Traditional Catholicity of the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass: Part 2
Justin Haggerty | The Daily Knight
I firmly believe, O my divine Jesus, that thou are truly present in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. I believe that It really and substantially contains Thy Body and Blood, Thy Soul and Divinity. I acknowledge these truths; I believe these wonders; I adore the power that has wrought them, the same power that said: "Let there be light," and light was made. Verily, Thou art a hidden God, the God of Israel, the Savior.
Asperges me, Domine, hysopo, et mundabor: lavabis me, et super nivem dealbabor.
Ps. Miserene mei, secundum magnam misericordiam tuam.
V. Gloria Patri, et filio, et Spiritui Sancto
R. Sicut erat in principio et nunc et semper et in saecila saeculorum. Amen.
Ant. Asperges me...
V. Ostende nobis. Domine, misericordiam tuam.
R. Et salutare tuum da nobis
V. Domine, exaundi orationem mean
R. Et clamor meus ad te veniat.
V. Dominus vobiscum
R. Et cum spiritu tuo.
Oremus.- Exaudi nos, Domine sancte, Pater omnipotens aeterne Deaus, et mittere digneris sanctam Angelum tuum de coelis, qui custodiat, foveat, protegat, visitet atque defendat omies habitantes in hoc habitaculo. Per Christum Domium nostrum. Amen.
"While the Priest sprinkles holy water before solemn Mass on Sundays, the following Antiphon is sung"." (Roman Catholic Daily Missal, 1962, p 833.)
The Break in the Harmony of the Divine Plan- sin the following text is taken from the "Introduction" of the Roman Catholic Daily Missal, 1962, pp. xlxii-xlix.
Alas, man is free to destroy God's harmonious plan! Everything is in equilibrium, because everything tends toward God. All things cohere, because all things are submissive to the Author of life and being. But this adhesion to God is effected in a free act of love. The freedom with which man is adorned, gives to the entire creation on incomparable majesty. God thus receives a praise that is spontaneous. This very freedom, however, exposes the one enjoying it to immense peril. Let man but once refuse to spread forth his hands in gesture of oblation, and the whole order of things falls apart. But one day man, in a gesture of pride and egoism, rejected his priesthood. His role of mediator no longer satisfied him. Man "would be like God." Through his lips, Satan once more uttered his cry of rage, "I will not serve!"
By his refusal, man shattered the universe. For the universe rested on man as the arch on the keystone. The entire universe turned against man it betrayer. In chorus, it hurled back into the teeth of man the cry that man had dared to address to God, "I will not serve!"
First of all, man's own body revolted. Man, terror-stricken, suddenly beheld within himself the unleashing of sinful passions. Henceforth, seven fetters, which theology is later to designate by the title of "Capital Sins," will shackle his formly free impulses- Adam and Eve "preceive themselves to be naked."
Man is deeply stricken in the very harmony of his being: "I will multiply your sorrows and your conceptions; in sorrow shall you bring forth children."
Social discord now corresponds to inner imbalance. "You shall be under your husband's power, and he shall have dominion over you."
Looming up on the horizon, in addition to these "domestic squabbles" are quarrels between families, wars between city and city, between nation and nation, world war, revolution.
The animal kingdom, over which man formerly resigned, rises up in it turn. The earthy itself refuses to cooperate with man. Only at the cost of a struggle, will man be able to rest from it miserable a few meager fruits: "Cursed is the earth in your work. Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to you."
Man is broken, disoriented. Suffering is to be, henceforth, his earthly portion. "In the sweat of your face shall you eat bread... In sorrow shall you bring forth children."
Man created to be the friend of Christ, has gone astray in the disobedience of Adam. Humanity, separated from Christ, is without form or beauty. WIll God remain deaf, insensible, to the city of His distressed creature? WIll he punish or pardon?
Man's Return [After the Fall]
Man, having come from God, must return to God: his Final End. "Thou hast made us for thyself, O God, "cried St. Augustine, "and our hearts are restless until they find rest in Thee!"
The creation- a work of sheer mercy, a stooping of the Creator toward the creature- return to God, chanting a hymn of praise and thanksgiving. A feather from a bird, a ray of light, a finely modulated voice, a drop of waterfalling to earth, a hastening ant, a seed sprouting from the earth, the stars that whirl in the firmament with never a collision; all are directed by God to that magnificent end for which He has ordained them- man's pleasure, Christ's happiness, and finally, the glory of the Most Holy Trinity."
The Psalm 42- Judica Me (Ps. 42: 1-5)
Judge me. O God, and distinguish my cause from the nation that is not holy; deliver me from the unjust and deceitful man.
