Chapter IV. The Priesthood of Christ and the Life of Union

"Having therefore a great high priest that hath passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God; let us hold fast our confession."

When we talk of the unitive way, or, for that matter, of the illuminative way, we find difficulty in expressing ourselves, because of the varied modes in which these ways occur. We often encounter them in an attenuated form, in which infused contemplation of the mysteries of faith remains latent. Their full normal development demands contemplation; but contemplation may manifest itself in more ways dian one. In pure contemplatives it shows itself as clearly and evidently as a shaft of light; in the proficient and perfect dedicated to the apostolate and to action, in St. Vincent de Paul, for example, it has the character rather of diffused light, appearing in a form ordered more to action. Extraordinary graces, such as the revelations and visions described by St. Teresa, may or may not accompany the complete development of the illuminative and unitive ways. Favors of this kind are not at all necessary for the full flowering of infused contemplation and of union with God, as St. John of the Cross plainly shows.

This diversity of form makes any study of the illuminative and unitive ways difficult. To obviate the difficulty, we must imitate what the Church does in her liturgy, addressed, as it is, to us all. She sets before her children these two ways as she beholds them in our Lord and our Lady, the great mediators and great models for everybody. The liturgy places insistence on those mysteries in their lives which by their very nature enlighten all souls sincerely desirous of growing in God's love, whether they are especially dedicated to contempladon or to action.

Therefore we shall bring this work to a close by considering the life of union in relationship to the priesthood and kingship of Christ, His impeccable and exemplary liberty, and the fruitful sufferings of Mary our mediatrix. To bring out more clearly the bond between these truths and the life of union, we shall put special emphasis on their relationship to the Sacrifice of the Mass, the high point in our day, the time of all times most potent to unite us to God.

The revealed doctrine most capable of giving us some insight into the greatness of the Sacrifice of the Mass, is the priesthood of Christ. The great theologians of the thirteenth century, such as St. Thomas, antedated the Lutheran heresy on the Sacrifice of the Mass, and, as a result, have left us an incompletely developed teaching on the subject. As a compensation for this, they treated at length of Christ's priesthood, as revelation unfolds it for us in the Epistle to the Hebrews in texts of great beauty frequently commented upon by the Fathers. These texts contain doctrinal riches which serve to illuminate the Eucharistic sacrifice and give us a fuller understanding of the Council of Trent's solemn definition against the Lutherans: "In the divine sacrifice accom- plished in the Mass, Christ, who offered Himself on the altar of the cross by shedding His blood for us, is offered in an unbloody manner. The same Victim is offered. The same Priest offers, 'idem nunc offerens sacerdotum ministerio' ; He Himself made the offering on the cross, now He makes it through His ministers, only the manner of oblation differs." 1 It is die same sacrifice in substance, for both victim and priest are the same, aldiough the offering is now made by Christ through His ministers.

To grasp something of the greatness, power, and influence of Christ's priesthood, we should first recall what die Epistle to die Hebrews tells us of its essential character and then think over how theology, particularly as expounded by St. Thomas Aquinas, develops this teaching.

Christ's priesthood in the epistle to the hebrews

The Episde applies to our Lord's priesthood the great thoughts expressed by St. Paul in his epistles to the Romans, to the Corinthians, and to Timothy, about Christ the Redeemer, the universal Mediator, the Head of the Church, and the necessity of faith in Christ for salvation. "For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus : who gave himself a redemption for all." 2

The first part of die Epistle to the Hebrews purposes to show the superiority of the priesthood of Jesus Chri st, the mediator of the new covenant, over all the mediums used by¹

God to manifest Himself to men in the Old Testament. Jesus is here declared to be higher than the angels, Moses, and all the prophets and priests of the Old Law. This teaching shows us that the Epistle was well calculated to instruct recently converted Jews and to fortify them against the temptation to return to the rites of the Levitical priesthood. Let us underline the essential points of St. Paul's thought.

