More than fifteen years ago...
Father Superior at Servants of The Holy Family recommended a book by Dr. Rev. Nicholas Ghir, The Holy Sacrifice of The Mass.

More than fifteen centuries ago the Holy Sacrifice drew our fore-fathers around the altar with a power that overcame all the terrors of persecution, which often broke in upon the peaceful celebration of Holy Mass. Thus St. Dionysius of Alexandria, who lived in the third century, relates: 'Though hunted after and persecuted by everybody, even then we did not omit the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice. In every place, wherever we, torn from each other, bore our numerous trials, the field, the desert, the ship, the habitations of animals served us as temples for the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice. When the storm of persecution raged throughout the whole world, the stream of grace and benediction poured from the Holy Mass celebrated in the Catacombs, or underground caverns; just as at a much later period this Holy Sacrifice, persecuted by Protestantism, took refuge in the garrets. But even in this dire extremity the attractive power of the Mass was not weakened. Catholics went down into underground dens, into the Catacombs, and climbed up under the rafters of houses, to pray for those whose hatred had driven what was most holy to them to the most wretched nooks, and who were giving themselves airs in edifices reared by Catholic piety.

"What should not the Holy Sacrifice, therefore, be for us priests, and what should not we priests be for the Holy Sacrifice?"

The priesthood was instituted for the Eucharist. Our priestly life is made up of duties connected with it. To this end we have been chosen out of the world and separated from it. The seal of Jesus Christ is stamped upon us; the spirit and the ways of the world, and even the permissible things of the world should be for us what they are not for others. By the chisel of the Holy Ghost an invisible character has been engraved on our soul, in order that we may forever be the property of the Blessed Sacrament. What are we, and what should we be? Once only did Mary draw the Eternal Word down from heaven, whilst every day we priests draw Him down from heaven to earth. She carried Jesus in her arms until He had reached the age of boyhood, but for us He prolongs His childhood throughout our lifetime. Can we look into the face of our Mother and tell her that in this respect we are greater than she was, and not think on the sanctity that our awe-inspiring office requires of us? Oh, how happy would the long martyrdom of our spiritual life be, if we but aspired to priestly holiness! The attraction of the Eucharist should be our vocation, our ecclesiastical spirit, our joy. The fires of hell can not in all eternity burn out the sacerdotal character imprinted on our soul in ordination; but the splendors of heaven will make that sacred character shine out with so much the greater lustre. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass the School and the Source whence Catholic Life receives its Spirit of Sacrifice.

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the soul and the heart of the liturgy of the Church; it is the mystical chalice which presents to our lips the sweet fruit of the passion of the God-Man that is,. grace.
Hence we may conclude what influence the Mass must and will have upon true Christian life, and upon all striving after perfection.
The impious world, estranged from God, seated in wickedness (1 John 5, 19), has a desolate aspect; it resembles a sterile, barren wilderness, "devoid of fruit and divested of flowers."
But in the midst of this desert stands the Church like unto a blooming, fruitful oasis, like a paradise of God, wherein dwell joy and gladness, thanksgiving and the ringing hymn of praise (Isa. 51, 3). To the delight of God and of the angels, this garden of the Church, planted by the Lord, shines with the most beautiful and the most fragrant variety of flowers, with the abundance of heavenly blossoms and fruits. Ravishingly beautiful is this garden, where "bloom the violets of humility, the lilies of purity shine brightly, and the roses of martyrdom glow.''

But whence do these noble, heavenly plants draw their life's sap, their nourishment, ( their growth, their perfume and their bright colors? Chiefly from the Eucharistic Sacrifice and fountain of grace. The fountains of the Saviour which in the garden of the Church unceasingly flow on thousands of altars, irrigate and fructify the soil, refresh and strengthen the tender shoots, and cause the seed of virtue to blossom and ripen. If the just man flourishes like the palm and is likened unto a tree planted near the running waters, and producing fruit in due season, all this is to be attributed principally to the stream of grace issuing from the Sacrifice of the Mass.
Where, on the contrary, the altar has been buried under ruins, and the Eucharistic source of grace has been obstructed, there all growth of higher virtue and heroic perfection languishes, withers and dies. That Christ's Sacrifice, celebrated day after day, is the deep mystical source of all fullness of virtue in the Church, will appear evident, when we show that Christian perfection must be acquired and be preserved by the spirit of sacrifice and that the supernatural, heroic spirit of sacrifice can be drawn only from the fountain of the perennial Sacrifice of the Mass.