R. for thou, O God, art my strength: why hast thou cast me off, and why do I go sorrowful whilst the enemy afflicteth me?
V. Send forth Thy light and hy truth; they have conducted me and brought me onto Thy holy hill, and into Thy tabernacles.
R. And I will go unto the altar of God; to God Who giveth joy to my youth.
V. To Thee, O God, my God, I will give praise upon the harp; why art thou sad, O my soul, and why dost thou disquit me?
R. Hope in God, for I will still give praise to Him; the salvation of my countenance, and my God.
V. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.
R. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Ant. I will go in unto the altar of God.
R. Unto God who giveth joy to my youth.
V. Our help is in the name of the Lord.
R. Who made heaven and earth.
"The celebrant longs to ascend to the altar of God, there to perform his holy office and to draw near to the Lord God, even to union with Him in the Eucharist. He confides himself to the mercy of God, source of light, salvation, and peace, who imports to us unalterable youth of soul and blissful immortality." (Roman Catholic Daily Missal, 1962, pp.839-841)
Offering Christ to the Father
The following text is taken from the "introduction" of the Roman Catholic Daily Missal 1962 pgs. li-lii
We have seen that Christ in the center of religion and the universe. The creation, over which Christ resigns, is willed by God for his glory. We are beings created solely for the praise and glory of God.
How can such a frail creature as man offer acceptable praise to the Blessed Trinity? In this way. The Word of God was incarnated, became one of us, and to each one of us gave something of Himself in such a way that we are enabled through Him, with Him, and in Him, to fulfill our religious duties toward God, duties that may be summarized in two acts, as follows:
Our continual offering of Jesus Christ to God the Father.
Our offering of ourselves with Him and like Him in complete self-sacrifice, so as to become one with Jesus Christ.
For Christ alone can glorify God as He deserves. Christ, equal to the Father by His God head, lowered Himself to our level by the Incarnation. As man, Christ is able to bow before God and render Him true adoration in humility, submission, and obedience. As God, Christ offers His Father homage of infinite worth.
It is the Incarnation that empowers us to offer God to God in the Person of Jesus Christ. Hence, the grandeur and incomparable superiority of the Mass over all other acts of religion.
Why so many Masses? In order that the thought of offering Him up to God the Father may be continually present to our minds, Christ has willed to re-present the offering up to His Sacrifice.
But the Christ who Thus offers Himself in the Mass is not just "Jesus, the Son of Mary," but the total Christ-Christ complete, entire. That is, all the members of the Mystical Body offer themselves with Christ, their Head. Hence, the active role we should play in the Mass.
Pope Pius XII recalled this truth in his encyclical on the Mystical Body (Mystic: Corporis): "In it, the priest not only represents our Savior, but the entire Mystical Body; and each of the faithful in particular. The faithful, themselves, moreover, united to the priest in a common will and prayer, offer up to the Eternal Father the Immaculate Lamb brought down on the altar by the voice of the priest. They offer Him, by the hands of the same priest, as a most pleasing Victim of propitiation and praise, for the necessities of the whole Church. And just as the Divine Redeemer, dying on the Cross, offered Himself as Head of the human race, to the Eternal Father; in the same way, in this 'clean oblation.' He not only offers Himself as Head of the Church to the Heavenly Father, but in Himself He also offers His mystical members; since all-even the most infirm and feeble- are contained in His loving heart."
In what does Christ's Sacrifice consist?
Our Lord's Sacrifice consists in His complete self-renunciation - an immolation that began with the first instant of His earthly existence and terminated on Calvary's Cross.
Our Lord's Sacrifice consists above all in the preferring of God's will to His own: a preference shown by His oblation, which persists eternally. This perfect love of Christ for his Father was stabilized by His death and will abide throughout eternity.
Death fixes us in the dispositions we have at the moment of dying. Our degree of charity at death will mark our degree of glory for eternity. The set of our hearts at death remains as the final disposition of our wills. Our Lord, at the moment of His death on the Cross, attained (so to speak) the climax of His love for His Father. And it is precisely these sublime dispositions of our Lord toward His Father at the moment of His death that are made actual in the Mass. Now do you see why the Mass is of such great value?
An Act of Faith
I firmly believe, O my divine Jesus, that thou are truly present in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. I believe that It really and substantially contains Thy Body and Blood, Thy Soul and Divinity. I acknowledge these truths; I believe these wonders; I adore the power that has wrought them, the same power that said: "Let there be light," and light was made. Verily, Thou art a hiddenGod, the God of Israel, the Savior.
In Christ Crucified and the Most Victorious Heart of Jesus.
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