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Excerpt from The Jewels of the Mass: A Short Account of the Rites and Prayers Used in the Holy Sacrifice
With this narrow and unphilosophical view may be contrasted the appreciation of a more solid and less showy intellect: a well-known picture, simply drawn, which touches the whole sacred mystery of the Mass. In a passage familiar to every Catholic, Cardinal Newman says: 'i declare, to me,' he says, speaking by the mouth of his hero Willis, in 'loss and Gain, nothing is so con soling, so piercing, so thrilling, so overcoming, as the Mass, said as it is among us. I could attend Masses for ever and not be tired. It is not a mere form of words; it is a great action, the greatest action that can be on earth. It is not the invocation merely, but, if I dare use the word, the evocation of the Eternal. He becomes present on the altar in ¿esh and blood, before whom angels bow and devils tremble. That is the awful event which is the scope and is the interpre tation of every part of the solemnity. Words are necessary, but as means, not as ends they are not mere addresses to the throne of grace they are instruments of what is far higher, of consecration, of sacrifice. They hurry on, as if impatient to fulfil their mission. Quickly they go, the whole is quick; for they are all parts of one integral action.
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