The Priest at Prayer, June 2

Second Part
The Priestly Ministry

The Second Priestly Duty: The Holy Eucharist

First Meditation - Grandeur of the Mass

I. Hoc est corpus meum, hic est sanguis meus. Hoc facite in meam commemorationem.

O the grandeur and simplicity of the Divine Power! With words so brief and so unostentatious our Lord gave fulfilment to one of the solemnest of prophecies:

From the rising of the sun even to the going down, my name is great among the Gentiles: and in every place there is sacrifice and there is offered to my name a clean oblation. For my name is great among the Gentiles. (Malach. i, 11)

The glory of God's Name and knowledge of It spread throughout the world: these are fruits of the Holy Sacrifice of the New Covenant. It is the divine bestowal in answer to the first petition of the Our Father:
Hallowed be Thy Name.

How often, my Jesus, I have felt ashamed of the fruitlessness of my priesthood! I made a sad mistake. With just the daily celebration of the Mass I cooperate to bring about the greatest good of God and of creatures: the furtherance of the glory of the Lord.

II. There is no religion without sacrifice. Sacrifice has always been considered the primary act of worship.

Hence, in the Old Testament, the greater and better portion of the liturgical practices were merely sacrifice in its various shapes and forms. But since that sacrifice was no more than shadow and symbol incapable in itself, for all its variety, of purifying and sanctifying souls, our Divine Redeemer, Eternal Priest, abolished it entirely, substituting in its place His own Oblation of infinite value on the Cross.

And with the intention of leaving His visible Church a sacrifice also visible, the Sacrifice of the New Pasch or Passover betokening His departure from this world to His Father; and that not only the authority but even the exercise of His Eternal Priesthood according to the Order of Melchisedech might not cease to exist on earth, He instituted the unbloody Sacrifice of our altars in remembrance and as a substantial perpetuation of His bloody Holocaust upon the Cross. Thus His infinitely precious Blood, shed once for all on Calvary, would be continually applied to us for the remission of our daily transgressions.

I thank Thee, Jesus, for that sovereign device of Thy love; and I thank Thee still more for wishing Thy Body and Blood to be offered to the Divine Majesty through these sinful hands of mine. Yes, Father, far so hath it seemed good in Thy sight. (Matt. xi, 26)

III. To consecrate the Body and Blood of Christ is the Church's mightiest exercise of power.

To approach with imperiousness, with three words, the Right Hand of God, the Bosom of the Father, and there to lay hold, in a certain sense, on the Only ­Begotten Son and bring Him down to earth; to renew each day, each hour, each moment, over the face of the earth, the most glorious, the most meritorious feat of the Word of God, His Sacrifice; to earn, to seek and find, for all her countless children their daily Bread, and to feed them with It, almost force It upon them, lest they hunger, faint and die; to bring Christ into the world, into this vale of tears, to the side of every banished child of Eve: Jesus Christ, comfort in every sorrow, aid and relief in all our miseries; - O Lord! for this alone Thy Church is worthy to be named mankind's chief Benefactress; and this our priestly dignity, the greatest and holiest power for good on earth.

How beautiful and true the words of St. Francis of Assisi to his friars: "Let us respect priests; their hands give us the Body of Jesus Christ."

IV. Sacrifice, in the liturgical sense, is the outward offer­ing by a lawfully appointed minister of something visible to God in order to acknowledge God's supreme dominion over us and our total submission to Him. Sacrifice for sin carries with it immolation of the victim offered: by the death of the victim, the shedding of its blood, the pouring out of the blood over the altar, the burning of it, or by any other means that indicate our acknowledgement of God's supremacy and our entire submission.

In the Mass the Victim whose Immolation is expressed and "signified" (in the profound sense of this word) by the dual Consecration of bread and wine is no other than Jesus Christ Himself, God and Man. He is the divinely-appointed Minister or Priest­ - Sacerdos in aeternum - in His own right, whereas my priesthood here, as in the other Sacraments, derives from His: I am His vicar and dispenser. Thus He makes me a partaker of His Eternal Priesthood and bestows upon me the power which He exclusively owns of rati­fying in His Name and Blood the New Covenant, just as the Old Covenant was ratified with the blood of animals.

The Holy Mass, besides being the chief act of adora­tion and submission to God, and therefore the primary expression of worship, is the most effectual of supplica­tions. It has been the Church's tactics in every age to put before the eyes of God the Name of His own Son; She has never dared to pray without this recommenda­tion: per Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum Filium tuum. How much greater, then, will her appeal be in the sight of the Father when She presents to Him not merely the name and remembrance of His Son but the very Son in Person, real and consubstantial with Him, seated on His Right Hand and likewise offering Him­self on Calvary! It was impossible to devise a prayer more pleasing to God; and no wonder, for it was devised by the Son Himself who knows so well His Father's good-pleasure: Neither doth anyone know the Father, but the Son. (Matt. xi, 27) It is, moreover, a prayer that embraces the power and purpose of every other prayer: worship, thanksgiving, atonement, supplication, etc.

Then why has my inconstancy hindered me from lingering long and lovingly over these surpassing realities?

Why should my fickle mind treat the Holy Mass, the august Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ, as if it were just something to be done because it can't remain undone, a formality, a burden to be disposed of?

V. Such is the grandeur of the august Sacrifice of our altars that God has brought the downfall of every other religious sacrifice in Its trail. Polytheistic religions fell, and with them their sacrifices, human sacrifices very often; as in ancient America. The new religions appear­ing after Christ, even heterodox Christian cults, are without sacrifice and sacrificer. But in Thy Church, O Lord, Thou hast wished to perpetuate the Offering of the pure and only victim, the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world.

Another great quality of this holy Sacrifice is the essentially spiritual worship that it inspires. Never do we adore the Father in spirit and in truth so much as we do here; because neither the senses nor even the intellect are offered an object commensurate with their capacities; only the lowliest appearances of bread and wine; and therefore only a mind enlightened by faith, unsupported by any other natural light or guide, explains our adora­tion of this sublime Mystery, the adoration that enlists our entire personality.

Resolution
1. Gratitude to God for this great Gift shall be the outstanding feature of my life, in imitation of Blessed John de Rivera, the Patriarch of the Eucharist, who on his coat-of-arms embossed beneath the Sacred Host this motto: Tibi post haec, fili mi, ultra quid faciam My son, what more can I do for thee after this?

2. I will value the act of celebrating the Holy Mass as the highest of my spiritual life and the most pleasing to God my Father; and I shall ever be convinced, in theory and in practice, that Thou bearest with me, O Lord, on earth, in spite of my wretchedness, for the primary purpose of offering Thee every day, as long as my hands can lift up to heaven, the Body and Blood of the spotless Lamb.
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Adapted from The Priest at Prayer
by Fr. Eugenio Escribano, C.M. (© 1954)
Translated by B.T. Buckley, C.M.

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Please pray for our priests and pray for vocations to the priesthood!