He is higher than the angels not only because of the mysteries of His divine sonship and Incarnation, but also because of the Redemption, because He has suffered for love of us and His sufferings have an infinitely meritorious and satisfactory value. Abased during His earthly life, He is now crowned with glory because of His sufferings and death. "Wherefore it behooved Him in all things to be made like unto His brethren, that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest before God, that He might be a propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that, wherein He Himself hath suffered and been tempted, He is able to succour them also that are tempted." 4

Then, too, whereas the priests of the Old Law had first to offer sacrifice for dieir own sins and then for die people's, Jesus is "holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, and made higher than the heavens," not for His own sake, but for ours, to be a fitting high priest for us. 8

Finally, the rites and sacrifices of Mosaic worship, though multiple, lacked efficacy of themselves, despite the external magnificence with which they were surrounded. The Old Law provided for a sacrifice for sin, suitable for penitents, a peace offering for purified souls to express their gratitude, and a holocaust or whole burnt offering to signify man's complete submission to God's sovereign law by offering Him as His due an act of perfect adoration. 8 No less variety obtained in the matter of the sacrifice itself; doves, heifers, and the paschal lamb, a figure of the mysterious Lamb to come and take away the sins of the world, were all used. All these sacrifices had value only as figures of a unique sacrifice to be accomplished not in great exterior magnificence but in the perfect divestment of Golgotha. "But Christ, being come a high priest of the good things to come . . . neither by the blood of goats, or of calves, but by his own blood, entered once into the holies, having obtained eternal redemption." 10 "For Jesus is not entered into the holies made with hands, the patterns of the true: but into heaven itself, that He may appear now in the presence of God for us." 11

Unlike the sacrifices of the Old Law, multiple but ineffectual of themselves, Christ's sacrifice is unique and perfect. His offering began when He came into the world: "Sacrifice and oblation Thou wouldst not: but a body Thou hast fitted to Me. Holocausts for sin did not please Thee. Then said I: Behold I come ... that I should do Thy will, O God." 12 This act of oblation has never ceased being offered in Christ's heart. Although He no longer merits in heaven, His offering

always continues, for He never ceases to make intercession for us. 13

The first lines of the Epistle to the Hebrews sum up this entire doctrine: "God, who, at sundry times and in divers manners, spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, last of all, in these days hath spoken to us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the world. Who being the brightness of His glory, and the figure of His substance, and upholding all things by the word of His power . . . sitteth on the right hand of the majesty on high." 14 We could not ask for a more telling assertion of the divinity of Jesus than this, spoken to the first generation of Christians as an accepted dogma and infinitely precious treasure of the new-born Church.

The teaching of the Epistle to the Hebrews is cast into exact terminology by theological and particularly Thomistic teaching concerning the priesthood in general and the perfection proper to it. The priest's office is to act as mediator between God and men: offering to God the prayers of the people, sacrifice especially, as being the most perfect act of the virtue of religion; bringing the things of God to the people (sacerdos sacra dans) by preaching the light of truth, and, through the administration of the sacraments, dispensing the grace necessary to fulfill God's law. 18

29 8 THE LOVE OF GOD

To accomplish the exterior and social worship due to God, the priestly mediation must both ascend to Him and descend from Him. Man, being composed of soul and body, owes God bodi interior and exterior worship, and living by nature in society, owes Him, too, social worship, God being no less the audior and benefactor of human society than of our soul and body. We need the priest to bind into a single whole the prayers of all the people, to unify their acts of adoration, of praise, and of reparation, and to make up for the imperfection of the acts of the faithful. His sancdty, that is, his special consecration to die Lord for this purpose, makes him capable of offering die prayers of the people to God as an expression of their whole soul.

The priest is no less necessary to bring to the people the things of God, divine light and grace, without human alteration or adulteration, neither failing to differentiate between divine fire and poetic ardor, nor between sentimentality and piety. The priest should be indeed "the salt of the earth" and "the light of the world." 16

The twofold priestly mediation takes place especially in sacrifice, the offering of the sacrifice forming the ascending mediation, and the sharing of the victim offered with the faithful by communion forming the descending mediation. Just as the priesthood consdtutes the pre-eminent sacred function, so sacrifice, as its name indicates, forms the pre-eminent sacred action. Without sacrifice, no priesthood ; without the priesthood, no sacrifice; for sacrifice supposes an offering priest and an offered victim. Why should there be an outward oblation and destruction or immoladon? To express in a sensible way an inward oblation and immolation. Even the

act of adoration expressed in genuflecting shows that we recognize, St. Thomas says, our weakness before God, bowing down before Him as an admission that of ourselves we are nodiing, "quasi profitentes nos nihil esse ex nobis." 17

If a simple genuflection has such symbolism, the sacrifice of adoration most vividly expresses the same truth: that, even when innocent, creatures are nothing of themselves; that God alone is Being, He who is, and in comparison to Him we are not, "Substantia mea tanquam nihilum ante te." 18 After creation, diere was no more being than before, because infinite being ahead y existed; after creation there were more beings, but no more being; more living things, but no more life; more minds, but no more wisdom, no more sanctity, no more love.

