Things To Come Articles 1913 - The Meaning of the Romish Mass

It was a Saturday afternoon in the autumn of 1904, that I entered the Roman Cathedral at Westminster. For some time previous I had been revolving in thought a crucial question. A suspicion had arisen in my mind relative to the real meaning and significance, the true inwardness of that central right and institution of Romanism----the Mass. I had resolved to bring the question to an issue whenever I might find myself in contact with any authorized exponent of the doctrine of transubstantiation.

Upon entering the Cathedral, almost the first person I observed was a Romish priest in cassock again biretta, presumably one in residence; he entered the church from a side door, and made his way with quick step up through the length of the nave towards the other end of the building. With an instinctive feeling that my opportunity had come, I immediately followed. The priest made his way past the huge block of granite, a monolith of some twenty tons weight, destined for the high altar----in situ, but not yet dedicated to its object----mounted a few steps to the stage behind, then turned around and stood to survey the vast space before him, which doubtless his imagination filled in the not distant future with a vision of pomp, of priests, and of people doing homage to their Roman Eucharist.

I quickly made my way towards him, and in a moment or two was at his side. My first remark was of the immense building they had erected, to which he ascended with manifest satisfaction. "And that," I said, indicating the colossal block of granite just before us, "is, or will be, the high altar at which High Masses will be said." "Yes," he replied. I then said, "Would you permit me to ask you one or two questions by way of inquiry?" He assented "I believe it is the teaching of your church, that after the words of consecration uttered by the priest, the substance of the wafer bread undergoes an absolute change and becomes substantially the very body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. An invisible miracle takes place, so that under the outward forms of bread and wine it is Christ Himself who is present on your altars?" "That is so," he replied.

"You do really and truly believe," I continued, "that the very same Christ, who lived on this earth 1,800 years ago and died upon a cross on Calvary, is present in person on the altar after the wafer has undergone the process of consecration by a priest----that the priest really holds Christ Himself in his hands?" "Yes," the priest answered. "We touch and handle Him, just as I am touching you," he said, placing his hand at the same moment upon my coat sleeve. "You mean to say," I suggested, "that Christ is present, under the form of the wafer, as truly as my arm is under the sleeve of my coat." "Yes," said he. "Well," I replied, "that is not my faith, but I am not wishing to discuss that matter now. Assuming, for the moment, it is as you affirm, and the dogma of transubstantiation to be true, the question I was wishing to ask you is this: "When you have the Lord Jesus Christ upon your altars, and actually in your hands, then what do you do with Him? Do you profess to put Him to death?" His answer was "Yes." "You profess," I insisted, "to slay Him, to immolate and kill Jesus Christ upon your altars?" I confess a chill went through me as I proposed the question and listen for his reply.

He gave me the impression of being taken off his guard, or, rather, Rome has no guard at this vital point of her system, or he might have evaded my question. I had taken him on a high tide of feeling. Did not Rome's colossal Cathedral in which we stood, with the most magnificent pageants of her cult, stand upon and center in the dogma of the Mass? Does not the very word by which the wafer is known after her consecration, "The Host," from the Latin hostia, a victim, signify one who has been immolated? Does not the term "Altar" connote a Victim offered in sacrifice; and what other victim suffers on Roman altars, according to Rome's dogma, but Christ?

But, again, does not the Apostle also speak of those who "crucify the Son of God afresh and put Him to an open shame?" What does such language point at? And, says the same Apostle they do it "to themselves" (Hebrews 6:6). They speak of "the Adorable Sacrament of our altars." They proclaim aloud to the world (to quote their own words) our unswerving belief in the central mystery of our religion, the fact that our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, true God and true Man, ever offers Himself" (i.e., is offered by our priests)----as a sacrifice upon the altars of our churches, and unceasingly dwells in our tabernacles."

The priest had entered upon the conversation evidently under the impression that my purpose was to argue the question of transubstantiation, for to this he reverted. "We believe," he went on to say, "that the sacrifice of the Mass is the very same sacrifice as that offered on Calvary; that," said he, indicating the huge block of cold gray stone, "is our Calvary." "And you," I said, "that is, the priests of your Church, put Christ to death there?" "Yes," he said, but there was this time the tone of hesitation in his word. I replied: "Well, I felt that the doctrine of the Mass must involve that conclusion, but was not prepared to hear it openly avowed as you have done. You remember who they were who crucified Christ?" "The Jews," he replied: "And the Romans," I added. "Then the priests of your Church, who repeat in the Mass the very sacrifice of Calvary, are the successors of the Jews and the Romans."

