okay
damaged
the name of the father and son holy god
good evening uh we'll consider
[Music]
uh the mass this evening but first we'll
look at our saint
at least one more time uh saint
philomena this morning when i was
studying about her life
a um kind of a universal point
about her came out which was um
that she's known for being very uh
childlike and a little bit uh playful
and that's saint philomena as of the
19th century when she started to do her
miracles and when she started to make
her
kind of her comeback or her return after
1500 years of being
in the catacombs
so you have stories of uh saint
philomena
working out cures for people and they'll
hear her voice kind of
laughing in the distance or helping
someone
uh get through a forest completely lost
some young girl of 13 years of age shows
up and says well just follow me
and they follow her until they get to a
clearing or something like that and then
she
disappears and they hear her
laughing in the distance but they don't
see anyone anymore
so there's something childlike and
playful about her
and what's beautiful about that
is that if you were to take away her
virginity or her purity and also her
martyrdom
then all of this playfulness would have
no purpose anymore
let me explain that it's because
she was such a warrior for the virtue of
purity
to stay innocent and it's because she
was so
persevering in that virtue all the way
to her death
that what you have in heaven is not just
a person who
arrived there after being battered and
just going through a hard time in this
life but you have a person in heaven
who has never left their state of
childhood
and i don't mean that in a juvenile way
you know there's also the
the vice of being childish infantile
juvenile etc what i do mean is that
in a sense is a virtue that you have to
be a warrior to preserve
and she did and so she has this great
victory in heaven
she kind of has a win-win situation she
gets to be
a a warrior in heaven someone who really
won the battle for our lord for his
divinity
because the practice of virtue is always
a profession
of the divinity of our lord in our own
souls so she is a warrior in heaven
but she gets to be a child at the same
time
she's 13 years old but
she's 13 years old and she has all the
virtues of being a child
but she also has all the virtues and all
the merit of being a warrior
so that's it i repeat the point if it
weren't for her
virginity and her martyrdom
all of this playfulness and childlike
behavior which is really quite
refreshing
would be pointless
you might know this in the
spanish-speaking countries
i would guess also in the philippines
they don't have what we call an april
fool's day
you know we usually play little jokes on
people on the first day of april
and it's all sort of justified in good
fun because that's the first
it's around the first day of spring or
something like that i know they don't do
that they have um
in in the spanish-speaking countries
they have the day of
day of the holy innocents
the innocent children the 28th day of
december
in honor on all those thousands of
children
that were martyred that were put to
death in the place of our divine lord
they went to heaven like warriors also
for the divinity of our lord jesus
christ
with all of their innocence as well
so when you think of child child-like
behavior and in a sense these children
are the ones we celebrate on the 28th of
july
20th of july 20th of december and uh
they give a lot of glory to god in
heaven and that's why in the
spanish-speaking countries
anyway the um that's a day for
playing little games on your friends or
tricks on your friend etc
so that's a point that stands out kind
of a encompassing point
of saint philomena is that her virginity
and her martyrdom are her claim to
having this sort of
childlike refreshing behavior with other
other souls
i'm going to tell one serious story
which is a lead into telling another
story
which has something to do with this
childlike behavior saint philomena
so you might remember that the priest
from muniano
who went to rome to get a known
martyr for his parish was don francesco
de lucio and
so he came back to munyano with
saint philomena her relics and then
the miracle started happening and he
became her main
archivist the main the one who mainly
recorded her
history and uh he wrote books
he wrote a book i should say about
you know her history the finding of her
relics
bringing her relics to muniano etc and
he had about 200 books made
not exactly right it's more like 45
times 4 or whatever that number is i
think it's
about 180 if i'm not mistaken had about
180 books made
and he had them in his office in stacks
of 45.
