Abomination
The new order of Mass was introduced by Paul VI into our churches back in the 1960s. It is not acceptable. It is not acceptable because it is not Catholic. The fact that we are all here in this church this morning, attending the ancient rite of Mass that goes back all the way to Pope St. Gregory the Great, shows that we have all understood that there are defects in Vatican II’s new rite of Mass. Now and again though, we should remind ourselves what its main defect is, and why Catholics can never accept this non-Catholic worship service.
As Catholics we should know what exactly the Mass is. It was instituted by our Lord himself at the Last Supper—the night he was betrayed, he took bread and having blessed it he gave it to his disciples, saying “This is my Body, this is my Blood.” Long before this, our Lord had described how it was only by eating his Body and drinking his Blood could a person be saved. Our very eternal life in heaven or hell depends on whether we receive Holy Communion. We know of course that the words of consecration which the priest utters during the Mass changes the substance of the bread into our Lord’s Body, and the wine into his Blood. So the modernists might object that just the words of consecration are sufficient in themselves, that the validity of the new mass is not in doubt.
What they fail to acknowledge, however, is that the validity of a sacrament depends not only on the bread and wine (the matter of the sacrament) and whispering some specific words over them (the form of the sacrament). Validity depends not just on matter and form, but also on the intention of the priest to do what the Church does. And it is in their understanding of what the Church does that has completely changed the whole notion of the Mass. The Church has always taught that the Mass is a sacrifice.
The Mass is not just any sacrifice but the continuation of the same unbloody Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ on the cross. These are offered by a priest, a man who derives his priesthood from the divine priesthood of Christ. He is an “alter Christus”, a second Christ, who offers the same sacrifice, the Body and Blood of Christ, to God the Father. It is the offering of the same divine Victim to the same divine Being. What the freemason Bugnini and his protestant friends did, at the behest of Paul VI, was to remove any and all references to sacrifice from the Mass. It was no longer to be thought of as the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, but rather as the gathering of the community to worship God together. In this, the new Mass is no different from any Protestant service. They made the priest turn his back to God and face the assembly of the people instead, solidifying this idea that he is now just one of us, the one chosen to lead the service in whatever form he chooses. He is no longer our representative, standing, like us, facing the altar, offering with us and on our behalf the holy Sacrifice to God. From there it was a simple matter to do away with the altar altogether, replacing it with a simple and often ugly little table over which the minister, no longer priest but now simply presider over the ceremonies, puts together the communal meal. Imagine Julia Childs wearing vestments and you get the picture.
The disappearance of the tabernacle to hidden side altars, the neglect of the Real Presence, the secular ministers performing what were supposed to be the sacred duties of the priest, like distributing Communion, now in the hand, the gradual loss of the respect Catholics once had in the holy house of God, all followed on until the Catholic Church and her faithful forgot their faith and lost the Mass. God saw to it that a remnant of clergy and faithful would keep the faith and the sacraments intact, in defiance of popes, bishops and clergy, but the vast majority of Catholics simply and gradually became protestant, first in their worship, then in their beliefs, over the course of just a few years.
This brings us to the opening sentence of today’s Gospel. For what do we see when we look through the doors of the typical Catholic Church today? Our Lord warned us in the words spoken of by Daniel the Prophet: “When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation. stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:) then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains. for then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.”
In spite of the recent election, this world seems to be roaring down the pathway to war right now. If you’ve been watching the news, you’ll know all about the diverse threats looming over our nation, so I won’t scare you with them here. Wars and rumors of wars… But we don’t come to Church on Sunday morning to be scared, we come for assurance, and I can assure you of this, because our blessed Lord himself told us so—that heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. What words? The words he spoke at the Last Supper, when having blessed and broken the bread, he took it into his sacred hands and gave it to his disciples, saying “This is my Body.” And likewise the chalice: “This is the chalice of my Blood, the Blood of the new and everlasting covenant.” No matter what they’re doing up the road at St. Mary’s with their altar girls and communion in the hand, no matter what the more progressive churches are now doing with their gay and transgender Masses attended by the divorced and remarried, by unnatural couples who flaunt their vices to the world,—here we fulfill that everlasting covenant that is the Blood of Jesus, here we offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass the way that our Lord taught us. “This is my Body, this is my Blood”. Words, my dear faithful, that shall never pass away so long as we have breath in our bodies.