a) Christ's doctrine and example prove that every true Christian life must be a life of perpetual sacrifice, a life of self-denial and mortification. To live in a Christian manner is to follow the teaching of Jesus and what else is this teaching than the Word from the Cross? (1 Cor. 1, 17.) "If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me" (Luke 9, 23) in this saying the Lord included all His Commandments and encouraged us to imitate Him;
for the Christian life is a copy and imitation of the life of Jesus on earth, which in its whole course from the crib to the Cross was one great, uninterrupted sacrifice.
This life of sacrifice of Christ Christians must imitate and imprint on their own lives; for He has given us an example that we may follow in His footsteps (1 Peter 2, 21), and as He walked, must we also follow (1 John 2, 6), that we may be conformed to His image (Rom. 8, 9) and bear in ourselves His heavenly likeness (1 Cor. 15, 49). That the life of the Christian must be a life of perpetual sacrifice is evident from its very nature. The Christian life consists essentially in loving God and the neighbor. Now, this mode of life can endure, be developed and attain the mastery, only when the in-ordinate love of the world and of self is destroyed in our hearts, that is, unremittingly sacrificed under the immolating knife of interior and exterior mortification. This latter demands a constant renunciation in the use of earthly goods and in the enjoyment of worldly pleasures, as well as a courageous endurance of temporal hardships and privations. In order that heavenly flames of everlasting love may burn brightly and purely and transform the life of the soul with supernatural beauty and holiness, all earthly love must be extinguished, nature prone to evil must be overcome, selfishness must be uprooted, and every worldly attachment must be sacrificed. But this is not yet sufficient. To become perfect we must do and suffer much for God, we must by interior recollection of mind walk continually in the presence of God, in all confidence communing with Him, following as much as possible on every occasion the inspirations and suggestions of divine grace. All this is hard, very hard indeed, for the natural man; it costs combat, self-denial and exertion. It is only by dint of labor and energy that the reign of sin and sensuality is destroyed in the heart and in its place the kingdom of grace and of the love of God is established and developed. The spirit of sacrifice is, therefore, the chief element, the touchstone of all true virtue and holiness. Self-sacrifice is absolutely necessary for solid asceticism, for the perfection of the love of God and of the neighbor. Ever true is the golden axiom: Tantum profides, quan- tum tibi vim intuleris "The greater the violence thou offerest to thyself, the greater the progress thou wilt make." In order to ascend from a lower to a higher degree of the love of God, it is not merely sufficient to pray and to nourish devout affections, but much painstaking and self-renunciation are requisite. Whether you are a beginner in the way of purification, or have made some progress in the illuminate way, or are a proficient in the unitive way, always and everywhere you must offer in sacrifice yourself and whatever you possess; you cannot stand still for a moment on the road of self- immolation. "Lord, how often shall I resign myself, and in what things shall I leave myself?" thus the faithful soul inquires, and the Lord replies to her that the sacrifice of self must be uninterrupted and universal: "Always and at all times; as in little things, so also in great. I make no exception, but will have thee to be found in all things divested of thyself."
If you would truly live as a disciple of the Crucified, you must be crucified to the world and the world must be crucified to you (Gal. 6, 14), you must die daily to the world and to yourself, your life must be a perpetual death scias pro certia quia morientem te oportet ducere vitam. "The life of man upon earth is a warfare" Militia est vita hominis super terram (Job. 7, 1). In this Christian warfare many a hard and fearful battle must be fought against visible and invisible enemies; you will have much to dispense with and in many things to deny your- self, much to bear and much to undergo. "Thou must be willing, for the love of God, to suffer all things, viz., labors and sorrows, temptations and vexations, anxieties, necessities, infirmities, injustices, contradictions, censure, manifold humiliations, confusions,
b) The daily carrying of the cross, the holy hatred of self and the Christian renunciation of the world, in short, the constant life of sacrifice, which makes the Christian perfect and produces saints, is something so far removed from earth, so far surpassing all natural understanding and strength, that it is only from the heart, wounds and sacrifice of Jesus that we can receive the light, power and strength requisite for such a life. Such superhuman love of the cross, such a spirit and power of sacrifice, is a plant which not corrupt nature, but only the soil of grace can produce and cause to fructify. It needs ever to be refreshed with the dew of Heaven and the water of life, that it may not unhappily wither and die. The inspirations and helps of grace for constant self-sacrifice issue, therefore, principally from the altar, where Christ every day and at every hour gives Himself up for us as an offering and a sacrifice (Eph. 5, 2). Day after day the Church offers the Body and Blood of Christ, and in union with this Divine Sacrifice she also immolates herself; the faithful assisting at Mass offer themselves likewise "in the spirit of humility and with a contrite heart." This spiritual self-sacrifice of the Church and of her children, which at the altar is made by the will, must then be realized in life "by the burden and heat of the day," by deeds.
The Christian life is formed and developed according to the model and by the power of the Sacrifice of Christ upon the altar. The Eucharistic Sacrifice trains and forms, gives strength and urges to the life of sacrifice; for it is the school and the source of the disposition and courage necessary to lead such a life. The worthy celebration of Mass, as well as the devout Attendance thereat, independently of the graces to be obtained, be- longs to the chief means of virtue; for the liturgy of the Mass is by its nature calculated to impress and to move deeply all those who take part in it with faith and attention, to excite and awaken in the celebrant and the faithful present pious thoughts and feelings, whole- some affections and resolutions and acts acceptable to God of the different virtues. The Eucharistic Sacrifice is so constituted as to be a school, in which the most manifold virtues are awakened and nourished, strengthened and purified. "From the altar proceeds the impulse to all striving after the higher virtues, after a life of perfection."