you see and he left three of those
stacks covered with
a um kind of a drop cloth or a blanket
or something like that
to keep the dust off of them and he left
one of them uncovered
and from that uh stack he would give
people this book
so they could have it you see and
i don't know if he's just a single
bachelor and all the rest of it but
he was giving out books for months
without really thinking about it
but that stack of books was really not
depleting that much
let alone the three other stacks that
were not uncovered
so finally he had one of his assistants
study the situation for him and
that assistant calculated and figured
out that
he had given out 500 books and this
first stack of 45 had only depleted by
about 10 books
something like that so saint philimina
is doing this
miracle of multiplying books such that
our dear
sorry absent-minded priest is not even
noticing this
all right so that's the serious story
what about the one that has a little
child-like behavior in it there was an
event
where a large pilgrim of pilgrimage of
people came to visit munyano
either from far away in italy or from
france but they came a long way
and there were hundreds of them and they
all wanted a book
and he knew that he had at the most 180
books
and there were at least 200 people there
to give a book to
so it was a pilgrimage and the visit
lasted several days
and he made his prayer to saint phil i
mean somehow please
help the situation and um
he was in his dining room with some of
the priests and they were talking and
eating and all the rest of it and he
heard a bunch
he heard a bunch of noise up in his room
or coming from his room
that sounded like someone banging around
up there you know moving furniture and
joking around up there like a little kid
uh raising a bunch of um
ruckus so
he went up to his room and he found
still three stacks of books of 45
most of the stack of books of the other
45 and the floor just sort of
littered with books all over the place
and the chairs and the bookshelves and
just everything
sort of thrown around in there and um
well what was happening same philomena
had paid him a visit
she had multiplied the books uh and she
did in such a way that she was kind of a
nuisance to him with a good kind of
nuisance
and the situation was resolved so
um that's saint philomena and i repeat
the point
if it had not been for her virginity
her war for her virginity and her war
for professing the divinity of our lord
jesus christ all the way to the death
she would not have had this right to
share her
glorious child-likeness with us
and those are just some of her stories
in that way
you know how it is um when a person gets
to a certain age
and unfortunately not always but many
times
they lose innocence
they may still laugh they must have a
good time
they might even be able to tell good
jokes all the rest of it
but their presence is not as refreshing
as it used to be
there's some sort of a compromise they
have made with the world
or with the devil unfortunately
that has um
taken away the gleam out of their eyes
uh
taking away the profundity of their
humor
you know some children can be funny and
they're not even making jokes
uh they can be funny and maybe you're
laughing at them and they don't even
feel
the least bit offended they're just sort
of sharing with you their innocence
and that's what you like as an adult and
they can do that because and it's
refreshing to us
because they have not forfeited
sacrificed uh given up
that part of their innocence which
saint philomena fought so hard to
preserve
so here we are we're adults now
we may have innocence think blessed be
god or some may not have
innocence but when you have contact with
a saint like her
that innocence is put back over and over
into your soul
so um that's what i would like to
especially
stress this evening about saint
philomena
i'll tell a couple of other stories here
since i told a multiplication story
about the books this is another
multiplication story
you may remember that um when
father ordon francesco traveled to
rome to get the body of a known martyr
he traveled with a bishop
actually he was still a priest from
potenza and was going to rome especially
to be made into a bishop
and also to um consult with the holy
father
so that was bishop de cesare the two of
them bishop to chaser and father
francesco de lucio
returned together to naples and then to
munyano
in naples
uh bishop de chesary had some of the
remains
of saint philomena but not the major
part the major part went on to
muniano which is not that far away
and from naples bishop de cesare started
to distribute relics
not from let's see it's from the bone or
from the bones
of saint philomena but just dust that
was sort of lying in the
box where he had some of the bones
just dust that was there and he would
send a reliquary with a few
a little bit of dust to one person a
little bit of dust to another person
and that was going on for quite some
time for a few years
and he noticed that after a while he
wasn't as absent-minded as the first one
he noticed that uh even though he kept
taking dust from this little box it
seemed like there was the same amount of
dust in there and um
eventually he reported it to the vatican
that seems unusual i keep
uh distributing relics but the source of
the relics never depletes
so the vatican and the congregation of
rights they came to
naples to investigate the situation and
they said well we'll try an experiment
we have arrived with the relics of
another saint here so
we would like you to send continue
sending your dust
of saint philomena out to the different
devotees of her but also uh send dust of
this other saint
you don't have to lie to the people and
say this is the same philomena you can
say it's saint whoever it is
i don't remember the name but uh
you know do it equally if you send dust
a saint filament out to one person
send dust from this other relic out
relic out to another person
and uh we'll check with you again in
about um a year
uh well after one year the people from
the
congregation of rights of the vatican
returned to naples to check with uh
bishop de cesare how was the progress
and he said well
the dust of the unknown saint is just
about gone
and the bone also and the dust from
saint philomena is exactly how it was
one year ago and the bone also is here
so i think we have a miracle san
philomena's rallies continue to be
distributed
and they never deplete that's
uh another one of the stories of
multiplication from saint philomena
and then i wanted to tell you maybe just
one or two of these we'll see
uh about some um accounts of different
people
that have been blessed by saint
philomena
or have had some sort of um encounter
with her or some sort of intercession by
her
you might have heard of a holy woman
from italy
named anna maria taiji
her life is from 1769 until 1837.