At this point he seemed to lose assurance and began to flounder. "Oh," said he, "the Jews were the instruments." "And you," I asked, "what are you?" "Oh, but we don't put Him to death really. We haven't His glorified body----that is in heaven. We do it as far as we can." "You do it is far as you can; you would do it more if you could," I queried. "It is a representation, it is not a reality." "Why not then tell the people this and say: 'Good people, this ceremony of the Mass is our way of representing the death of Jesus Christ upon the cross?'" "No, no," he exclaimed. "It is a reality. We believe that after transubstantiation Christ is really upon the altar under the outward forms or the species----as we say, in propria persona."

I said again: "Whether the miracle of transubstantiation does or does not take place, is not just now my point. I know you're dogma asserts Christ to be really there, 'His flesh, bones, nerves, and divinity,' under the forms of bread and wine, according to the Catechism of the Council of Trent, from which their own substances have disappeared. My point, I repeat once more, is, when you have Christ thus upon your Calvary, what becomes of Him? What do you do with Him? Do you put Him to death?" Again the answer was "Yes!" "Then, I affirm that upon your own showing, by your own words, your priests prove themselves the successors, not of the Apostles, as they claim to be, but the successors and representatives of the Jews and Romans." "No, it is a representation," rejoined the priest.

"You must forgive me," I replied, "if I say you seem in a fog about this subject. A thing cannot be at once merely a representation of a reality and the reality itself. Either it is a real sacrifice of Jesus Christ that you immolate on your altars, or it is no sacrifice at all. If you profess to put Jesus Christ to death in the sacrifice of the Mass, you sacrifice Him afresh, and thus declare yourselves the successors of those whom St. Peter himself charged with the 'crime of killing the Prince of Life' (Acts 3:15), and St. Stephen branded as 'His betrayers and murderers.'" "But," I continued, "Christ being raised from the dead, dieth no more, death hath no more dominion over him; therefore you're dogma of a repeated sacrifice of Christ in the Mass is a false one." But this time the priest had become very uncomfortable, and as I said the words: "Your position cannot stand, it must fall, and Rome with it," he abruptly quitted me and hastily disappeared through a door at the back of the tribune.

The Roman alter is a tomb----not metaphorically but literally such, for no Altar can serve for the consecration of the Mass until a burial service, with all the rights of death, has been performed over it, and a small tomb excavated in which, in default of an entire body, a few bones, presumably of some saint, have been deposited. Entering the Westminster Cathedral later on, I found a workman in the act of chiseling out the tomb in the surface of the altar block over which my conversation with the priest here recorded had taken place. Thus is an altar the seat and throne of death. As "a table" is for the living, so "a Roman altar" is for the dead. We, emphasize the Roman altar. There have been only two types of altar in the world----the Jewish, which was "foursquare" (see Exodus 27:1; 30:2; 37:25; 38:1); symbolizing a perfect manhood; and the "the oblong form," the Roman, successor to the heathen altar, enclosing or covering a corpse. They standing eternal contrast. The flowers, candles, lights that decorate a Roman altar, the "corporale" which holds the wafer, the "pall" that covers the chalice, are all adjuncts and appendages, of death.

But what, then, is really the death which takes place in the Roman Mass? We reply at once, not the death of Christ, not the sacrifice repeated, once offered on Calvary, as her dogmas teach and her priest pretend. "He ever liveth." "He hath abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel." "I am He that liveth and was dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore." What, then, is immolated and dies on Roman altars? We answer----the human intellect----man's God-given sense and intelligence. To believe in the Mass is to belie the evidence of the senses and to shock fatally the first principles of reason.

Rome wields three tremendous death powers----Mariolatry, the Confessional, the Mass. Mariolatry is the death of the affections; the Confessional is the death of the conscience; the Mass the death of the understanding.