The great truth of God's infinite fullness can be expressed only in a negative fashion in this life, by speaking of the nothingness of creatures, by saying that there would be no less being and no less perfection if every creature were annihilated. And over this nothingness that we are, the sovereign dominion of God must be exercised, die stars paying Him the tribute of their obedience all unwittingly, but we, with knowledge and freedom. To express God's infinite greatness and sovereignty and our contrasting weakness and nothingness, man gives himself to God by offering Him something external in a certain way, annihilating it, as if to say: God alone is He who is; I am he who is not. This symbolic destruction thus hymns the infinite greatness of die Most High and forms a sacrifice of adoration, which would have existed even if man had never sinned.

3 oo THE LOVE OF GOD

The recognition of God's sovereign dominion ought to be accompanied by an act of thanksgiving for all we have received from Him; to benefactors we offer the best that we have to give in order to express our gratitude to them. By sacrifice man also asks new graces of God to secure perseverance in goodness. Even before sin, the triple sacrifice of adoration, thanksgiving, and supplication was due to God in virtue of the natural law, which regulates the relations of creatures to their Creator. 19

After mortal sin, especially since it has affected the whole human race, man ought not only to recognize that of himself he is nothing, but he ought also to acknowledge his misery and his sin. Sin descends below nothingness because of its disorder and baseness. The man who has risen up against the principle of all order should recognize that he deserves to be put down, to undergo a punishment proportionate to his wrongdoing. He who has despised God's love and preferred the lowest goods to Him, who has lost the life of grace and has no right to the divine friendship, still owes his debt to sovereign Justice and should pay it. Urged by actual grace to repentance, man seeks to express the sorrow of "a contrite and humble heart," and takes from among the animals belonging to him the best, the purest, the gendest, and, as if he wished to burden the animal with his crime, he then immolates it to the Lord, asking His pardon with this sacrifice of expiation or reparation.

The four great motives of sacrifice are then adoration, thanksgiving, petition, and expiation. In the Old Testament these four ends were often represented by different sacrifices. The unique sacrifice of the new alliance unites them all and i» Ila Hac, q.85, a. i.

realizes in a marvelous way a twofold mediation between God and man, offering adoration, gratitude, and reparation to God and bringing to man pardon and the new graces needed for his perseverance and growth in goodness.

Considered from this point of view both our Lord's sacrifice and His priesthood are the most perfect conceivable. The perfection of the priesthood results from the triple union of the priest with God, with the victim which he offers, and with the people for whom he offers it. The fadiers and theologians of the Church frequently concern diemselves with these considerations. 20

The holier a priest is, and the more united to God, the more perfect is his sacrifice, for a priest should make up by his sanctity for the people's imperfection in adoring, thanking, and petitioning God, and offering reparation to Him. The purer and more precious the victim and the more fully it is consumed in God's honor, the more perfect is the sacrifice. In the Old Law the holocaust was recognized as the most perfect of all sacrifices because the entire victim was consumed in God's honor to signify man's duty to offer his whole self to God.

A sacrifice gains in perfection according to die closeness of the union between priest and victim, die victim's external oblation and immolation being only a sign of the internal oblation and immolation in the priest's heart as he performs the greatest act of the virtue of religion.

Lastly, the more united priest and people are, the more perfect is the sacrifice. The priest should unify all the acts of adoration, thanksgiving, petition, and reparation offered by

20 Cf. St. Augustine, De Trtnitate, Bk. IV, chap. 14, and St. Thomas, Ilia, q.48, the faithful into one great elevation to God, lifting up, as it were, the soul of the whole people. As a consequence, the greater the number of people united to the priest, the greater is the homage paid to God and the more far-reaching are the effects of the sacrifice. 21

We have only to apply these principles to our Lord's priesthood to conclude immediately that none greater than His could be conceived. Christ Jesus, our priest, has no taint whatever of original or personal sin or any imperfection; He is holiness itself. Priest inasmuch as He is man and not inasmuch as He is God, He is a mediator and, under this title, less than God. Nevertheless, because Christ's humanity belongs to the Word made flesh, the priestly acts of Jesus proceed from His human intellect and will and yet have an infinitely

21 Blessed Albert the Great in his treatise, De Eucharistla, dist. V, cap. 3, De hupti sacrifidi acceptabililate (cd. Borgnct, 1899; XXXVIII, 347) explains at length St, Augustine's words in De Trinitatc, Bk. IV, chap. 14: "What could be offered more precious than the flesh of our sacrifice, which is the very body of our Priest? In sacrifice we can consider what is offered, to whom it is offered, who offers it and why. Now the one true Mediator, reconciling us with God through His sacrifice of peace, is one with God to whom the sacrifice is offered, and makes Himself one with those for whom it is offered."