she's she has a book out someone made a
book about her called
wife mother and mystic
she was in so much contact with saints
from heaven and our lord our blessed
mother
that popes came to her to seek her
advice
and this is an interesting part of her
popes came to her to seek her advice
but she would say to them sometimes just
a moment holy father would you mind
sitting here
in the living room i'm cooking for my
family right now as soon as i'm finished
with that i'll come and speak to you
holy father
can you imagine putting the pope on hold
on your telephone
well that's what she was doing in the uh
whatever the 18th century version of
that
at one point
the niece a niece of
anna maria taiji was injured she had
scraped her eye she wanted to think i
have the
account somehow she had scratched her
eye while playing
and it scratched the pupil of the eye so
that
she had no vision out of that eye
anymore she could not see
uh blessed anna maria taiji
applied saint philomena oil to the eye
and it was instantly cured
so that's from the saint philomena oil
and i was talking about that last week
it originates in the um
sanctuary lamp type of sanctuary lamp
like this that burns next to
her urn in munyano
and ever since that time anna maria
taiji entrusted her sons
to the auspices of saint philomena
at her death she did that so that's anna
maria taiji who's a source of authority
on other points as well
uh very good some other cures
there was this saint marie christine
of savoy
1812-1836
that's quite young shortly after she's a
noble woman
she's a noble woman shortly after a
pilgrimage to munyano with her husband
ferdinand ii
the queen conceived a royal heir to the
throne
they had been years without a conception
in fact she had never conceived a child
and she attributed this this miraculous
pregnancy to the intercession of saint
philomena
numerous miracles occurred soon after
and the queen was canonized by pope
francis in the year 2014.
i might be wrong on the dates of her
life because it seems so short
it doesn't seem quite enough time to get
married and have a long time
waiting for a conception of a child that
saint
marie christine of savoy
saint peter luis marie chanel
1803-1841 he was a missionary and martyr
of oceania
he caught word of saint philomena from
saint john vienne and became a fervent
devotee
of her he often carried a picture of our
lady
saint joseph and saint philomena in his
pocket breviary
in all of his missionary journeys
and one more i'll give you for this
evening there are others to talk about
later on
is saint peter julian aymard he is a
very important saint he's known as
at least one of the saints of the
blessed sacrament
uh he was seriously ill
sorry he lived from 1811 to 1868. he was
seriously ill he went to visit the curie
cure saint john vienne in ours
and he explained his situation to saint
gianconvienne that he was very ill
and saint john vianney who as you might
remember was a bit
exhausted embarrassed i don't know
exactly the term
he was a little bit embarrassed about
getting so much fame about people being
cured at his church
and he would often say well it's not me
that's doing it it's our blessed mother
who's doing it or it's saint filamento
who's doing it he was up to 14 cures a
week
you may remember so what did saint john
vienna say to this holy man who became
eventually became a canonized saint as
well saint peter julian
he said go back to your home
and when you get home recite a novena to
saint philomena
uh within even towards the end of the
novena
like the seventh day saint peter julian
was
cured of his illness and of course he
rejoiced over it
he made a trip to saint john vienna to
say thank you he might have made a trip
to
munyano to say thank you to saint
philomena i'm not sure
but you can you can be sure that he
became a devotee
of saint philomena as well saint peter
julian
aymard the priest of the blessed
sacrament
all right so we'll go on to a class
about
the holy mass it's useful to consider
the life of a saint
uh we priests were just um having a
conference today
that you can do over the computer so all
the priests of the uh
this district of asia were in contact
with each other and father walia walier
gave us a conference today and he said
that it's very good to keep studying the
lives of the saints with the faithful
because if you can't get a point of the
gospel if you can't get a point of
theology
etc you can always click
in to the life of a saint and your
imagination can go with that and this is
all true
so uh that's one of the reasons i like
to do the
the study the study the life of a saint
before we begin our
conference about the holy mass so there
are a few questions from last class i'll
answer some of them
uh first of all i guess i owe you all an
apology
uh i left some of you disappointed by
not telling you that judas is also in
hell
right we're not sure of how how many
people are in hell
i told you it was just kane and martin
luther and i forgot to leave
judas out he's in hell all right i'll
repeat it a hundred times for me if you
want
for you if you want me to it's true
judas is in hell
i know that's not very popular these
days i think i've even heard some
far out thing that we have to be how
this sounds disgusting
we have to be thankful to judas because
if it weren't for him the crucifixion
wouldn't have happened
and i think our divine lord would found
some way to make it happen
we'd only be thanking the the wicked
malefactors for these sort of things
and even our lord was trying to get a
repentance out of him or you know
turn what he called it retraction out of