This thread receives the Royal imprimatur of

Elizabeth I

From the Council of Trent Session 22 (English translation by Waterworth)

CHAPTER I.
On the institution of the most holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
Forasmuch as, under the former Testament, according to the testimony of the Apostle Paul, there was no perfection, because of the weakness of the Levitical priesthood; there was need, God, the Father of mercies, so ordaining, that another priest should rise, according to the order of Melchisedech, our Lord Jesus Christ, who might consummate, and lead to what is perfect, as many as were to be sanctified. He, therefore, our God and Lord, though He was about to offer Himself once on the altar of the cross unto God the Father, by means of his death, there to operate an eternal redemption; nevertheless, because that His priesthood was not to be extinguished by His death, in the last supper, on the night in which He was betrayed,--that He might leave, to His own beloved Spouse the Church, a visible sacrifice, such as the nature of man requires, whereby that bloody sacrifice, once to be accomplished on the cross, might be represented, and the memory thereof remain even unto the end of the world, and its salutary virtue be applied to the remission of those sins which we daily commit,--declaring Himself constituted a priest for ever, according to the order of Melchisedech, He offered up to God the Father His own body and blood under the species of bread and wine; and, under the symbols of those same things, He delivered (His own body and blood) to be received by His apostles, whom He then constituted priests of the New Testament; and by those words, Do this in commemoration of me, He commanded them and their successors in the priesthood, to offer (them); even as the Catholic Church has always understood and taught. For, having celebrated the ancient Passover, which the multitude of the children of Israel immolated in memory of their going out of [Page 154] Egypt, He instituted the new Passover, (to wit) Himself to be immolated, under visible signs, by the Church through (the ministry of) priests, in memory of His own passage from this world unto the Father, when by the effusion of His own blood He redeemed us, and delivered us from the power of darkness, and translated us into his kingdom. And this is indeed that clean oblation, which cannot be defiled by any unworthiness, or malice of those that offer (it); which the Lord foretold by Malachias was to be offered in every place, clean to his name, which was to be great amongst the Gentiles; and which the apostle Paul, writing to the Corinthians, has not obscurely indicated, when he says, that they who are defiled by the participation of the table of devils, cannot be partakers of the table of the Lord; by the table, meaning in both places the altar. This, in fine, is that oblation which was prefigured by various types of sacrifices, during the period of nature, and of the law; in as much as it comprises all the good things signified by those sacrifices, as being the consummation and perfection of them all.
CHAPTER II.
That the Sacrifice of the Mass is propitiatory both for the living and the dead.
And forasmuch as, in this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the mass, that same Christ is contained and immolated in an unbloody manner, who once offered Himself in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross; the holy Synod teaches, that this sacrifice is truly propritiatory and that by means thereof this is effected, that we obtain mercy, and find grace in seasonable aid, if we draw nigh unto God, contrite and penitent, with a sincere heart and upright faith, with fear and reverence. For the Lord, appeased by the oblation thereof, and granting the [Page 155] grace and gift of penitence, forgives even heinous crimes and sins. For the victim is one and the same, the same now offering by the ministry of priests, who then offered Himself on the cross, the manner alone of offering being different. The fruits indeed of which oblation, of that bloody one to wit, are received most plentifully through this unbloody one; so far is this (latter) from derogating in any way from that (former oblation). Wherefore, not only for the sins, punishments, satisfactions, and other necessities of the faithful who are living, but also for those who are departed in Christ, and who are not as yet fully purified, is it rightly offered, agreebly to a tradition of the apostles.

