other comforts are nothing. That is, to wit, the referring of the final end of their comfort unto God, and the repute and take for the special cause of comfort, that by the patient sufferance of their tribulation they shall attain His favour, and for their pain receive reward at His hand in Heaven." (Pg 9)He ends the first chapter by saying, "Honorsa medicum; propter necessitatem etenim ordinavit eum Altissimus." - honor the physician for him hath the high God ordained for thy necessity. (Eccl 38) St. Thomas more points to this heavenly physician as Christ Himself applying His own blood as our medicine.The second chapter tells us that it is faith that must be the foundation for men's comfort. "That is, to wit, the ground and foundation of faith, without which had ready before, all the spiritual comfort that any man may speak of can never avail a fly. For likewise as it were utterly vain to lay natural reasons of comfort to him that hath no wit, so were it undoubtedly frustrate to lay spiritual causes of comfort to him that hath no faith." (Pg 11)St. Thomas More in the third chapter assigns the first comfort as the following: "...the desire and longing to be by God comforted." (Pg 14) St. Thomas more writes that those who seek comfort in anything outside of God will never become comforted. He quotes St. Bernard: "He that in tribulation turneth himself unto worldly vanities, to get help and comfort by them, fareth like a man that in peril of drowning catcheth whatsoever cometh next to hand, and that holdeth he fast, be it never so simple a stick; but then that helpeth him not, for that stick he draweth down under the water with him, and there lie they drowned both together." (Pg 15)The fourth chapter bring forth the idea that tribulation was meant to bring men of good will (Luke 2:14) to closer to God. "Some are in the beginning of tribulation very stubborn and stiff against God, and yet at length tribulation bringeth them home." (Pg 18)St. Thomas More continues to bring this point home by writing: "The proud king Pharaoh did abide and endure two or three of the first plagues, and would not once stoop at them. But then God laid on a sorer lash that made him cry to him for help, and then sent he for Moses and Aaron, and confessed himself a sinner, and God for good and righteous, and prayed them to pray for him, and to withdraw that plague, and he would let them go. But when his tribulation was withdrawn, then, was he naught again. So was his tribulation occasion of his profit, and his help again cause of his harm. For his tribulation made him call to God, and his help made hard his heart again." (Pg 18)
The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is an expansive study of the Catholic Mass by Reverend Dr. Nichols Gihr. It heavily sources scripture in its many proofs of the nature of Mass.
The Great Bishop of Poitiers, Mgr. Pie, in his funeral Oration on our Father, Dom. Guéranger, said: “You have long been feasting at a royal board, where you were daily regaled with the most delicate and varied food. Those Conferences on the Christian Life and Virtues, and that incomparable Commentary on your Rule, - you have no right to keep them to yourselves.” Aeterna Press
