Untitled - Saints' Books

PART II.
MATERIAL FOR INSTRUCTIONS.
INSTRUCTION I.
THE CELEBRATION OF MASS.
Importance of the Holy
Sacrifice and what it Exacts of the
Priest.
For every high-priest taken from among
men is ordained
for men in the things that appertain to God, that he may offer
up gifts and sacrifices for sins. The 1
priest, then, is placed
by God in the Church in order to offer sacrifice. This
office is peculiar to the priests of the Law of grace, to
whom has been given the power of offering the great
sacrifice of the body and blood of the Son of God a
sacrifice sublime and perfect in comparison with the
of which con
ancient sacrifices, the entire perfection
sisted in being the shadow and figure of our sacrifice.
They were sacrifices of calves and oxen, but ours is the
sacrifice of the eternal Word made Man. Of themselves
they had no efficacy, and were therefore called by St.
Paul weak and needy elements? But ours has power to
obtain the remission of the temporal penalties due to sins,
1
"Omnis namque Pontifex, ex hominibus assumptus, pro homini-
2 "
bus constituitur in iis quae sunt ad Deum, ut offerat dona et sacrificia
pro peccatis."
Hcb. v. i.
Infirma et egena elementa." Gal. iv. 9.