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church

The sacrificial memorial of Christ and of his Body, the Church
1362 The Eucharist is the memorial of Christ's Passover, the making present and the sacramental offering of his unique sacrifice, in the liturgy of the Church which is his Body. In all the Eucharistic Prayers we find after the words of institution a prayer called the anamnesis or memorial.
1363 In the sense of Sacred Scripture the memorial is not merely the recollection of past events but the proclamation of the mighty works wrought by God for men.(182) In the liturgical celebration of these events, they become in a certain way present and real. This is how Israel understands its liberation from Egypt: every time Passover is celebrated, the Exodus events are made present to the memory of believers so that they may conform their lives to them.
1364 In the New Testament, the memorial takes on new meaning. When the Church celebrates the Eucharist, she commemorates Christ's Passover, and it is made present the sacrifice Christ offered once for all on the cross remains ever present.(183) "As often as the sacrifice of the Cross by which 'Christ our Pasch has been sacrificed' is celebrated on the altar, the work of our redemption is carried out."(184)
1365 Because it is the memorial of Christ's Passover, the Eucharist is also a sacrifice. the sacrificial character of the Eucharist is manifested in the very words of institution: "This is my body which is given for you" and "This cup which is poured out for you is the New Covenant in my blood."(185) In the Eucharist Christ gives us the very body which he gave up for us on the cross, the very blood which he "poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins."(186)
1366 The Eucharist is thus a sacrifice because it re-presents (makes present) the sacrifice of the cross, because it is its memorial and because it applies its fruit:
[Christ], our Lord and God, was once and for all to offer himself to God the Father by his death on the altar of the cross, to accomplish there an everlasting redemption. But because his priesthood was not to end with his death, at the Last Supper "on the night when he was betrayed," [he wanted] to leave to his beloved spouse the Church a visible sacrifice (as the nature of man demands) by which the bloody sacrifice which he was to accomplish once for all on the cross would be re-presented, its memory perpetuated until the end of the world, and its salutary power be applied to the forgiveness of the sins we daily commit.(187)
1367 The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice: "The victim is one and the same: the same now offers through the ministry of priests, who then offered himself on the cross; only the manner of offering is different." "In this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the Mass, the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross is contained and is offered in an unbloody manner."(188)
1368 The Eucharist is also the sacrifice of the Church. the Church which is the Body of Christ participates in the offering of her Head. With him, she herself is offered whole and entire. She unites herself to his intercession with the Father for all men. In the Eucharist the sacrifice of Christ becomes also the sacrifice of the members of his Body. the lives of the faithful, their praise, sufferings, prayer, and work, are united with those of Christ and with his total offering, and so acquire a new value. Christ's sacrifice present on the altar makes it possible for all generations of Christians to be united with his offering.
In the catacombs the Church is often represented as a woman in prayer, arms outstretched in the praying position. Like Christ who stretched out his arms on the cross, through him, with him, and in him, she offers herself and intercedes for all men.
1369 The whole Church is united with the offering and intercession of Christ. Since he has the ministry of Peter in the Church, the Pope is associated with every celebration of the Eucharist, wherein he is named as the sign and servant of the unity of the universal Church. the bishop of the place is always responsible for the Eucharist, even when a priest presides; the bishop's name is mentioned to signify his presidency over the particular Church, in the midst of his presbyterium and with the assistance of deacons. the community intercedes also for all ministers who, for it and with it, offer the Eucharistic sacrifice:
Let only that Eucharist be regarded as legitimate, which is celebrated under [the presidency of] the bishop or him to whom he has entrusted it.(189)
Through the ministry of priests the spiritual sacrifice of the faithful is completed in union with the sacrifice of Christ the only Mediator, which in the Eucharist is offered through the priests' hands in the name of the whole Church in an unbloody and sacramental manner until the Lord himself comes.(190)
1370 To the offering of Christ are united not only the members still here on earth, but also those already in the glory of heaven. In communion with and commemorating the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the saints, the Church offers the Eucharistic sacrifice. In the Eucharist the Church is as it were at the foot of the cross with Mary, united with the offering and intercession of Christ. 1371 The Eucharistic sacrifice is also offered for the faithful departed who "have died in Christ but are not yet wholly purified,"(191) so that they may be able to enter into the light and peace of Christ:
Put this body anywhere! Don't trouble yourselves about it! I simply ask you to remember me at the Lord's altar wherever you are.(192)
Then, we pray [in the anaphora] for the holy fathers and bishops who have fallen asleep, and in general for all who have fallen asleep before us, in the belief that it is a great benefit to the souls on whose behalf the supplication is offered, while the holy and tremendous Victim is present.... By offering to God our supplications for those who have fallen asleep, if they have sinned, we . . . offer Christ sacrificed for the sins of all, and so render favorable, for them and for us, the God who loves man.(193)
1372 St. Augustine admirably summed up this doctrine that moves us to an ever more complete participation in our Redeemer's sacrifice which we celebrate in the Eucharist:
This wholly redeemed city, the assembly and society of the saints, is offered to God as a universal sacrifice by the high priest who in the form of a slave went so far as to offer himself for us in his Passion, to make us the Body of so great a head.... Such is the sacrifice of Christians: "we who are many are one Body in Christ" the Church continues to reproduce this sacrifice in the sacrament of the altar so well-known to believers wherein it is evident to them that in what she offers she herself is offered.(194)
182 Cf. ⇒ Ex 13:3.
183 Cf. ⇒ Heb 7:25-27.
184 LG 3; cf. ⇒ 1 Cor 5:7.
185 ⇒ Lk 22:19-20.
186 ⇒ Mt 26:28.
187 Council of Trent (1562): DS 1740; cf. ⇒ 1 Cor 11:23; ⇒ Heb 7:24, ⇒ 27.
188 Council of Trent (1562): DS 1743; cf. ⇒ Heb 9:14, ⇒ 27.
189 St. Ignatius of Antioch, Ad Smyrn. 8:1; SCh 10, 138.
190 PO 2 # 4.
191 Council of Trent (1562) DS 1743.
192 St. Monica, before her death, to her sons, St. Augustine and his brother; Conf. 9, 11, 27: PL 32, 775.
193 St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. myst. 5, 9. 10 PG 33, 1116-1117.
194 St. Augustine, De civ Dei, 10, 6: PL 41, 283; cf. ⇒ Rom 12:5.

