NOT A MEMORIAL MEAL BUT THE SACRIFICE OF CALVARY

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I write this for my two grandsons, who along with the rest of the congregation were told at Holy Mass this morning that the Mass is 'a memorial meal that we all celebrate together'.

Father was softening us up for the treats in store in January, when he goes on a well-earned holiday. Having 'dodged the bullet' for the 20 years that have elapsed since defeatist attitudes originated weekday 'Liturgies of the Word' in the parish, to 'get ready' for the priestless days to come, the parish now will implement them on certain Sundays. 

With 'Reflections' to match. They won't be 'preached , they'll be 'shared'. 

The Church of Nice has already fulfilled the scenario dreamed up by the Protestant reformers four hundred years ago without the average chap in the pews ever noticing, and now the hierarchy is pushing the goalposts to extremes utterly beyond the poor guy's comprehension.

In their very long-term plan to destroy the Mass, in the 1600s Bishop Cranmer and his cronies devised a 'Commemoration of the Lord's Supper'. And here's how the Mass was to be superseded:

• The Protestant 'memorial meal' was to be celebrated in the vernacular.
• The altar was replaced by a table.  
• The priest was replaced by a 'presider'.
• The 'presider' faced the people, not God. Abolition of the priest's ad orientem position was the Protestants' most important consideration. 
• Holy Communion was given under both kinds because, the Protestants said, every meal features both food and drink.
• Holy Communion was taken in the hand, in order to demonstrate that it was ordinary bread distributed by an ordinary man rather than a priest.
• The silence of the Catholic Mass was replaced by a 'dialogue'.
• The Introibo ad altare Dei (I will go to the altar of God) was abolished, to be replaced eventually with 'Good morning' and other pleasantries.
• Prayers emphasising the sacrificial nature of the Mass were abolished.

The upshot of it all is that now, in the 21st century, Catholics (the remnant who remain) feel much more at home at an Anglican or Presbyterian service than they would at the Traditional Latin Mass, (were they blessed enough to find one.)

Let us all speak out and declare to our children and grandchildren and to the reformers of the present day that Holy Mass is "in true reality the Sacrifice of Calvary" (Pope Paul VI). Jesus Christ offered Himself to His Father as our Redeemer on Calvary, and He does exactly the same at Mass - through a priest, not an ordinary person, and not and never a priestess. 

At the risk of repeating myself and boring you all to bits, we do not attend Mass primarily to 'say thank you'. We attend Mass to:

• Adore the Holy Trinity
• To thank God for His goodness
• To make reparation to God for the sins committed against the Divine Majestu.
• To receive all the help we need to make it to Heaven.
  
  On Calvary, Jesus died to redeem the fallen human race. In the Mass, Jesus bestows on us all the blessings He won for us in His unimaginable suffering on the Cross. On Calvary He poured out His blood for us; if we do not bathe in that Blood in the Mass we will never be purified and can never enter Heaven.
  
  Does anyone else smell a large rat in these preparations for 'Liturgies of the Word', or as Father prefers to call them, 'paraliturgies' - a mysterious word meaning forms of worship that lie outside the liturgy and in some cases contradict it (you can say that again).For one thing, 'a memorial meal' can surely be put on by any lay person. You just 'commission' them. And for another, to remove the sacrificial aspect of the Mass, the unbloody re-presentation of the Sacrifice of Calvary, removes huge roadblocks along the way to the Glorious Day of the new World Church, just as the worship of pagan idols, passed off as 'inculturation', in the Vatican has done.