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our Lord mixed water with the wine-as does St. Iræneus, the Bishop of Lyons, in lib. 4, cap. 57. St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, in the year 250, writes, in lib. 2, Ep. 3, that the custom of mixing water with wine in the chalice, is a tradition from our Lord. The quantity of water is very small; and St. Cyprian also gives us the mystic reason for this, in Ep. 63, ad Cæcilium," We see the people signified in the water, but the wine exhibits the blood of Christ. When, therefore, water is mixed with wine in the chalice, Christ is united to his people," &c. ; from this the prayer is perfectly intelligible.

As in the bread many grains are brought into one substance, and in the chalice many grapes are brought into one substance, so in the church of Christ, many individuals are brought into the unity of faith, and connected together by the bonds of charity, and though thousands should assemble together, in the same edifice, or the great offering be made in millions of places throughout the christian world, still the offering is but one, the prayers are for all; our great father is intreated to look upon us as *one fold, under one shepherd. They who are present at this oblation, should therefore be filled with the spirit of charity, and banish from them fenmities, contentions, emulations, wraths, quarrels, dissentions, sects, envy, and such like; for, they who do such things, shall not obtain the kingdom of God.

In the prayer at offering the host, which, as yet is but bread, the church has in view the chief sacrifice which is to be made under the appearance of bread, and therefore seeks, even now, the effects of the redemption by Christ, who is to be the victim, ultimately produced, and principally offered, and through whose merits only forgiveness of sins, and life everlasting, are attainable. But in the oblation of the chalice, the expressions are more confined

*John 3, 16. Gal. v, 20.

yet, though the words are such as would be fully
true, without any further reference; it is clear that
our salvation, and that of the whole world, can be
obtained only through the blood of the Redeemer.

When the priest bows down, saying the next prayer, Accept us, &c.; in the name of the people, be offers them up as a sacrifice, praying that they may be received, he bows to denote the humility which should fill every heart; and he expresses it in his prayer; for, a troubled spirit is a sacrifice to God, and a contrite and humbled heart, he will not despise. Such an oblation is always pleasing to the Lord; therefore they who assist at Mass, should endeavour to be truly bowed down in humility, and to avoid being puffed up, ambitious, liable to anger, thinking evil, or criminal in those respects, though they should know rejoicing in iniquity; for if they be all mysteries, and have all knowledge and faith, so as to remove mountains, and distribute all their goods to feed the poor, and deliver their bodies to be burned, it profiteth nothing. The correction of the heart, is the great object of religion; and the sacrifice of ourselves, which the Lord requires, is the abandonment of those bad dispositions, which are so interwoven with our nature, that the Saviour found it necessary to inform us, that, if any man will come after him, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow that Christ who offered himself as a sacrifice for mankind.

The next prayer is made to the Holy Ghost, in a
special manner, for the third divine person of the
blessed Trinity is generally designated as the Sanc,
lifier; for reasons with which every christian must
be acquainted. He is specially invoked here, as his
intervention is, in the order of Providence, requisite
to produce the effect sought for; and when he is

Psalm 1. 17. 11 Cor. xiii, 4, &c. 1 Cor.xiii, 2 & 3.-
Matt. xvi, 24.

invoked to bless this sacrifice, the celebrant makes the sign of the cross over the oblation, to show his faith, in every good gift and divine being obtain-· ed through the merits of our divine Saviour, who was crucified for us. Short and simple as this prayer is, the mind is overwhelmed and lost in the contemplation of its consequences. First it exhibits to us the bread and wine to be consumed, as an holocaust.* For in sacrifices of holocaust, or whole burnt offerings, the victim was entirely consumed by fire, to the honour of the Deity: so here the substance of the bread and wine is destroyed, not by material, but mystic fire, by him who on the day of Pentecost descended in the form of tongues of fire upon the Apostles. This sacred fire consumes the substance but preserves the appearances, in order to be the veils which conceal from mortal eyes the divine victim who, in the beginning, offered himself as the substitute for those ancient observances. For it was impossible that with the blood of oxen and goats, sins should be taken away. Wherefore, when he cometh into the world, he saith: Sacrifice and oblation thou wouldest not: but a body thou hast fitted to me: Holocausts and for sin did not please thee. Then, said I, behold, I come: In the head of the book it is written of me, that I should do thy will. By the sword of the word, and the fire of the spirit, this mystic oblation takes place; but the destruction of this first substance is not the great sacrifice of the Mass; for the bread and wine are destroyed only to make room for the great victim to be principally offered; and the production of which, whether for the original sacrifice on calvary, or its repetition on our altars, has always been attributed to this sacred Spirit.