him before it finally happened
the the betrayal
i suppose i mentioned kane and martin
luther because those are kind of two
extremes that were given to us
extreme ends uh they were give that was
given to us in theology class but yes
even our lord said of judas it would
have been better for him if this man had
never been born
so uh you can bet he's in hell
um all right so someone asked the
question
uh how does one know when he gets an
indulgence
and the answer is with the plenary
indulgence like i was saying last week
uh you know you have to get the
confession within one week you have to
get
holy communion pray for the pope and not
have any
uh um
connection any uh any sort of connection
to sin
mortal sin or venial sin there's another
work i'm looking for
another word i'm looking for which is
not connection but something like that
without any kind of connection to sin
and so you do your best
to fulfill all that and still the last
um call is in the hand of god
and he will judge whether we have any uh
connection adhesion to sin so we're
never quite sure
if we've ever gained a plenary
indulgence
but all the other indulgences which are
the partial indulgences
and there are many of them uh those are
much easier to get because you don't
have to do the
confession with on within one week you
don't have to do the prayer for the pope
you don't have to do the communion
and you might have some sort of uh
connection with vino sin but you still
get the partial indulgence
indulgence to find out about partial
indulgences
please have a have a look at the book
called the reculta
which is the classic book for all the
prayers
that have indulgences attached to them
another question is there a limit to the
number of times a person gets an
indulgence
i would say the limit equals your
lifetime
so as long as you live you can get an
indulgence
and um speaking of
getting the plenary indulgence because
you've gone to confession within one
week before
or after does that mean that we should
go to confession
every week or once a week
as a pastor i advise to souls
to try to get to confession once a month
and it's even better if you get if you
can get the confession
once every two weeks uh
so that's that's what i would call good
maintenance of the soul
once a month for confession but if you
can get to confession once every two
weeks
that's even better
main purpose of confession is to
make you receive as much grace as
possible
from receiving holy communion but also
because by staying with a very regular
practice of confession and communion
you're making your soul as disposed as
possible
to respond to the graces that our lord
is sending you
and if we respond if you respond well to
one grace
he'll give you an opportunity to respond
to another grace
which is even bigger and then as saint
paul says
grace um after grace grace keeps
building building on grace
but if you want to be stingy if someone
wants to be stingy about the sacraments
and go to confession just what is it
during the easter time or something like
that
no sorry go to confession once a year
and communion during the easter time
the bear bear absolute minimum of
receiving the sacraments
well then you'll be very lethargic
slow and um
stingy you know not generous at all to
respond to grace
and so grace instead of building up like
this in your soul
will just sort of stay you know static
maybe it doesn't dip down below but it
stays static
that's the some of the answers to some
questions there
and now um we'll get back into
where we are with the holy mass last
week we covered
for whom the sacrifice of the mass
may be offered this week we'll consider
uh the holy sacrifice and the of the
mass in the organization of the church
and that'll be how the mass
shows up in the liturgy and how
everything which is part of the
mysteries of our lord jesus christ
is in the mass
so our lord carries out the work of
redemption in his church
in his church chiefly by the unbloody
sacrifice of the altar
he carries out the work of redemption
chiefly by the
sacrifice at the altar
not all of us can live during the life
of our divine lord
in fact that's been so long ago
that just 12 apostles 120 disciples
were part of the life of our divine lord
during his time
saint paul does say that last of all
before the ascension
our lord was seen by 500 of his
disciples
so maybe there were more than 120 but
really
that compared to the rest of time that's
passed since then is very small
so how do we get to know the
chief mysteries of the redemption of our
lord it's by
being present at the holy mass at the
holy mass
we learn at the beginning the prayers of
the foot of the altar our lord's great
desire
to be united to the tabernacle of god
that means his great desire
to be living in the courts with his
father in heaven with his father
at the holy mass we have what's called
the um
mass of the catechumens or the
instructional part of the mass
where we're learning from the epistle
we're learning from the gospel
we're learning from the psalms we're
learning from the prayers the church has
to offer
and all of that comes from
the divine life of our lord you know
archbishop lefebvre was very very
insistent on learning
the divine life of our lord through the
holy mass
every time that a priest puts on
vestments
every time that a priest uh bows
at the altar or geniflex or even walks
to the cedilla you know the place where
the priest sits for the glory or
whatever
all of his moves all of his actions
are showing us in one way or another
the divine life of our lord and it's
being acted out
or presented again i should say saint
