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THE SECRET

OF THE MASS

by

RICHARD GINDER



Published by

THE CATHOLIC INFORMATION SOCIETY

214 West 31st St., New York 1, N. Y.

(OPPOSITE PENN TERMINAL)



THE SECRET OF

THE MASS

by

Richard Ginder

"C ACRIFICE” is a word which will
^ never pass from our language. It

expresses an idea rooted in our instincts.

We want to do for those we love; in fact,
the first demonstration of love is service.

Parents make every possible sacrifice for

their children; and patriotism, a high type

of love, finds its consummation in the su-

preme sacrifice; dying in defense of one’s

native land.

"Greater love than this no man hath,

that he lay down his life for a friend.”

—

Calvary is an everlasting reminder of our

Savior’s unbounded love for souls.

At the Last Supper, Jesus went beyond

3



the mere saying of
—

"This is My body:

This is My blood.” His words were "This
is My body, which is being given for you;

do this in remembrance of Me.”1 The giv-

ing of the body and the shedding of the

blood are expressed in each instance by a

present tense of the Greek verb. In other

words, Christ was offering the first Mass

at the Last Supper, and commanding His

Apostles to represent that sacrifice in their

ministry.

His body and blood rested, mystically

divided, in His hands. It was the night

before He died. He had just finished ob-

serving the sacrificial Passover with His

little flock, and now He ordained that this

should supersede the sacrifices of the Old

Law. He had been called by David "a

priest according to the order of Melchise-

dech,” that strange figure to whom Abra-

ham gave tithes in return for the offering

of bread and wine.

IN THE YEAR 430 B.C

Long ago, some 430 years before, the

I. Lk. XXII. 19

4



Lord had spoken through Malachy, ex-

pressing His disgust at the careless execu-

tion of the temple-ritual and, in conse-

quence, rejecting Jewish sacrifice.

"Who is there among you, that will shut

the doors, and will kindle the fire on my

altar gratis? I have no pleasure in you,

saith the Lord of hosts; and I will not

receive a gift of your hand.

"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 in my name

a clean oblation; for my name is great

among the Gentiles, saith the Lord of

hosts.”2

The reference is to a new and a clean

sacrifice, taken in the strictest sense, which

is to be catholic (everywhere and among

all peoples) . It could not have meant the

sacrifices of the Old Law. They were be-

ing reproved. Nor the unclean offerings of

the pagans. Nor Calvary, which was to be

offered in one time and one definite place.

And yet St. Paul speaks of Jesus as a

2. M*l. I. 10-11

5



priest "ever living to make intercession

for us.” A priest is one committed to the
altar of sacrifice. Parsons and ministers in-

dignantly reject the title because they not

only do not offer sacrifice, but they do not

believe in it. They are fundamentally

preachers.

But Jesus is a priest, and in the Bible

He is depicted as a lamb, standing like

one slain from the beginning of the

world .3

St. Paul’s writings show how easily the

first Christians made the transition from

the bloody sacrifices of the Mosaic Law to

the unbloody sacrifice of the New Testa-

ment:

“The cup of blessing that we bless, is

it not the showing of the blood of Christ?

And the bread that we break, is it not the

partaking of the body of the Lord? Be-

cause the bread is one, we, though many,

are one body, all of us who partake of the

one bread. Behold Israel according to the

flesh, are not they who eat of the sacrifices

partakers of the altar ? . . . What the Gen-

3. Apoc. V. 6 : XIII, 8

—

King James Verson Rev. V,6: XIII, 8

6



tiles sacrifice, 'they sacrifice to devils and

not to God’; and I would not have you

become associates of devils. You cannot

drink of the cup of the Lord and the cup

of devils; you cannot be partakers of the

table of the Lord and of the table of

devils.”4

ST. PAUL - A PRIEST

This is the language of a priest fully

acquainted with sacrifice, warning his con-

gregation not to mix in heathen sacrifice.

But notice that both Christians and

heathens have sacrifice!

