Page images
PDF
EPUB

Communicating" and altogether disjoining it from
the subsequent part of the prayer; as on Easter Sun-
day where the meaning is evident, "Being united in
Communion, and celebrating this most sacred day of
the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, accord-
ing to the flesh: moreover honouring the memory of
the ever glorious, &c."

the Saints who were

This portion of the Canon teaches us to honour the memory of the Saints, to seek their intercession, and enumerates some of the principal and earliest of those holy personages. Different Churches had different names in this place, and many of them a longer enumeration. In the first ages of the church, there was placed upon the altar a paper or parchment folded double, whence it was called a Dyptic, it was the register of that church; this had three columns, one in which the names of the Pope, the Bishop, sometimes of the King or Emperor, and of the benefactors of the church, were inscribed, and this was frequently read aloud at the beginning of the Canon. In the second column were the names of voked in that church, and lastly the names of deprincipally honoured and inceased persons belonging to the church for the repose of whose souls the prayers of the living were implored. Thus the Dyptics exhibited at once the three states of the faithful, militant, triumphant and suffering, but still united in the communion of Saints. The difference of those registers in different churchit any difference of faith, for though the names may es will now be no cause of surprise, nor will it exhibbe, and must generally be different, the principles of their introduction must evidently be the same. a very early period, the names of the Saints whose ferred from the Dyptics to the Canon, and as the emory was to be principally honoured, were transenumeration would be almost interminable if all who were honoured and invoked should be named, only a few were inserted, and the general phrase added

At

"and of all thy Saints." Without entering into any proof to support the doctrine, one remark may be al lowed, that whatever merits we attribute to them, or whatever aid we expect from them, must all be from that great source of good to us "Christ our Lord." And in the invocation we only follow what has been transmitted to us from the days of the Apos tles, by whose immediate disciples their names were placed upon the Registers, and to which were afterwards added the names of those who like them had lived in the practice of virtue, and died in the odour of sanctity. Mention was made of them at the altar, as St. Augustine says, *"At the very table, we com memorate them, not that we should pray for them, but rather, that they might pray for us" and in another place "It is an injury to pray for a Martyr, to whose prayers we should be commended." And thus as a learned expounder of the Canon writes! "We honour the head in his members, God in his Saints."

Being thus fortified by the intercession of those Saints, the celebrant now spreads his hands over the offerings: as the high priest of Judea formerly laid his hands upon the goat to load that victim with the sins of the people, and as the priests of the old law always laid their hands upon the heads of those victims which were offered for sin. By laying his hands thus over the oblation, he too indentifies himself therewith, and thus make the complete sacrifice of himself, the people, and the bread and wine to the Lord, for the purposes recited in the prayer, where he intreats the Almighty "graciously to accept this oblation of his servitude" in the ministry" as also of his whole family" that congregation of which he is the head. The special objects now enumerated are first"the disposition of our days in peace." That

* Tract 84 in Joan. t Serm. 17 de verbis Apost. Ode Camerac. in Expos. Sac. Can, dis. 2.

peace which is the result of a good conscience, that
peace which the world cannot give*-because the
world frequently lulls the conscience into a deceit-

ful

repose, saying peace, peace, and there is no peace; the second object is to "preserve us from eternal damnation," by keeping us in this life from sin, which alone can produce damnation; and the third object is, to "rank us in the number of the elect"; because in his mercy he can choose us, and select us, and give us extraordinary aid, whereby favouring us in his good will, more than others, to whom he gives a sufficiency of grace to enable them to be saved, if they will correspond therewith; he can pour forth his assistance more abundantly upon us, and thus insure our Salvation by his extraordinary mercy. All this we implore "through Christ our Lord," who exhorts us to ask in his name.

The expression of the three great objects of our offering in this prayer, was added to the Canon by St. Gregory the great, as we read in his life by John the Deacon, L. 2. n. 17. in Walfridus lib de rebus. Eccl. c. 22. in the sixth lesson of his festival in the Breviary, March 12, and from the venerable Bede

Hist. Eccl. 12. c 1.

of the Mass, he superadded these phrases full of the greatest perfection Diesque Nostros &c." However Amalarius in prefat 2. in lib. de Off. states that the objects were substantially contained in the Canon in the times of St. Ambrose, which was two hundred

"And also in the celebration

years earlier.

We now come to the prayer which immediately precedes the consecration, and which we find in every latin formula that is extant, and which has always been looked upon as having been altogether derived from the Apostles. And as regards the substance of the prayers, the only difference between the Latin and the Eastern liturgies on this point, is,

*John xiv 27. + John xvi 24.

that the Greeks repeat the prayer which they have correspondent to this, after the form instituted by our Saviour, and the Latins place it immediately before the words of his institution.

We are now arrived at that part which is the most solemn, important, and interesting of the entire, every thing hitherto had reference remotely or proximately to the awful moment which approaches. For now the true victim is about to be produced. In a well regulated Cathedral this indeed is a mo ment of splendid, improving, and edifying exhibi tion to the well instructed Christian. The joyful hosannas of the Organ have died away in deep and solemn notes which seemed to be gradually lost as they ascended to the throne of God, and solemn si lence pervades the church; the celebrant stands bareheaded, about to perform the most awful duty in which man could possibly be engaged. His assist. ants in profound expectation await the performance of that duty; taper-bearers line the sides of the Sanctuary, and with their lighted lamps await the arrival of their Lord. Incence-bearers kneel, ready to envelope the altar in a cloud of perfumes which represents the prayers of the Saints; and at the moment of the consecration when the celebrant elevates the host, and the tinkling of a small bell gives no tice of the arrival of the lamb, every knee is bent, every head is bowed, gratulating music bursts upon the ear, and the lights which surround the throne of him who comes to save a world, are seen dimly blaz ing through the clouds of perfumed smoke, which envelopes this mystic place. Yet even on the most humble altar which religion rears, and at which poverty attends, though stripped of all external pomp and circumstance of show; the same victim is found, the same graces may be obtained, and purer piety may kneel with more sensible devotion, and form a closer alliance with the Saviour of the world, espe cially if by eating his flesh, and drinking his blood,

the union of abode in Christ should take place, *for
his flesh is meat indeed, and his blood is drink in-

deed.

my blood

We have in the gospels a short record of the acts of the Saviour, at the institution. and blessed, and brake: and he gave to his Disciples Jesus took bread, and said: take ye and eat: this is my body, and taking the chalice, he gave thanks, and gave to them, saying: Drink ye all of this. For this is of the new testament, which skall be shed for many, unto remission of sins. Here we find the acts to be taking bread, blessing it, breaking it, giving to his disciples what he held, accompanied by a declaration that it was his body. This is no place to enter upon an examination of the meaning of the word brake, as this is not a controversial disquisition; but it may be observed that many eminent linguists, and deep antiquarians, and learned divines, state the meaning to be breaking in sacrifice, because the word has been frequently used in that sense; and this they state to be the key to the explanation of the words in St. Mark xiv. 22. where the whole is described as one act, blessing broke; that is by his blessing offered the Sacrifice; and to that of St. Luke xxii. 19. This is my body which is given FOR you, not only given to you, for they say, if it were only a sacrament it would have been then only given to them, but not for be given for them, because it was given to no other, them; as there was no other person to whom it could and the verb is in the present tense, and must refer to some act then in performance; and the distinction of tenses is made by cach of the three Evangelists, where speaking of the blood in the subsequent verse, each says, shall be shed, that is future, referring to the next day. But if by his blessing he did offer it in Sacrifice, then indeed we can clearly see the acts to

* John vi. 56. Matt, xxvi. 26, 27.

« PreviousContinue »