The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass :From the Council of Trent we know the Church intends the Mass to be regarded as a "true and proper sacrifice." If the Mass is to be a true sacrifice in the literal sense, it must realize the philosophical conception of sacrifice. Thus the preliminary question arises: What is a sacrifice in the proper sense of the term? Four things are necessary to any sacrifice:

Sacrifice of the Mass The word Mass (missa) first established itself as the general  designation for the Eucharistic Sacrifice in the West after  the time of Pope Gregory the Great (d. 604), the early Church   having used the expression the "breaking of bread"  (fractio panis) or "liturgy"; the Greek Church has employed  the latter name for almost sixteen centuries. There were current in the early days of Christianity other terms; "The Lord's Supper" (coena dominica), the "Sacrifice" (prosphora, oblatio), "the gathering together" (synaxis, congregatio), "the Mysteries", and (since Augustine), "the Sacrament of the Altar". What is a Sacrifice? From the Council of Trent we know the Church intends the Mass to be regarded as a "true and proper sacrifice." If the   Mass is to be a true sacrifice in the literal sense, it must realize the philosophical conception of sacrifice. Thus the  preliminary question arises: What is a sacrifice in the proper sense of the term? Four things are necessary to any sacrifice: a sacrificial gift (res oblata), a sacrificing minister (minister legitimus), a sacrificial action (actio sacrificica), and a sacrificial end or object (finis sacrificii). (1) The sacrificial gift must exist in Physical substance, and  must be really or virtually destroyed (i.e. animals slain, libations poured out, other things rendered unfit for ordinary uses),  or at least really transformed, at a fixed place of sacrifice   (ara, altare), and offered up to God. (2) As regards the person offering, it is not permitted that any  and every individual should offer sacrifice on his own  account. Only a qualified person (usually called priest, sacerdos, lereus), who has been given the power by commission  or vocation, may offer up sacrifice in the name of the community. After Moses, the priests authorized by law in the Old  Testament belonged to the tribe of Levi, and more especially to the house of Aaron. But, since Christ Himself received and  exercised His high priesthood, not by the arrogation of authority  but in virtue of a Divine call, there is still greater need that priests who represent Him should receive power and authority  through the Sacrament of Holy Orders, to offer up the sublime   Sacrifice of the New Law. (3) Sacrifice reaches its culmination in the sacrificial act, in  which we have to distinguish between the proximate matter and   the real form. The form lies, not in the real transformation or  complete destruction of the sacrificial gift, but rather in its  sacrificial oblation, in whatever way it may be transformed. Even where a real destruction took place, as in the sacrificial  slayings of the Old Testament, the act of destroying was  performed by the servants of the Temple, whereas the proper  oblation, consisting in the "spilling of blood" (aspersio sanguinis), was the exclusive function of the priests.  Thus the real form of the Sacrifice of the Cross consisted neither in the killing of Christ by the Roman soldiers nor in an imaginary self-destruction on the part of Jesus, but in His voluntary surrender of His Blood shed by another's hand,  and in His offering of His life for the sins of the world.  Consequently, the destruction or transformation constitutes at most the proximate matter; the sacrificial oblation, on the  other hand, is the physical form of the sacrifice. (4) Finally, the object of the sacrifice, as significant of its  meaning, lifts the external offering beyond any mere mechanical  action into the sphere of the spiritual and Divine. The object is  the soul of the sacrifice, and, in a certain sense, its  "metaphysical form". In all religions we find, as the essential  idea of sacrifice, a complete surrender to God for the purpose  of union with Him; and to this idea there is added, on the part  of those who are in sin, the desire for pardon and reconciliation.  Hence, at once arises the distinction between sacrifices of praise  and expiation (sacrificium latreuticum et propitiatorium), and   sacrifices of thanksgiving and petition   (sacrificium eucharisticum et impetratorium); hence also the  obvious inference that under pain of idolatry, sacrifice is to be  offered to God alone, as the beginning and end of all things If then we combine the above four constituent ideas in a single  definition, we may say:"Sacrifice is the external oblation to God  by an authorized minister of a sense-perceptible object, either  through its destruction or at least through its real transformation,  in acknowledgement of God's supreme dominion and of the  appeasing of His wrath."  The Council of Trent laid stress on the  prophetical relation that undoubtedly exists between the offering of bread  and wine by Melchizadek, and the  Last Supper of Jesus.The occurrence  was briefly as follows: After  Abraham (then still called "Abram") with his armed men had rescued his nephew Lot from the four hostile kings who had fallenon him and robbed him,  Melchizadek, King of Salem  (Jerusalem), "bringing forth bread  and wine, for he was a priest of the  Most High God, blessed him [Abraham]  and said: Blessed be Abram by the Most High God . . .And he [Abraham] gave him the tithes of all".   