What is Holy Mass?

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the very heart of Catholicism. The Mass is Christ’s Sacrifice. His sacrifice was presented once on Calvary 2,000 years ago, but it is an Eternal Sacrifice offered to the Father outside of time and space. It is re-presented in time and space in the Mass. The same Eternal Sacrifice is enacted every time a Mass is said. It is literally made present to us there. This Great Sacrifice has been perpetuated on the altars of Catholic churches every day and continually for the last 2,000 years. That is what the Mass is.
Without the Mass, the world would end. St. Padre Pio said, “It would be easier for the world to exist without the sun than without the Mass.”

• It is within the Mass that we follow Christ’s command to eat his flesh and drink his blood (in Holy Communion).
• It is through the Mass that Grace–the Divine Life of God–enters into the world.
• It is by the Mass that the priest offers God the Son to God the Father as a propitiatory sacrifice for the forgiveness of all our sins. In other words, it is by offering the Mass that the redemptive value of Jesus Christ’s Sacrifice is applied to us.

This Is What the Roman Mass Looks Like:

How We Really Learn the Faith

The priest has just transubstantiated the host and adored God. Now he holds up the "Hidden Jesus" for the faithful to adore.

The Mass is also the primary vehicle for teaching the Faith to all the people of the world. Just as the bloodstream carries nutrients to all the cells of the body, the Mass teaches Catholic Truth to the faithful. We men learn by observation. We “soak things up.” For example, when we see that everybody genuflects before the tabernacle week after week, we learn that God is there. We imbibe all the truths of the Faith this way, often without even being aware we are doing so, and much more effectively than if we just learned it in a book. That is why people knew the faith so well before the invention of the printing press and universal literacy. Everything in the Mass–even subtle details–express some truth about the Catholic Faith. Change the Mass, and you will change what Catholics believe. Because the Faith was revealed by God, the Mass must be carefully guarded. The Faith itself cannot change; God does not change. But our beliefs can change, and if they do, we shall have abandoned the Faith–that which was revealed by God. That is why St. Teresa of Avila said, “I would die a thousand deaths to protect just one rubric of the Holy Mass!”

The Mass of All Time

The Mass of the Roman Rite (called in recent years the “Tridentine Mass” or the “Traditional Latin Mass”) is the earliest and most venerable rite of the Holy Sacrifice. It is completely intact from the time of Pope St. Damasus in the 4th century, and in its essential elements, it goes back to the Apostles themselves. It is the “Mass of All Time,” the perfect expression of the dogma of the faith. It was infallibly canonized by Pope St. Pius V in 1570, whose Papal Bull Quo Primum guaranteed, of itself, the absolute right of every priest to say it, and every faithful to hear it, “without any scruple of conscience or fear of incurring any penalty, judgment, or censure,” until the end of time. It was this Mass that formed saints throughout the world for centuries.
It was this Roman Mass that was jettisoned in 1968 when, as Pope Pius XII prophetically said, the “suicide of altering the Faith in [Holy Mother Church's] liturgy,” was finally executed. The order came from the highest levels in the Church.

A New Ecumenical Mass

Above, Bugnini, architect of the New Mass. Below, the six protestants who helped manufacture it.

After Vatican Council II appeared to officially sanction the condemned proposition of “Ecumenism,” a committee was formed for the purpose of manufacturing a new ecumenical Mass. Six Protestant ministers played an active part on the committee, and it was lead by Anibale Cardinal Bugnini, a Freemason (who was eventually exposed and exiled to Iran). Pope Paul VI charged this commission to remove anything from the Mass that might offend the sensibilities of non-Catholics or non-Christians.
The resulting ecumenical rite was called the New Order, or Novus Ordo Mass. It effectively obscured many Catholic dogmas. Words and gestures (rubrics) which clearly manifested belief in transubstantiation, propitiatory sacrifice, salvation of the elect, hell, penance, purgatory, Mary and the Saints, the Fatherhood of God, Christ’s social reign, the mediation of the priest, and many other key doctrines were changed or purged in the hopes of pleasing heretics, schismatics, and non-Christians. (see footnote)

Clowns at Calvary?

The President of the Assembly and the replacement of the altar with a table. The tabernacle has been removed.

