SOME GENERAL NOTIONS ON
THE HOLY SACRIFICE OF THE MASS

OFFERING CHRIST TO THE FATHER

We have seen that Christ is the center of religion and the universe. The creation, over which Christ reigns, is willed by God for His glory. We are beings created solely for the praise and glory of God.

8--How can such a frail, feeble creature as man offer acceptable praise to the Blessed trinity?

In this way. The Word of God--the second Person of the Blessed Trinity--was incarnated, became one of us, and to each one of us gave something of Himself; in such a way that we are enabled through Him, with Him, and in Him, to fulfill our religious duties toward God--duties that may be summarized in two acts, as follows:

1. Our continual offering of Jesus Christ to God the Father.
2. Our offering of ourselves with Him and like Him in complete self-surrender and self-sacrifice, so as to become one with Jesus Christ.

For Christ alone can glorify God as He deserves. Christ, equal to the Father by His Godhead, lowered Himself to our level by the Incarnation. As man, Christ is able to bow before God and render Him true adoration in humility, submission, and obedience. As God, Christ offers His Father homage of infinite worth.

It is the Incarnation that empowers us to offer God to God in the Person of Jesus Christ.

Hence, the grandeur and incomparable superiority of the Mass over all other acts of religion. How many Catholics painfully seek for some way of thanking God as He deserves, or of offering Him fitting adoration! They make novenas, they give themselves over to numerous pious exercises; they make sacrifices, and sometimes painful sacrifices; yet they always suffer from spiritual indigence and powerlessness. Their distress will persist for just so long as they seek to glorify God by their own merits.

It is in His Beloved Son that the Father is "well pleased."
Why go elsewhere in search of a more "pleasing" offering?

[From 'Your Mass and Your Life'; to be continued]