Catholic theologians have from the beginning rightly emphasized the circumstance that Melchizadek brought out bread and wine, not merely to provide refreshment for Abram's followers wearied after  the battle, for they were well supplied with provisions out of the booty they had taken, but to present bread and wine as food-offerings   to Almighty God. Not as a host, but as "priest of the Most High God",  he brought forth bread and wine, blessed Abraham, and received  the tithes from him. In fact, the very reason for his  "bringing forth bread and wine" is expressly stated to have been his priesthood: "for he was a priest." Accordingly, Melchizadek  made a real food-offering of bread and wine. Now it is the express  teaching of Scripture that Christ is "a priest for ever according  to the order of Melchizadek". Christ, however, in no way  resembled his priestly prototype in His bloody sacrifice on the Cross, but only and solely at His Last Supper. On that occasion He  likewise made an unbloody food-offering. He accomplished something more than a mere oblation of bread and wine, namely the sacrifice  of His Body and Blood under the forms of bread and wine. Since the   Mass is nothing else than a continual repetition, commanded by   Christ Himself, of the Sacrifice accomplished at the Last Supper,  it follows that the Sacrifice of the Mass partakes of the New  Testament fulfillment of the prophecy of Melchizedek.   Passing over the more or less distinct  references to the Mass in other prophets,  the best and clearest prediction concerning  the Mass is undoubtedly that of the prophet  Malachi, circa 500 B.C., who makes a  threatening announcement to the Levite  priests in the name of God: "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  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: for my name is great among Gentiles, saith the Lord of hosts"  (Malachi 1:10-11). According  to the interpretation of the Fathers  of the Church, the prophet here foretells the everlasting Sacrifice  of the New Dispensation. For he declares  that these two things will certainly  come to pass: The abolition of all Levitical sacrifices, and the institution of an entirely new sacrifice. As God's determination to do away with the sacrifices of the   Levites is adhered to consistently throughout the denunciation, the essential thing is to specify correctly the sort of sacrifice that  is promised in their stead. In regard to this, the following propositions have to be established: That the new sacrifice is to come about in the days of the   Messiah; that it is to be a true and real sacrifice, and that it does not coincide formally with the Sacrifice of  the Cross. The sacrifice referred to by Malachi did not signify a sacrifice  of his time, but was rather to be a future sacrifice belonging to the age of the Messiah. The Last Supper was to be that first sacrifice.  New Testament Reference to the Mass (1) Passing now to the proofs contained in the New Testament, we may begin by remarking that many dogmatic writers see in the dialogue of Jesus with the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well a  prophetic reference to the Mass (John 4:21): "Woman believe Me,  that the hour cometh, when you shall neither on this mountain  [Garizim] nor in Jerusalem, adore the Father .... But the hour cometh and now is, when the true adorers shall adore the Father in spirit and in truth." Since the point at issue between the   Samaritans and the Jews related, not to the ordinary, private  offering of prayer practiced everywhere, but to the solemn, public worship embodied in a real Sacrifice, Jesus really seems to refer to a future real sacrifice of praise, which would not be confined  in its liturgy to the city Jerusalem, but would captivate the whole  world. (2) The feeding of the multitude in the wilderness, contained in all four Gospels, foreshadows Jesus as the Bread of Life. In John  (6:26-27) Jesus says: Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes - by LANFRANCO "I am telling you the truth; you are looking for Me because you ate the bread and had all you wanted, not because you understand my miracles. Do not work for food that spoils;  instead, work for food that lasts for eternal life. This is the food which the Son of Man will give you,  because God the Father has put His mark of approval on Him." (3) The tearing of the huge Temple Veil into two pieces, by an   Act of God, as Jesus expired on the Cross, is the final sign of  the Sacrifice of the Mass to come. In order to understand and  appreciate the significance of the torn veil, we first need to  understand the significance of the veil itself.  The veil was a thick veil made of  woven linen that separated the holy place in the tabernacle from  the Most Holy Place. Into this Most Holy Place, no one was  allowed to enter except Israel's high priest. Even he could enter  only once a year with the blood of a sacrifice. Only after he had  made an offering for his sins could he offer the blood of a sacrifice  for the sins the people had committed in ignorance. The plain  significance of the linen curtain was that the old covenant could  not reveal the way for the sinner's approach to God. It does not  require a wild imagination or inspired ingenuity to find a symbolical significance for the tabernacle veil. Scripture makes the   Holy Spirit's intention concerning this matter very clear. It stood as a symbol of the old covenant's inability to reveal the way into   God's holy presence. The priests of the old covenant had to repeat  the same sacrificial ritual year-after-year, thus signifying that   God  had not truly forgiven the sins for which they had offered the   sacrifice. The Day of Atonement was a solemn reminder that   guilty, covenant-breaking sinners could not approach a holy God.  