Friday, October 04, 2013

Daily Celebration of Mass

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Mass for the Dead: the Latin Mass Society's annual Requiem in Westminster Cathedral.

The Congregation of Clergy's document encouraging the Daily Celebration of Mass which I blogged about here still isn't on their website in English, though it is there in Italian, German, and Spanish.

The Latin Mass Society has had it translated into English now in full (and I am grateful to the blog commenter who produced a draft and sent it to the LMS Office) so you can download a pdf here - it is only two and half pages long. My favourite passages are below.

'Holy Mass is ‘the source and summit’ of the whole of the priestly life; from it the priest draws supernatural strength and it feeds the spirit of faith of which he has the most absolute need in order to conform himself to Christ and to serve Him worthily. In the same way as the manna in Exodus, which was collected every day, the priest has a daily need to drink from the fountain of grace, the sacrifice of Golgotha​​, which is represented sacramentally in the Holy Mass. To omit such a daily celebration—except only where it is not possible—means to deprive himself of the principal food required for his own sanctification and for the apostolic ministry of the Church, as well as to risk indulging in a kind of spiritual Pelagianism, which trusts more in the strength of man than in the gift of God.'
...
'The priest's pastoral charity—which as a rule can only reach the faithful travellers (viatores), transcends in the Holy Mass the boundaries of space and time. Celebrating in persona Christi, the priest is completing a work that exceeds the dimensions of the efficacy of human action, limited as this is by its own time and space and the history of its effects, and extends beyond the boundaries of what is humanly attainable. This applies, in particular, to the value of Christ’s merits, which in the Holy Mass are offered back to the Father on our behalf, and on behalf of many. Among the ‘many’ for whom Christ offered himself once and for all on the cross, and continues to offer himself on that sacramental Golgotha ​​which is the altars of our churches, are also the faithful departed, who are waiting to enter into the eternal vision of God.' 


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Mass for the Dead in St Benet's Hall, Oxford

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous7:19 pm

    Excellent, Dr. Shaw. What should we do without the LMS?

    ReplyDelete