9781644135945

The Light of the World
from God. They desired to return to God and to obtain His grace and forgiveness, for which
purpose they offered the blood of countless animals, and even the blood of fellow men. But
with these offerings God could not be satisfied, though they were well meant. “Sacrifice and
oblation Thou wouldst not. . . . Then said I: Behold I come to do Thy will, O God” (Heb 10:5,
9). On the cross the only-begotten of the Father offered Himself with love and perfect obedience,
and now He continues that same offering on our altars in an unbloody manner. In the
Holy Sacrifice of the Mass the prediction of the Prophet is fulfilled in Him: “And I will not
receive a gift of your hand,” that is, from the hand of the priests of the Old Testament. “For
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” (Mal 1:10
f.). This clean oblation is the sacrifice of the Church, the sacrifice of the New Testament, the
Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
The priest who offers the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass “is one and the same as He who offered
the sacrifice on the cross” (Council of Trent). From the beginning of time priests have stood at
the altar of God to offer sacrifice, but the words of the Prophet are applicable to all of them: “I
have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of hosts; and I will not receive a gift of your hand” (Mal
1:10). The hands and hearts of human priests are stained with sin. Because He had compassion
on our unworthiness and our impotence, the Son of God became one of us. He became man,
and as the God-man He acts as our high priest from the first moment of His entrance into the
world. “Behold I come.” It is He who with divine and unstained hands offers Himself to the
Father in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, through the instrumentality of the human priest, who
acts as His minister. The real priest who offers the sacrifice, however, is Christ Himself. For this
reason the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is always a pure and holy sacrifice, pleasing at all times to
the Father, ever efficacious and meritorious.
With the eyes of faith we acknowledge Christ to be really and personally present under
the appearance of bread and wine. We acknowledge Him to be present here, in body and
soul, with His life and His suffering, in this sacrifice which He again offers to the Father.
The same love for the Father and for us which He proved so conclusively through His
death on the cross is present in this sacrifice also. Since Christ is the real priest who makes
the offering, the sacrifice must always be worthy of the three divine persons, the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and it must always render to them a perfect act of praise and
honor. Since the offering is made by Christ Himself, it must always ascend to heaven and
plead for us in words which the Father cannot refuse. Through this sacrifice full and perfect
satisfaction is also made to God for the countless sins and offenses of men which cry to
heaven for vengeance. The altar is the sanctuary of the Church and of mankind, the spring
of living waters. All that is sublime and noble, all that is elevated and divine, flows from the
altar to the souls of men.
In the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, Jesus is both the victim and the high priest. St. Gertrude
relates that in one of her visions she saw Christ acting as the real priest and offerer. He
stood upon His throne in heaven and with His own hands offered His most holy heart to
His Father, thus acting both as priest and as victim. “At the very moment when God the
Son was offering His divine heart to the Father, the bell of the tower rang, announcing the
moment of the consecration.”
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