*See Opuscules de Bossuet, T. i, p. 130. 4, &c. See the secret prayer for Easter Whitsunweek.

Hebrews X,
Friday, in

Thus in the Gospel of St. Luke, we read * The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the the most high shall overshadow thee. And therefore power of also the Holy one which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of God. And in the Apostles creed. And in Jesus Christ his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost. of St. Basil, which is that principally in use in the And in the Liturgy East a prayer is used that the bread may become the real body, and the wine the real blood of Jesus Christ, by the Holy Ghost who changes this bread and this wine. And St. Isidore of Pelusium a disciple of St. John Chrysostom, who also compiled a Liturgy in very general use in the East, says + That the Holy Ghost is truly God, and after other reasons adds, and because at the mystic table, it is he who makes common bread the real body in which the son of God made himself incarnate; and he afterwards says the same of the wine changed into the blood. The same is found in almost every ancient Liturgy, as testified by St. Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem, who lived in the middle of the preceding century, and after having given his testimony in these few words. "Thus that which the Holy Ghost touches is changed, and sanctified. Missal which was used in many parts of Africa and In the ancient Gothic other portions of the Western Church, the following prayer is found. "O Lord may the Holy Ghost thy co-eternal co-operator descend upon this sacrifice, to the end that the fruits of the earth which we present unto thee may be changed into thy body, and what this chalice contains into thy blood."

Wherefore we may now clearly perceive the
great object of this assembly of Christians from the
days of the Apostles to the present, to be, for the
praise of the Lord; for the instructions to be

e. 1, 35. Lib. 1. Ep. 10.9. Ep. 2. 13. ¶ Cat
Myst. v. Miss. Got. xii.

derived from the lessons of the old law, and of the new, as delivered by those persons whose commis. sion therefor is derived from Jesus Christ through the Apostles. For the profession of their belief in the doctrines of the Church; for the oblation of them. selves, that dying to the world, they may live with Christ, and for the offering of bread and wine to be changed by the power of the Holy Ghost, and the institution of the Redcemer, and the Ministry of the Clergyman into the body and blood of Jesus Christ, that they may thus make a commemoration of him shewing forth the death of the Lord until his se cond coming, and receiving by the oblation of this victim, the application of the fruits of redemption to their souls. Whilst in addition to this, they who prove and try themselves, may by eating Christ, also live by him. In the contemplation of such a scene the soul breaks from her prison, and flies, not over an imaginary land of vision, but traversing the regions of the East, collects the facts of ages, and brings into one point, the sacrifice of Abel, and that of Melchisedec, its application by the royal Psalmist, the lamb of Egypt, the institution of the Eucharistic oblation, and the sufferings of Calvary, exhibiting thus to the intellect the best subjects for reflection and to the affections, the most powerful excitements to piety and devotion.

At such a moment as this the soul is prepared for prayer, and the incense which is its emblem is final ly introduced, as well to spread its perfumes round the holy place as to waft its odour to the heavens. It is blessed under the intercession of the Archangel Michael standing at the right hand side of the Altar of incense, and of all the elect, &c. Some ancient Missals have it Gabriel, instead of Michael, and this would appear to be more critically correct,

* 1 Cor. xi. 26. John vi. 58. Sacram. S. Greg. Miss. du Tillet and de Sees.

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