The best  the old covenant sacrifices could do was to provide ceremonial cleansing for sins committed unintentionally. They could formally  restore the relationships that had been broken between a man and  his God and a man and his neighbor, but they could not take away  those sins that had caused the breach.  The tearing of the temple veil is full of s ignificance for the New Covenant people of God. The radical  earthquakes that accompanied this event, as well as the event itself,  bears eloquent testimony that the redemptive work of Christ  effected far more than a mere "change of administration" within an  overarching covenant of grace. His redemptive word was a   divine intervention in history that inaugurated a new age;  a new creation. Those who belong to this new creation are heirs of better promises that are granted by a new and better covenant. The old order has passed away, and the new order has come to stay. As a result, the most holy place on earth during the old covenant  order was no longer holy. Forty years later the Roman Legions of  Titus would completely destroy the Temple. The number Forty is a  time of preparation for the New.   It is first of all necessary to make clear  that in every sacrifice of the Mass four  distinct categories of persons really  participate. (1) At the head of all stands of course the High Priest, Christ  Himself;  to make the Sacrifice of the Cross fruitful for us and to secure its  application, He offers Himself as a sacrifice, which is quite independent of the merits or demerits of the Church, the  celebrant  or the faithful present at the sacrifice. (2) Next after Christ, and in the second place, comes the Church  as a juridical person, who, according to the express teaching of t he Council of Trent  has received from the hands of her Divine Founder the institution of the Mass and also the commission to  ordain priests and to have celebrated by these the most  venerable Sacrifice. This intermediate stage between Christ  and the celebrant  may be neither passed over nor eliminated, since a bad and immoral  priest, as an ecclesiastical official, does not offer up his own   sacrifice -- which indeed could only be impure -- but the   immaculate Sacrifice of Christ and His spotless Bride, which can  be soiled by no wickedness of the celebrant. However, the greatness and extent of this ecclesiastical service is dependent on  the greater or less holiness of the reigning pope, the bishops, and the clergy throughout the World, and for this reason in times of  ecclesiastical decay and laxity of morals (especially at the papal  court and among the episcopate) the fruits of the Mass, resulting  from the sacrificial activity of the Church, might under certain  circumstances, easily be very small. (3) With Christ and His Church is associated in third place the  celebrating priest, since he is the representative through whom  the real and the mystical Christ offer up the sacrifice. If,  therefore, the celebrant be a man of great personal devotion, holiness, and   purity, there will accrue an additional fruit which will benefit not  himself alone, but also those in whose favor he applies the Mass.  (4) Finally, in the fourth place, must be mentioned those who  participate actively in the Sacrifice of the Mass, e.g., the servers,  lectors, organist, singers, and the whole congregation joining in  the sacrifice.  The more fervent the prayer, the richer the fruit.  Most intimate is the active participation in the Sacrifice of those who receive Holy Communion during the Mass, since in their case  the special fruits of the Communion are added to those of the   Mass.   Papal Guidance Concerning the Mass "At the Last Supper, on the night He was handed over, Our Lord  instituted the Eucharistic Sacrifice of His Body and Blood, to  perpetuate the sacrifice of the cross throughout the ages until He  should come, and thus entrust to the Church, His beloved spouse, the memorial of  His death and resurrection: a sacrament of  devotion, a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a paschal banquet  in which Christ is received, the soul is filled with grace and there is given to us the pledge of future glory." "The Mass in fact truly makes present the sacrifice of the Cross. Under the species of bread and wine, upon which has been  invoked the outpouring of the Spirit who works with absolutely  unique power in the words of consecration, Christ offers Himself to the Father in the same act of sacrifice by which He  offered Himself on the Cross. 