Sorry that the author of this article felt revulsion for Christian doctrine; I pray that he was reconciled to God prior to his death.

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

The sacrificial memorial of Christ and of his Body, the Church

1353 In the epiclesis, the Church asks the Father to send his Holy Spirit (or the power of his blessing) on the bread and wine, so that by his power they may become the body and blood of Jesus Christ and so that those who take part in the Eucharist may be one body and one spirit (some liturgical traditions put the epiclesis after the anamnesis).

In the institution narrative, the power of the words and the action of Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit, make sacramentally present under the species of bread and wine Christ's body and blood, his sacrifice offered on the cross once for all.

... 1362 The Eucharist is the memorial of Christ's Passover, the making present and the sacramental offering of his unique sacrifice, in the liturgy of the Church which is his Body. In all the Eucharistic Prayers we find after the words of institution a prayer called the anamnesis or memorial.

1363 In the sense of Sacred Scripture the memorial is not merely the recollection of past events but the proclamation of the mighty works wrought by God for men. In the liturgical celebration of these events, they become in a certain way present and real. This is how Israel understands its liberation from Egypt: every time Passover is celebrated, the Exodus events are made present to the memory of believers so that they may conform their lives to them.

1364 In the New Testament, the memorial takes on new meaning. When the Church celebrates the Eucharist, she commemorates Christ's Passover, and it is made present, the sacrifice Christ offered once for all on the cross remains ever present. "As often as the sacrifice of the Cross by which 'Christ our Pasch has been sacrificed' is celebrated on the altar, the work of our redemption is carried out."

1365 Because it is the memorial of Christ's Passover, the Eucharist is also a sacrifice. The sacrificial character of the Eucharist is manifested in the very words of institution: "This is my body which is given for you" and "This cup which is poured out for you is the New Covenant in my blood." In the Eucharist Christ gives us the very body which he gave up for us on the cross, the very blood which he "poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins."

1366 The Eucharist is thus a sacrifice because it re-presents (makes present) the sacrifice of the cross, because it is its memorial and because it applies its fruit:

[Christ], our Lord and God, was once and for all to offer himself to God the Father by his death on the altar of the cross, to accomplish there an everlasting redemption. But because his priesthood was not to end with his death, at the Last Supper "on the night when he was betrayed," [he wanted] to leave to his beloved spouse the Church a visible sacrifice (as the nature of man demands) by which the bloody sacrifice which he was to accomplish once for all on the cross would be re-presented, its memory perpetuated until the end of the world, and its salutary power be applied to the forgiveness of the sins we daily commit.

1367 The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice: "The victim is one and the same: the same now offers through the ministry of priests, who then offered himself on the cross; only the manner of offering is different." "And since in this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the Mass, the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross is contained and is offered in an unbloody manner. . . this sacrifice is truly propitiatory."

...

1407 The Eucharist is the heart and the summit of the Church's life, for in it Christ associates his Church and all her members with his sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving offered once for all on the cross to his Father; by this sacrifice he pours out the graces of salvation on his Body which is the Church.

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