a) We must make progress in the way of salvation, we must grow in the knowledge and love of Jesus Christ; but where else shall we find more incitement to piety, where purer, healthier and more strengthening food of soul for a virtuous, for a religious life than in the Sacrifice of the Mass? Faith, hope and charity, humility and meekness, obedience and patience, gratitude and resignation, self-denial and renunciation, in a word all the virtues bloom in the heavenly atmosphere which surrounds the altar during Mass. For in the Mass, our Lord mystically accomplishes, in the presence of the faithful, the entire work of redemption offers His life of sacrifice and His sacrificial death and He thus appears in the closest proximity to us as the brightest and the most affecting Model of all virtue and holiness. Could the God-Man practice and reveal His ardent and cheerful love of sacrifice, His humility and His obedience, His love of poverty, mortification and obscurity in a more striking manner than He does in the Eucharistic Sacrifice?
Our Lord once showed St. Mechtilde a large ring which surrounded Himself and her own soul; this ring contained seven precious stones, signifying the sevenfold manner in which the Lord is present in the Holy Sacrifice for our salvation. He comes, namely, upon the altar in so great humility that no one is so lowly, that the Lord will not stoop down to him, if the man only desire Him; with so much patience that there is no sinner or enemy, with whom He does not bear, and to whom He will not grant full discharge of his sins, if he only seeks to be reconciled with Him; with such love, that no one is so cold or hardened, whose heart He will not inflame and soften, if he but will it; with such boundless generosity, that no one is so poor whom He will not immensely enrich; as a food so sweet and so pleasant, that no one is so sick or famished as not to be invigorated and fully satiated thereby; with such brightness, that no heart is so blinded and obscured, as not to be enlightened and purified by His presence; finally, with such plenitude of holiness and grace, that there is no one so slothful and so distracted, as not to be aroused and inspired to devotion by His love.