'In this divine sacrifice which is  accomplished in the Mass, the same Christ who offered Himse lf once and for all in a bloody manner on the altar of the Cross is contained and is offered in an unbloody manner'. To His sacrifice, Christ unites the sacrifice of the Church: 'In the  Eucharist the sacrifice of Christ becomes also the sacrifice  of the members of His Body. The lives of the faithful, their praise, sufferings, prayer and work, are united with those of Christ and with his total offering, and so acquire a new value'. The  truth that the whole community shares in Christ's sacrifice is especially evident in the Sunday gathering, which makes it possible to bring to the altar the week that has passed, with  all its human burdens." . . . . by Pope John Paul II Con clusionThe Institution of the Eucharist - by JOOS van Wassenhove -   No feast better exemplifies Catholicism than   Holy Thursday's Mass of the Lord's Supper for it was at the Last Supper Jesus Christ  instituted the Blessed Sacrament when He turned the bread He  offered His disciples into His Own Flesh and the wine into His Precious Blood. Though the physical properties of the bread  remain the same, when He pronounced the words "Take this, all of you, and eat it: this is My Body which will be given up for you."  it became His Body.   The Last Supper - by Juan de JUANES - from Museo del Prado, Madrid Then, as the Canon of the Mass  says, "When supper was ended, He took the cup. Again He gave  you thanks and praise, gave the  cup to His disciples, and said:  'Take this, all of you, and drink from it.  This is the cup of My Blood, the Blood of the New and  Everlasting Covenant.  It will be shed  for you and for all so that sins may be forgiven. Do this in memory of me.'"  At that very moment the wine, still wine in all physical aspects, became His Precious Blood. Jesus used bread, for He is the  "Bread of Life" (John 6:35) and wine   for He is the "true Vine" (John 15:1).  The fruit of the vine becomes the   fruits of Redemption, made possible  by Christ's death, a death which totally made it possible for every  one of God's children to be redeemed. The only difference between th e Sacrifice of the Cross and the Sacrifice of the Mass is that  on the   former, Jesus physically shed His Blood, while in the latter  there is no   physical shedding of blood nor physical death because Christ  has already  been immolated once. By His death He gained for us the merit and, through the Holy  Sacrifice of the Mass, applies to us that merit and reward of   His Bloody Death through the unbloody oblation of His Body and Blood during Mass. It is very similar to what one would see on video tape. What was taped happened at the moment  it was being filmed. When it is being played over and over, no  matter how many times, it is a re-enactment of the event. Though it cannot happen again, we are reliving it as though it were. So also, in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, Jesus continues to offer Himself as a Sacrifice in order to unite us with Him, to give us a   gift worthy to be offered to God (Malachi 1:11), "a clean oblation"  and allow us the opportunity to share in the merits of  His eterna l Sacrifice on the Cross. The fruits of attending Mass worthily, and in the state of grace are that He not only answers our  heartfelt prayers, but we gain even more of the merits of Christ   for our souls, as well as gaining temporal blessings. When we consider these things, isn't it sad that so few attend   Daily Mass? Isn't it even sadder that so many Catholics attend Sunday Mass without truly realizing what they are partaking in? We need to re-emphasize the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, to instill  in all the Catholic faithful the value of the Mass which is infinite  because it is the renewal of Christ's death. Therefore to attend Mass devoutly is the greatest prayer we can  offer. There is no more holy and divine act that can be performed  here on earth than the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. We need to let  all our brothers and sisters know that all who participate in the Mass, both here on earth and in Purgatory, reap the general fruits since the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is offered for everyone  . This not only includes all who are present, or assist, especially the priest who represents Christ, but also the person for whom it is being offered as well as the souls in Purgatory - the   Church Suffering. Why go to Daily Mass? Mass is worth as much as the sacrifice of Our Lord's life, sufferings, and death. Holy Mass is the world's most powerful atonement for your sins. At the hour of death the holy Masses you have heard devoutly will be your greatest consolation. Every Mass will go with you to judgment and plead for pardon. At Mass, you can diminish more or less temporal punishment due to your sins, according to your fervor. Assisting devoutly at Holy Mass, you render to the sacred humanity of Our Lord the greatest homage. He forgives the venial sins which you have not confessed. The power of Satan over you is diminished. He supplies for m any of your negligence and omissions. You are preserved from dangers and misfortunes which o therwise might have befallen you. You shorten your Purgatory. Every Mass wins for you a higher degree of glory in Heaven. You receive the priest's blessing which Our Lord ratifies in Heaven. You kneel amidst a multitude of holy angels, who are present at the adorable Sacrifice with reverential awe. You are blessed in your temporal goods and affairs. By piously hearing Holy Mass you afford the Souls in Purgatory the greatest possible relief. One Mass heard during life will be of more benefit t o you than many heard for you after your death. http://copiosa.org/mass/mass.htm