augustine is famous
for the remark uh
what was present see
uh what happened is more than what
happened but let's say
what was present in the life of our lord
has been made present again through the
mysteries
and what happened in the life of our
lord is made present again
in the mysteries so when you attend holy
mass you are in the mysteries
of our lord jesus christ and chiefly and
principally
at the transubstantiation
but before i get there uh an anecdote to
tell you how seriously
the archbishop took the holy mass
there was an event that happened on one
holy thursday night
at the seminary of tradition in
switzerland
icon i guess there was some seminarian
who was
what i call a cut up that's a person's
joking around all the time that's fine
joking is good and all the rest of it
well they had the custom there and it's
still in our seminaries
uh for the washing of the feet the
washing of the
the apostles at holy thursday night they
chose 12 seminarians
and usually they're from the first year
the beginning year to show that humility
of the priest
bowing down before in front of this
young person's foot
to wash it
one of these seminarians had drawn a
smiley face on his toe
something like that thought he would
joke around a little a little
and um no
uh there's a line that's drawn there
where jokes don't work anymore
uh and the archbishop was to wash that
person's foot
well guess what he didn't get his foot
washed
and he was kicked out of the seminary
that's the divinity of our lord that's
being
made present again to that ceremony
what happened in the life of our lord is
made present in the mysteries
so returning to different ways that we
see the mysteries of our lord
during the mass after the
instructional part of the mass or the
mass of catechumens
begins the offertory where
you see the sentiments of our lord in
the garden of gethsemane three times
when our lord prayed to his father
please remove this chalice from me what
chalice
the chalice of suffering what's inside
the chalice
my sins our lord has to drink the
chalice of my sins
not just mine but billions of people's
sins and at the offertory that's already
happening
and that's the mystery being shown us
and not only that but there's a second
side of that mystery at the offertory
which is and now you church
you unite your sufferings to mine
and uh that's where all we present is a
tiny little drop of water
in a chalice to mingle with a chalice
which is more or less full of wine
of our lord's contribution to the
sacrifice
his sacrifice is like wine compared to
our water and it's much more abundant
compared to our water it's the offertory
then the cannon of the mass begins where
everything is focused around making our
lord
present in his
um sacrifice or the mystical
and violent shedding of his blood okay
mystical
shedding of his blood but which was
violent violently done
all of the blood separated from his body
that is made present in the that mystery
is made
present in the transubstantiation
and then the holy communion when our
lord shares that with us
just as he shared the um holy communion
with his apostles on the night of holy
thursday
and finally we conclude with some
prayers of the church
which are which usually have to do with
uh dear lord by your sacrifice
please separate me from the
selfish things of this world and unite
me to the
celestial things of the next that's
usually the
content of the communion and
post-communion prayers
in all this you have the life of our
lord may present in the mysteries and
that's just talking about what's
ordinary in the mass well you also have
the instructional part but
just the ordinary part of the mass is
already preaching the mysteries of our
lord
so as we attend mass or as we assist at
mass those mysteries
that that life of christ is always
becoming our life
in the holy mass christ is teacher
christ is high priest and christ is king
how is christ teacher in the mass he is
he is
teacher in that he is announcing the
truths of the faith
what are some principle truths that our
lord announces
during the mass he announces that
his father is almighty he announces that
he has come to preach the doctrine of
his father
he announces that he has come to
sacrifice his life
in order to complete the the will of his
father
he announces that now the holy ghost is
going to bring
all the benefit and the fruit of the
sacrifice to your souls
those are all truths that we learn in
the mass through christ who is our
teacher
in the mass christ is high priest
remember that by talking about our lord
as teacher
and high priest and king we're showing
out how
all of the work of redemption is made
present in the holy sacrifice of the
mass
so part of that is christ is high priest
what does the high priest do he offers
sacrifice
in order to appease or placate god
who deserves to execute or would um
carry out his wrath on us but thanks to
this sacrifice
that doesn't happen our lord is high
priest
establishes peace between heaven and
earth
this saucerdalto action holds the
prominent place in the mass as we
studied last week and the week before
the propitiatory the propitiation
the begging pardon for sins and calming
down
a very irritated god is the principal
work of the sacrifice
christ is high priest
that word comes to us from the old
testament where the high priest
of the people of god only entered the
temple i should say the holy of holies
of the temple once a year and always
sprinkling
blood of the lamb so that he could enter
in god's presence
without being struck down dead himself
always with the spirit of begging pardon
for sins that's what the sprinkling of