b) The Eucharistic Sacrifice is the most glorious crown of the great work of salvation and, at the same time, the living memorial of all the mysteries of Christ. All that is mysterious and divine, majestic and sublime, affecting and moving, blissful and consoling, instructive and edifying, in religion, in the Incarnation, in the Catholic Church and her holy year, all this is combined and enclosed in the liturgy of the Mass as in a focus.
Whosoever considers this devoutly in the spirit of a lively faith cannot fail to grow strong and increase in virtue and merit. Above all, the Eucharistic Sacrifice brings vividly before the mind the passion and death of Christ, the God-Man. Amidst the joys of Christmas and the triumph of Easter, Mount Calvary with its eternal seriousness remains the central point of all sacrificial celebration; the Confiteor and the Kyrie eleison are never suppressed from the Mass by the chant of the Alleluja. Hence it follows that the faithful when hearing Mass should, above all, devoutly dwell upon and revere the passion and death of Jesus. No time is more proper for this devout meditation than the sacred time of Mass, when the Lamb of God is mystically immolated before our eyes. Assuredly it is not difficult during the celebration of Mass to place one's self beneath the Cross and embrace it; for the vestments of the priest, the crucifix on the altar, the many signs of the Cross, the mingling of the water and wine, the separate elements of bread and wine, the elevating of the sacrificial offerings, the breaking of the Host, the different goings to and fro and movements of the celebrant at the altar, in short, the entire rite of the Mass represents the various mysteries of the passion, reminding us what numerous and bitter sufferings Christ endured for us, giving His life and dying the most cruel death for us.
At every Mass place yourself in spirit at the foot of the Cross with the sorrowful Mother of God, with the virginal disciple St. John and the penitent St. Magdalen, and there represent to yourself the precious Blood of Jesus trickling down upon you, think of the pains and wounds of Jesus, of the vinegar and gall, the nails and the lance; and how can you remain cold and unconcerned? Should not your soul, at the thought of such awful mysteries as were accomplished on Mount Calvary even for your sake and which are mystically renewed upon the altar, tremble with holy fear, and your heart be inflamed with love, contrition and gratitude? In the wounds and pains of Jesus there is a countless number of reproaches to us for our cowardice and sloth in the service of God, for the inconstancy of our will, for our aversion to trials, privations and humiliations. "Daily the Holy Mass displays before our eyes the tree of the Cross with its arms raised heavenward, its withered branches bearing the sweet fruit of the Body of Christ. Mount Calvary spreads itself out above the altar before our eyes, and the cup of the chalice receives anew the Blood of Jesus Christ. But then few witnessed the bloody Mass which Jesus Christ, the High Priest, celebrated Himself visibly on the altar of Calvary; ah, fewer still stood there to partake of the blessings that proceed from the Cross. At that time when men were wanting, nature herself performed the funeral rites for Him. The earth quaked, as if moved with compassion, the rocks were rent. The cracking of the rocks tolled His knell. The brightness of day veiled itself in universal darkness, dark curtains hung in front of the bright temple of creation, and the sun, concealing his countenance, joined the funeral procession. This mourning throughout the vast temple of inanimate creation is indeed sublime in its grandeur and most awfully impressive in its beauty. More beautiful still, viewed with the eyes of the soul, are the obsequies which take place in the Sacrifice of Holy Mass. By the institution of Holy Mass, that sacrifice which is offered in all times, and which traces its course with the sun around the earth from East to West, every Christian is privileged to look upon this Sacrifice of the Lord, to join in His funeral procession, and to be overwhelmed at the foot of the Cross with sentiments of contrition, gratitude and love. Now it is that the Lord rends the hearts of stone, now it is that sorrow for sins fills the souls and clothes them in mourning, now man's interior revives in the meditation on the nameless sufferings and death of Christ. Thus is Christ's death daily placed before the hearts and eyes of Catholics. They gaze upon the open Book of His wounds and His death; Holy Mass itself proclaims His death. And this language is understood by all Christians who have not wholly given up the practice of their faith. This the peasantry understand; when they join their hands, hardened by toil, and lean them on the pews, and when they recite the rosary, they represent to themselves in their prayers the mysteries of Christ's presentation, passion and death. The fervent were wont at all times, even in the early ages of the Church, to meditate profoundly on the passion of Christ. Thus the amiable