hey can not eat who serve the tabernacle."
The sacrifices of the Old Law were provisional and prefigured the great
sacrifice of the New Law foretold by the prophet Malachy. This glorious
prophecy of Malachy, "From the rising of the sun even to the going down
My name is great among the Gentiles; in every place there is sacrifice,
and there is offered to My name a clean offering; for My name is great
among the Gentiles, saith the Lord of Hosts"--this glorious prophecy is
fulfilled only by the great sacrifice of the Catholic Church. We alone
can say with St. Paul, "_Habemus altare_" "We have an altar" and a true
sacrifice. Of all the blessings bequeathed by Jesus Christ to His
Church, there is none better, none greater, none holier than the holy
sacrifice of the Mass. It is the sacrifice of His own body and blood
offered to the heavenly Father under the appearances of bread and wine.
It was instituted by Our Lord at the Last Supper, when He took bread and
wine in His sacred hands and blessed them, saying, "This is My body. . .
. This is My blood. . . . Do this for a remembrance of Me."
He instituted the holy Mass in order to represent and continue the
sacrifice of Calvary. St Paul says, in his first epistle to the
Corinthians, xi. 26, that it was instituted to show the death of the
Lord until His second coming. After the consecration, which the priest
effects by saying over the bread and wine the same words which Jesus
Christ said at the Last Supper, there is no longer bread and wine, but
the true and living Jesus Christ, God and man, hidden under the
appearances of bread and wine, just as in the manger He was hidden under
the appearance of an infant. The priest offers Him up to His heavenly
Father in the name of the Catholic Church, or rather He offers Himself
up, and we can confidently hope that we will obtain more through prayers
at the holy Mass than through our own unaided prayers. In order to have
part in the holy sacrifice of the Mass a person should follow the
actions and prayers of the priest, especially at the offertory,
consecration, and communion; meditate on the passion of Christ; say the
rosary or the prayers in the prayer-books, at the same time uniting his
intention with the intention of the sacrificing priest.
The sacrifice of the Mass is a true sacrifice, because it is the
oblation of a victim to God to represent by its destruction or change
His supreme dominion over life and death. It is offered to s
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