blood
inside of the holy of holies meant
and finally christ is kings a teacher
and high priest and king
how is christ king he has a supernatural
kingdom of truth
grace and love
as we study this past sunday christ the
king sunday
the words which really caught the
attention of pontius pilate
from our lord is when he said but my
kingdom is not of this world
you may think that i've come here to
take away your power or win it by force
or do some sort of
insurrection against you forget it
that's that's not what i'm about
but i will tell you what i am about is a
dominion over men that you have no idea
of
because it's based on truth for that
reason have i come
to bear witness to the truth
of our lord by being this king of truth
and the king that wins our heart by
dying on the cross for us
completely dominates us and that's in
the mass
he has the supernatural kingdom of truth
grace
and love he wins us by giving us the
truth of his father
he wins us by giving us the supernatural
life and he especially wins us
by offering up the sacrifice that none
of us
can turn a cold shoulder to
and say i don't want head i don't want
to have anything to do with that
or he understands nothing about the
suffering i'm going through none of us
can say that
honestly he is the king of hearts
christ is king as a meek king
he takes possession of our hearts the
dominion of grace and love
is in our souls
therefore we can say that all of
christ's life is contained in the in the
holy mass
because the work of redemption is
chiefly
made known in the sacrifice of the mass
all of christ's life is contained in the
mass
and this is how he will continue his
life until the end of time
through the holy sacrifice of the mass
i'd like to tell you an anecdote about
the value of
the mass or value of one mass uh we just
heard this story a couple of weeks ago
father summers and i when we made our
retreat listening to the recordings of
father
couture there was once a very poor woman
who had nothing left in her house to eat
so she went and visited the butcher and
asked for a few slices of meat
and the butcher and his helper who were
more or less
godless
still had some sort of compassion for
the dear old lady and said sure we'll
we'll get something for you
do you have anything to offer me as
payment and the woman said
i have nothing and the butchers
uh kind of patronizingly center that's
all right dear lady
um what what can you offer us and she
said
i'm about to go to mass right now and
i'll remember you at the altar i
remember
while i'm at the holy mass and that'll
be my payment
and they say well you go ahead and take
care of the mass and come to see us
after that
they didn't give her anything yet so the
woman
went to mass and she came back and um
she said well um i went to mass for you
all i don't have any money to offer you
but here's a slip of paper
it says i offered one mess for you
and the butchers were kind of giggling
about the whole thing
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not taking her very seriously and they
weren't determined yet on whether
they're going to give her
something to eat anyway so they had a
scale there
and the old-fashioned kind where you
weigh the meat against a few weights or
something like that and that's how you
calculate
how heavy it is and they took the
weights out of it and they put a slip of
paper there
and they put some slices of meat on the
other side
thinking that that would make her slip a
paper go flying up into the air
and they were kind of surprised that
they put some meat on the scale and slip
a paper stayed right there
meat was up in the air lighter than the
substance of this little note that says
i offer
the mass for you so they sort of check
the scale and what's the problem and all
the rest of it
and they found no problem with the scale
and they finally had to admit after
putting an
obvious amount of weight on that scale
that it was not going to move
in comparison to that slip of paper i
offered the mass for you
so they finally um figured out figured
it out
that they were in the presence of a
divine reality here
and they succumbed to the
pressure and the presence of god gave
the woman her gift
and they were quite converted themselves
and they started to
attend holy mass also
to give us the idea of the value of one
mass which contains
all the mysteries and all the life of
our lord jesus christ
without the holy sacrifice of the mass
all other worship would fade
away as can be seen by non-catholic
denominations
so we come to the holy sacrifice the
mass
sometimes you might have a good preacher
sometimes you might have a preacher
that's not so good
sometimes you might have a priest who
offers mass
in a beautiful way you know we've all
heard that before father so and so
he says a beautiful mass or so
father so and so well he's kind of a
matter of fact but about the way he
celebrates the mass
uh et cetera et cetera you know you have
the positives and the negatives
about uh what you see when you go to
mass
but i think all of us will admit that no
matter how the holy mass is offered
and no matter if there's a sermon or not
and how well it's preached at or not
the holy sacrifice keeps drawing us back
and drawing us back
it does not depend on the personality
of the priest it does not even depend on
his
gifts if you want to call it that um how
well he's able to sell celebrate the
mass
or how well he's able to preach doesn't
depend on that
it depends on the fact of is he saying
the mass
validly yes the mass therefore is giving
its
grace to all of us and it's an
irreplaceable grace