The Christian sacrifice—the Mass—is
the renewal of Calvary. We speak of it as
the identical sacrifice, not in the sense that

Jesus dies again and again, but in the

sense that this dying is re-presented, that

it is offered again, that it is re-enacted

before the eyes of heaven. Jesus Christ,

offering the sacrifice of the cross, offers

the Holy Mass as our High Priest and the

invisible Head of the Church, using the

priests of His Church as instruments. Jesus

Christ, dying for us on Calvary, is the

4. I Cor. X. 16-22

7



same Victim immolated and consumed in

the sacrifice of the Mass. On Calvary, He

died, the victim of His adoration for the

Father, in thanksgiving, in reparation for

our sins, and in petition for the graces

necessary to His people. Holy Mass is

daily offered for these same intentions.

On the Cross there was bloodshed. The

Priest-Victim was visible in His sacred

Humanity. Golgotha was unique. It hap-

pened once in history, and was enough to

atone for the sins of a thousand worlds.

But in the Mass, this atonement is applied

to the souls of men.

In other words, through the Mass, the

body and blood of the Son are constantly

being mystically sacrificed and presented

to the Everlasting Father. It is an ever-

lasting extension of the redemption. It

goes on without ending. There are four

Masses beginning every second of the day

in some part of the world. Four spotless

hosts are raised each second—four chalices
flash into the morning sun, expressing our

adoration of the Father and reminding

3



Him of our redemption. It is the constant

prayer of Christ’s people on earth—His
never-ending mead of worship given to the

Father.

Each Mass is the property of the uni-

versal Church, of the whole body. Christ

prays not only for those gathered around

the altar, but for our Holy Father, who

is the personation of our unity, for our

bishop, and for all faithful Christians, liv-

ing and dead.

JESUS - A PRIEST

Jesus is our priest, and one is the priest-

hood of the New Law. Not that we, who

have been set apart and ordained by our

bishops, are not really priests; but our

priesthood is only a share in that catholic,

that universal priesthood, exercised by

Christ. He acts through us. What power

we have is His. In His coming, He com-

pletely absorbed the priesthood of the

Ancient Dispensation. He has become the

New Patriarch of humanity, the Priest of
the race, sharing His priesthood with those

whom he foreknew and set apart. It is He

9



whom St. Paul calls "our Advocate, al-

ways making intercession for us.”

Now perhaps you can understand the

crowds surging in and out of Catholic

churches. Every morning brings its multi-

tudes of devout believers to assist at this

Holy Sacrifice. Around the altar they

gather to see, with eyes of faith, the open-

ing of the Heavens, the majesty of the

Trinity, and the dew of grace dropping

upon the earth; there they join with our

Lady, with St. Joseph and the Apostles,

with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with all

the holy martyrs and spotless virgins, in

offering this sacrifice of God to God.

There is no sound other than the tink-

ling of a bell. The drama begins and is

consummated in half an hour. But the

faithful are appropriating the sacrifice and

offering it for their needs; they are uniting

their hearts and minds with the High

Priest, and by giving glory to God, they

intensify their own supernatural life and

merit an increase of God’s love and help

for themselves. For the Mass is more than

10



a prayer; it is an efficient action
—

"effi-

cient” in the sense that it is bound to have

an effect. It is Jesus Christ who is praying

with and for us. The Everlasting Father

cannot refuse the prayer of His Son and

the re-presentation of that love-offering

first consummated on Calvary.

PERFECTION

This is our perfect sacrifice: perfect, be-

cause it was bequeathed to us by an all-

wise and an all-powerful God; perfect,

because it is offered by Jesus Christ, our

Link between heaven and earth, uniting

in Himself the human with the divine;

perfect, because God will never refuse it,

for as Man, our God knows our needs

from direct experience, and as God, he is

able infallibly to please the Father.

In the Mass we give God perfect adora-

tion—for we are bound to adore Him. It
is not so much a part of His law, the

requirement of that adoration, as it is

ordinary common-sense. He made us. He
keeps us in existence. It took His command

to begin the world, but we tend to forget

11



the constant command which keeps it mov-

ing. We cannot raise our arms, we cannot
so much as blink our eyes, without the

divine assistance; and were God to with-

draw His support, we would vanish in-

stantly into the nothingness whence He

first called us. It is for us to acknowledge

that fact with genuine humility.