The Mass was no longer referred to as a Sacrifice, but was instead called a “meal” or “celebration.” Altars (used for sacrifice) were demolished and tables (used for meals) were installed in their place. Even the tabernacle was removed from the altar and set off in a corner, removing God from the center of attention. The sacrificing priest was now called the “president of the assembly,” and instead of facing God on behalf of the people, he faced the people, turning his back on God. (How do you offer sacrifice to a God you have your back to?) Because people believed that the Mass was a celebration and not the Great Sacrifice, solemnity and respect were discouraged. Instead, lively music was introduced to create a happy, informal, festive atmosphere, going so far in some places as creating a circus atmosphere with “Clown Masses.”
Jesus Christ harshly condemned people for making religion into a merely external show. Our religion is one of the interior, of a deeply personal relationship with God, “our Father.” The Roman Mass is characterized by silence. One can truly participate interiorly with the proceedings, uniting one’s soul to Christ as He is offered in sacrifice right there. One can commune with God while in His Presence. The New Mass, characterized by noise and continual distraction, made this true participation nearly impossible. Only a superficial, merely exterior participation of the people, called “active participation,” was encouraged.

This Is What the Ecumenical Mass Typically Looks Like:

Is It Really a Sacrifice?

Overshadowing everything else are crucial changes made to the Mass itself that cast doubt on

1. the validity of the Sacrament (the Eucharist), and
2. whether or not the Sacrifice was really being done.

Pope Paul VI affirmed in 1972 that he had the feeling that the smoke of Satan has entered into the temple of God through some crack.

This is a serious statement that must be fully appreciated. It has far-reaching and terrible consequences for humanity. If the Sacrament is invalid, not only are millions of people deprived of the power of the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, but the presence of Jesus (in the tabernacles) is drastically diminished in the world in proportion to how many masses are still valid. Pope Pius XII was speaking in dead earnest when he said, “A day will come when…Christians will search in vain for the red lamp where God awaits them.”
Of infinitely more importance is this–if the Sacrifice is not really being done it would mean that Divine Grace was severely withdrawn from the world, because Grace enters the world through the Mass. It may mean that we, as a race, are finally and definitively abandoning God (apostasizing), and He is letting us go our stubborn, hell-bent way. In the words of Cardinal Ratzinger, there could be no worse “danger which threatens the life of the Christian and therefore the life of the world.”

For In-Depth Knowledge:

• For a great appreciation of the immense treasure given us, ponder these 77 Graces and Fruits of Holy Mass.
• For a clear, in-depth study of the New Mass, read the Ottaviani Intervention (pronounced O-tah-vee-AH’-nee).
• To see the terms in which Pope St. Pius V guaranteed forever the privilege of every Catholic to hear or say the Roman Mass, read Quo Primum.
• For an illuminating comparison of the Roman Mass and the New Mass, read The Theology and Spirituality of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. ^{[offsite link (pdf)]}
• For 62 specific reasons why Catholics must have nothing to do with the New Mass, read the statement of the priests of Campos, Brazil.
• Concerning the holiness of Communion, see how the three children received communion from the Angel of Fatima.

Footnote: The guiding spirit behind the writers of the New Mass disturbingly resembles the spirit of the arch-heretic Martin Luther, who showed his connivance in destroying the faith of the populace in these terms:

When we have overthrown the Mass, we shall have overthrown the whole Papacy with it. For it is upon the Mass, as upon a rock, that the Papacy rests—with its monasteries, its bishoprics, its colleges, its altars, its ministers, and its doctrines. All these will fall when their sacrilegious and abominable Mass has crumbled into the dust…. Yet, in order to achieve this aim successfully and safely, it will be necessary to preserve some of the ceremonies of the ancient mass for the weak-minded, who might be scandalized by too sudden a change.

and elsewhere:

I am speaking of that abominable Canon which is a confluence of slimy lagoons; they have made of the mass a sacrifice; they have added to it offertories. The mass is not a sacrifice, it is not the act of a sacrificing high priest…. Let us call it a blessing, or eucharist, or Lord’s Table, or Lord’s Supper, or the memorial of the Lord. Or give it any title we like, provided that it is not sullied by the term sacrifice, or re-enactment.

The parallel is further confirmed by observing for ourselves the hatred and repugnance many priests of the post-Vatican II era have for the Roman Mass.

The same strategy of making subtle but real changes in the Mass was employed at the time of King Henry VIII by the bishops of England, who defected en masse from the Church (with the exception of only one–St. John Fisher, who was beheaded). It was an effective way to transform a devout Catholic populace into a Protestant one in the space of one or two generations. A typical citizen would not be aware of the changes and would lose his faith through blind obedience to the authorities. (Return)

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