and when martin luther first started uh
with his
i don't know how they call it the mass
of the people or something like that in
the 16th century
he wanted no attention on the holy
communion
and he wanted the people to know that
the whole idea of transubstantiation
was not true
all right so they maybe were
kind of receiving communion still
during that time with this protestant
perezi ark
and um that's a bad thing already
because they don't believe in the truth
of transubstantiation they don't believe
in the truth
of holy communion being the body and
blood soul and divinity of our lord
and that's 500 years ago but just let
that go and let that go
and what happens with the protestant
after five centuries
i'll answer that question by telling
another story
just recently not too long ago a friend
of mine
let me know that and not too far from
him
it wasn't here in singapore not too far
from him was a church for sale that had
belonged to the protestants
and they had moved on and i said well
i'm kind of sorry to hear that even for
the protestants
because it usually means they've moved
on because
they want a bigger place where there's
more money and
that means they have to leave the other
place behind for whoever can buy that
it was quite a nice building they're
leaving behind
and he said well it's worse than that
these protestants cannot fill their own
church anymore
because they've lost their youth going
to what's called these
mega churches maybe i've told you about
this already here and sorry if i'm
repeating myself
but a mega church that's all very much
in quotation marks
it's not the church at all you could
just as well have a
professional basketball game there and
provide the same amount of entertainment
it's all about stages and electric
guitars and drums and putting on a show
for the kids
and that's what's become of in this 21st
century
that's what that has become of
protestant
non-sacrificial worship
you know how long can go with a pastor
they call him pastor
a minister and prayers and singing hymns
before you look for something more
exciting and more exciting and more
exciting
500 years of that well of course there
they are they're in stadiums now
with um the musicians i don't know what
putting out a show for them you take
that and put it next to the holy
sacrifice the mass
and as father summers was telling you
some months ago during the persecution
of the irish
in the what the 16th century
and 17th century and 18th century by the
english protestants
they didn't even see the face of the
priest in order to keep his identity
secret
so he wouldn't be persecuted when they
were you know called a question about
who gave them the mass
but the mass kept going and kept going
and kept going and never died
uh that's because the mass gives us
the substance of the life of our lord
and if you take away the mass the holy
sacrifice of the mass
you don't have that substance anymore
and as i said
all other worship would fade away as we
can see with the non-catholic
denominations
all means of grace draw their virtue and
efficacy
from the eucharistic sacrifice
what would those principle means of
grace be
they would be the sacraments and also
sacramentals
last week we studied sacramento's a
little bit when i talked about
holy water and saint philomena oil
those are sacramentals the sacraments as
you know are instituted by our lord
uh together in a broad way
we can say that the sacraments and the
sacramentals
have a special power to remove the curse
of sin sacraments by working directly on
our soul
to increase the level of sanctifying
grace or sacraments
to remove our stinginess with god which
is our venial sin
sacrament of penance to remove our
mortal sin
which has taken away completely the
presence of god
it has a special power to remove the
curse of sin
a priest blessing your house or your
automobile your rosary
is removing the curse of sin all of that
action
comes from the fact that the holy
sacrifice of the mass
is still being offered
if you take away the holy mass
and the grace that it draws down from
heaven
you know that that vision that nathaniel
had
of our lord he said i saw a letter going
up to heaven and i saw
angels descending and ascending upon it
uh that's the holy sacrifice of the mass
angels ascending to heaven is the praise
and adoration
going up to god and angels descending
from heaven is the
propitiation and petition uh
is that that forgiveness of man's sin
and that
building up a sanctifying grace that
comes from the mass
and the way of distributing those graces
from the mass are the sacraments and
sacramentals
it's the same as the holy the cross of
our lord
is what wins earns the um
fruits of redemption the merits of
redemption
but it remains i don't mean to be
disrespectful but
you remain somehow stagnant or somehow
locked in time
without the holy sacrifice of the mass
you remain stagnant there without a
means
to distribute the fruits of that cruce
of that cross
and that's the holy sacrifice of the
mass it is what
makes present those fruits and merits of
our lord on the cross
and from the mass it can be distributed
through the sacraments and the
sacramentals
that's how important the mass is and
that brings me to another point that we
learned in our conference
from father walia today is that
as priests
we should be teaching about the holy
mass
whether it's in sermons or conferences
but we should be teaching about the holy
mass
and he made this point which is
uh this once again this very very
bare minimum of receiving holy communion
is
uh once during the easter time
which is somewhere between the beginning