Dominican, Henry Suso, relates of his simple mother, that she once told him, that for thirty years she had never assisted at Mass without dwelling upon the Passion of Christ and without being moved to tears by its consideration. But we are not to imagine that the Sacrifice of the Mass, which leads us deeply into the mysteries and places us beneath the Cross of Christ, is an obstacle to the ordinary active life, that it en- genders only sentiments appertaining to the contemplative life, that it enervates the will and mind for the daily life, and causes us to underrate and to neglect the duties of our state of life. Not at all, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass refers us unceasingly to the hard, prosaic, practical life. It invites the Christian to bring with him to the holy sacrifice the burdens and trials of life, to offer himself to God together with his cross in union with Christ. It inspires and persuades us to exemplify in our own conduct the spirit of sacrifice of Jesus Christ, so that our entire life may be animated with the resolution of making every necessary sacrifice. Such is the greatness and the grandeur of the Holy Mass. It leads us in its mysteries up to the very gates of heaven and, at the same time, embraces the humblest duties and hardships of daily life." "As often as thou sayest or hearest Mass, it ought to appear to thee as great and as new and as delightful, as if Christ had that very same day for the first time descended into the Virgin's womb and become man, or, hanging on the Cross, was suffering and dying for the salvation of mankind." 2 Thus the frequent and devout participation in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is a school spurring us on to the practice of every virtue and perfection. In this school shall we be instructed in the science of salvation and of the Saints, only when the liturgy of the Mass is not for us a closed book sealed with seven seals, but when we penetrate through the shell into the kernel, and understand what mysteries are therein concealed, and what is the meaning of the rite of the sacrifice and of its prayers and ceremonies. 2. The Holy Mass is not only a school which directs us and incites us to the practice of the different virtues, it is also an inexhaustible fountain from which gushes forth grace and strength necessary to lead the life of sacrifice enjoined on the Church militant and her children unto the end of the earthly pilgrimage, when all sorrow shall be changed into joy, and the brief combat be followed by an eternal triumph in heaven. a) Unto the end of time, as St. Augustine says, the history of the Church will oscillate between the "persecution of the world and the consolations of God;" during all time the Church continues here below on her pilgrimage, rejoicing in hope and patient in tribulation (Rom. 12, 12) until the miseries of this life are over. She ever lives a life of sacrifice, from the beginning she shines in the color of sacrifice; for her apparel is red, and her garments like those worn by them that tread in the wine-press (Isa. 63, 2). The life of sacrifice of the Church is mainly revealed in a two- fold aspect the sacrifice of love and the sacrifice of suffering. When Jesus was asleep in death on the Cross, the Church came forth from the open wound of His transpierced Heart: she then inherited from her Divine Spouse, as her most beautiful bridal ornament, that ex- cess of love and of suffering, which animated and flooded the divine Heart of Jesus at His death. On the day of her espousals with the Crucified Son of God, she was adorned on Calvary with a bridal crown of thorns, and veiled in the festal garment of sacrifice.
These, her bridal ornaments she will not lay aside, until she has finished her course of sacrifice through gloomy and dreary time, and has reached the bright, happy eternity, where at last the heavenly wedding-feast shall forever be celebrated in imperishable glory and endless hymns of victory. a) "Jesus went about doing good and healing" (Acts 10, 38) these words comprise the entire earthly life of our Lord; they also express the action and operation of the Church, which is nothing else than Christ continuing to live and operate through His representative organ. Like the Redeemer, the Church is also "an image of the divine goodness" (Wisdom 7, 26), of the merciful and communicative love of God. That great canticle of love of the purest, most noble-minded and most generous self-sacrificing love , which was entoned on the Cross by the Saviour, resounds in His Church throughout all times and countries. The spirit of the Lord continues to hover over the Church; He has anointed and sent her to announce glad tidings to the poor and to heal the contrite of heart (Luke 4, 18). As it is natural for the sun to give forth light and heat, so it is the peculiar mission of ;

¹ Non sicut secularis beneficentia, corporales dumtaxat necessitates sublevat Ecclesia; verura, ad exemplum benignissimi Salvatoris, omnem semper curatn et operam contulit, ut duplicis substantiae tottim cibaret hominem (Collect. Lacens. IV, p. 355).