Third Friday after Pentecost

Summary of the Morrow’s Meditation

We will to-morrow consider a fourth character appertaining to the Holy Mass, which is that of an impetratory sacrifice; that is to say, a sacrifice of prayer or of request, and we shall see that, in fact, the Mass is: 1st, the most excellent of prayers; 2d, that it is a prayer which is all-powerful over the heart of God. We will then make the resolution: 1st, better to perform our ordinary prayers; 2d, often to ask of God the spirit of prayer. Our spiritual nosegay shall be the words of our divine Master: “Amen, Amen, I say to you, if you ask the Father anything in My name He will give it you” (John xvi. 23).

Meditation for the Morning

Let us adore Jesus Christ on the holy altar, as the great suppliant of the universal Church. Let us ask Him to permit us to participate in the excellence of His prayer: “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke xi. 1).

FIRST POINT

Holy Mass is the most Excellent of Prayers

For, 1st, it is Jesus Christ Himself who prays at the altar; Himself who said to His Father, “Thou hearest Me always” (John xi. 42); Himself, the equal of God, and God like His Father, who charges Himself with our prayers, supports them by His merits, and offers them consumed in the fire of His charity. 2d. He presents them to His Father, begging of Him, in the most humble of states; He presents Himself as our Victim, making His wounds and His blood, which cries out louder than that of Abel, speak for us; He presents Himself as our High-Priest, with an immense desire to obtain all that He asks for, and He carries His desire into the depths of His Father’s heart. 3d. Our prayer is united with His, but in the most favorable of conditions; for we give to the heavenly Father infinitely more than we ask of Him; we ask Him for His grace, and in return we give Him His own Son, by the oblation of the Holy Sacrifice, so that in the Mass Jesus Christ prays with us and in us, and we pray with Him and in Him. Could there be a prayer more excellent?

SECOND POINT

Holy Mass is a Prayer which is All-powerful over the Heart of God

It is remarkable that it is the priest himself who decides upon the intention of the Sacrifice, who says to Jesus Christ what it is which he asks; and Jesus Christ, this willing proxy, presents to His Father all the requests with which He is charged, without ever finding them too numerous or too difficult. Now who is there that cannot see the supreme all-powerfulness of such a prayer? The most fervent prayers of the angels and saints put together do not approach it. They are never anything more than the supplications of the servants of God; but the Mass is the supplication of the Son of God Himself, which is always heard and granted, says St. Paul, and even cannot be refused, because He is His well-beloved Son in whom He finds all His pleasure, His Son equal to God, and God like Him. We do not always see upon earth the effects of this divine Sacrifice. But when we enter into heaven, there where in the pure light of God are seen the secret springs by which everything is moved, and the relation between effects and their causes, we shall recognize a world of marvels obtained by the Holy Sacrifice both in the supernatural and the natural order. Whence we ought to see: 1st, what confidence we ought to have in the Holy Sacrifice and what happiness it ought to be to us to assist at it; it is the best of all moments for prayer, the most favorable moment for begging for all kinds of graces; 2d, that the Church has good reason to put so often into the mouth of the priest during the action of the Sacrifice this invitation to prayer, Oremus—Let us pray, because at such a time we cannot ask too much and we can always obtain everything. If up to the present time our prayers have not always been granted, it has been because we have not made our supplications aright; we have made them without having a lively faith in these beautiful truths, without union with Jesus Christ, without recollection, perhaps even with a spirit full of distraction and a careless heart. Is it not true?

Resolutions and spiritual nosegay as above.