Considering the dignity of our Priest

and Victim in the Mass, we see that there

could be no more exalted expression of

adoration. And because of the fact that we

have been made one with Him in baptism,

we share in that sacrifice just as, through

Adam, our common father, we shared in

original sin.

Thanksgiving is so closely related to

adoration that we sometimes find it hard

to tell them apart. We owe God adoration
because He is what He is. Every created

thing, from angels down to stones, and

on down to the most abandoned soul in

hell, owes God adoration, because He is

the infinite Creator. But thanksgiving is

an appreciation of His kindnesses to us.

He made us. We have our life at His
12



hands. He chose good parents for us. His

goodness has given us work, a home, food

and family life. Who can tell what calami-
ties His hand has spared us?—it is always
possible to imagine a worsening of our

condition. We have no ground for smug-
ness. What we have comes from God, and

if we want His kindness to go on in out

behalf, we must thank Him. We know
how we ourselves hate thanklessness! And

as it is, God is so good to us that we could

never give him enough thanks, even

though we spent our lives in prayer, be-

cause during our very moments of prayer

His blessings would be multiplied over us.

In spite of God’s many favors, we are

not only ungrateful, but often sinful. Some

of us are always rubbing elbows with the

devil; others never commit a serious sin,

but often commit deliberate smaller sins.

In any event, we are, all of us, constantly

involving ourselves more and more deeply

in a debt of satisfaction to God. We are
forever slighting His law, forever pre-

ferring our own interests to His, and con-

13



sequently running up a fearful bill to be

settled sometime, either here or hereafter.

THE ASKING OF FAVORS

We must ask God for our needs, too.
At Mass our Lord prays for those who are

taking part with Him. He joins His prayer

with our feeble request, raising up our

arms with the strong arm of His might,

so that if we ask at Mass, we are bound

to be heard, and although we cannot be

sure that what we ask will be granted pre-

cisely as we have asked it, we may be sure

that our prayer has not been lost and that

something will be given us, something

better for us.

Of course, the usage of centuries has

greatly ornamented the sacrifice. There is

a richness of ceremonial, the reading of

psalms and scriptural lessons, many

prayers addressed to God on behalf of the

Church, and prayers of thanksgiving; but

essentially there is an offering, a conver-

sion of the bread and wine into our Lord’s

body and blood, then the communion, i.e.

14



the consuming of them by priest and

people.

Looking back through history, deep into

the ages of faith, we see a time when there

was not a Christian who did not make this

sacrifice the center of his life. The priceless

vestments, the fabulous chalices and sacred

utensils, the gold and silver thuribles, the

richly ornamented ritual, the chaste sub-

limity of the music; these were the lavish-

ments of medieval society on the Mass.

WHEN CAESAR RULED

Pushing back still further, we reach the

age of the Caesars—those 300 years dur-
ing which the Church faced alternating

liberty and persecution. Why do we have

candles on our altars, if not in remem-

brance of those first three centuries when

Christians, worried and hunted by Roman

law, dug their chapels underground and

held divine services under the soft light of

tapers? Why is every Mass offered over
the remains of some saint?— because in
their underground churches, the Christians

could think of no better altar for the Mass

15



than the coffin of one who had poured out

his blood for Christ—a custom which we
Catholics have to this day.

"For I myself have received from the

Lord (what I also delivered to you)
,
that

the Lord Jesus on the night in which He

was betrayed, took bread, and giving

thanks broke, and said, 'This is My body
which shall be given up for you; do this

in remembrance of Me.’ In like manner

also the cup, after He had supped, saying,

'This cup is the New covenant in My
blood; do this as often as you drink it, in

remembrance of Me. For as often as you

shall eat this bread and drink the cup, you

proclaim the death of the Lord, until He

comes’.”5

We have gone back from the present day
to the time of St. Paul. In every age we

have found men at Mass. How, then, can

anyone say that the Mass is wrong, or un-

scriptural, or un-Christian? No — it is
rather for the Church to ask outsiders

—

"Where is your Mass? How can you be

Christians without a Mass?”

J. I Cor. XI. 25-17

16





NEVER

DESTROY

GOOD

PRINT.

Pass

It

from

Person

to

Person.

Thanks!