of lent and trinity sunday about 100
days
once and after that it's immortal sin
and what is our obligation to hear mass
on every sunday of the year
and holy days of obligation so at least
52 times
uh plus about four otherwise
mortal sin so the holy mass
is a very important thing
and follow wali was even saying while he
was even saying
to the point of um
we can preach about the sacraments
especially the holy eucharist but even
beyond that we have to insist on the
holy mass
from which the holy eucharist comes
and he also mentioned that there is a
tendency sometimes with the
in the more modern church they will talk
about eucharist and eucharist and
eucharist
at the expense of saying the word
sacrifice of the mass
and usually what they mean by that is
the banquet
the banquet without thinking anything
about the cross
you might have noticed at the modern
mass
if people do attend more than one mass
in a day it might happen once in a while
they'll receive whole community holy
communion at both masses
or three if there are three masses
because their mentality is
i'm at a banquet and it's rude
to attend a banquet without eating
somehow insulting to the host so
therefore if as long as i'm at this
banquet
i better receive the eucharist
uh well as you know from the traditional
catholicism we only receive holy
communion once a day
at the most that's our union with the
sacrifice of our lord on the altar
and the idea the mind of the church in
not receiving the holy communion more
than once a day is this
uh we are limited and finite
creatures god can do wonderful things
and he can do wonderful things in us
but we're sort of like a fuse box
or a circuit breaker box if you put
too much grace in us all at once we kind
of explode
we can't handle that big surge of the
presence of christ in us
more than once a day in holy communion
and therefore
a lot of respect for the sacrifice for
what it really is
we don't exaggerate our competence
uh our ability to assimilate
all of this greatness of god several
times a day
you may see the priest receiving holy
communion more than once a day
if he celebrates a second master or
third mass but that's because it's
absolutely necessary
the priest offering the mass and it may
sound a little strange to you
he is immolating christ at the altar
not just by making christ present first
the body then the blood somehow
mystically dead
but he must consume every last particle
of hosts and consume every last drop of
precious blood
if not he has not completely immolated
christ
so as friendly as that looks with the
priests you know cleaning out the
chalice purifying the chalice
what he's principally doing is make sure
making sure that he's completely
he's made a complete sacrifice of christ
on the altar
that's why the priest must receive holy
communion
at every mass so the sacraments and the
sacramentals
all receive their power from the holy
mass
and to conclude on this point
it is correct to say that you know the
sacraments and sacramentals which are
the curse of sin all right sorry
which are the purging
removing the curse of sin
they are the overflow of the super
abundance of the mass
as catholics we worship the substance
of the unbloody sacrifice of our lord
there's beautiful incense there are
beautiful vestments
we're so fortunate to have such a
stately i don't know
a beautiful altar here in this church
i've outside of rome i've never seen an
altar that beautiful
but it's the substance of the mass which
draws us
and all of this all the rest the stately
and correct
the dignified altar which we have and
the vestments
and the vessels though the chalice and
the ciborium
and the incense etc
those are things we add to the mass
because our lord deserves
all that dignity but what is really
drawing us is that holy sacrifice
um i just saw a um
vocational video from night the year
1959
it was really well done now you can tell
it's kind of a dramatization and they
they uh they had actors doing it but in
the because everything was so well
memorized etc but uh
so you have about a 13 year old boy who
goes to his first
kind of like a summer camp to be present
in the seminary
to find out what priests are all about
and so forth and eventually that
virgins into him um or blossoms into him
going to the seminary one day and
becoming a franciscan priest
after about like
13 years something like that uh but
so he's in this church and the years
1959
and uh he's a young teenager and he says
uh i had never seen an altar so
beautiful in all my life
and he's a normal boy he likes football
and he likes ice cream and he likes
goofing off and studying sometimes but
when he went on that
visit to the seminar with all the other
young men he said i'd never seen an
altar so beautiful
in my life and i saw the altar in the
film too it actually didn't look that
great
the year was already 1959 so some of
those traditional looks were starting to
disappear already
but the point is that um
he went to that visit to the seminary
because of what he had seen in priests
already
and because of what he what he knew
already
from us attending holy mass and when he
saw that altar he was
even more uh impressed but his substance
is
what drew him to that seminary to see
the priests and so forth is
the influence of the holy mass which was
constantly giving him the mysteries of
the life of our lord
so we start with the substance of the
mass and everything else is a
overflow of that and we live by the
sacraments
because the mass is able to give us that
grace which the sacraments have
very good we'll say a prayer
jesus
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um