Albert the Great shows why it is impossible that this sacrifice would not be received: "It is offered to the Father by the Son, our priest. Christ in His human nature. His flesh and blood, is the offering. He is offered for us all. Divine Wisdom has united the victim offered and the priest offering in one and the same person. It has united the priest to the person to whom the oblation is made, for Father and Son arc one through their divine nature. It has united the victim offered with those for whom it is offered, for Christ has a human nature like ours. And as God the Father cannot but be acceptable to Himself, so our priest, being one with the Father, must be acceptable to Him too. And as our priest cannot but be acceptable to the Father, so must His offering be acceptable. Priest and victim being accepted, those for whom the oblation is made cannot but be agreeable to Him too, for they are of the same nature as the victim and the priest, and the blood of Christ has purified them from all that would prevent them from being received by God, their incorporation through the sacrament uniting them to the priest and the victim. . . . We thus have a more than sufficient oblation, spoken of in the Epistle to the Hebrews 7: 25: 'Whereby He is able also to save forever them that come to God by Him; always living to make intercession for us." We have but to offer our purified selves together with Christ, and the Father will accept us."

meritorious and satisfactory value because they arise from the fountainhead of the divine personality of the Word. And even until now the Word made flesh keeps interceding for us through His human soul.

Furdiermore, as head of the Church, our Lord received the fullness of created grace to pour out its overflow upon us, and a power of excellence to institute the sacraments. The sacraments He fashioned potent to produce and increase the divine life in us and the priesthood He made participant in His own. 22 His sacrifice takes away all the sins of the world: Ecce Agnus Dei, qui tollit peccata mundi. If sin continues, it continues not because His sacrifice lacks virtue like those of the Old Law but because men often have no will to receive its fruits.

The victim of Calvary is worthy of Calvary's priest. Jesus could not have offered any odier vicdm than Himself to His Fadier. As a figure of Christ, the youth Isaac allowed himself to be used for his father's sacrifice; but at the crucifixion Jesus made His own offering of Himself. "Therefore doth the Father love Me: because I lay down My life, that I may take it up again. No man taketh it from Me: but I lay it down of Myself, and I have power to lay it down: and I have power to take it up again. This commandment have I received of My Fadier." 23

This purest vicdm has infinite wordi for it is the body of the Word of God, His blood, His torn and broken heart, His very soul, abandoned and full of sorrow. "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me ?" His complete immolation makes reparation for the pride of life, the concupiscence

3 o 4 THE LOVE OF GOD of the flesh and of the eyes. The final humiliations, the overwhelming suffering, and perfect self -divestment are offered for love of us. No mind can think of a victim purer or more precious or more completely consumed in God's honor than our dying Jesus, the most perfect holocaust ever lifted up to God in the greatest anguish of body and soul.

The union between priest and victim could not be more intimate; nor the bond between the interior and exterior sacrifice straiter, because the priest Himself is the victim, not only as to His body, but also as to His heart and soul. The sorrow that pierces Him through arises from His charity in the face of the tremendous evil that His Father commissioned Him to blot out. It follows, then, that the priest, the Savior's minister, can become a living image of His adored Master only by becoming in some measure a victim like Him. We see this in the lives of the saints who win honor for the priesthood. If they have not endured martyrdom of body, they have undergone martyrdom of heart; otherwise their apostolate would not bear the likeness of the crucified Savior.

The union of priest and victim becomes more and more evident in the Cenacle, on Calvary, and after the resurrection. The Eucharist celebrated in the Cenacle is the beginning of the Passion as well as its consequence. Love prepares for suffering, and suffering perfects love. Suffering is die measure of love; and love, of suffering. Whoever loves God and is loved by Him becomes devoted to a life of suffering, as Jesus, our Savior and model, was. He speaks to His best friends of His love and of His passion, leading them to realize diat He desires them to have a share in both that they may be intimately at one with Him.

The union between priest and people could not be closer than between Jesus and us. Jesus is the head of the mystical body; we are the members. From Him the fruit of His sacrifice, the life of grace nourished by Holy Communion, continually flows down to us. At the same time, through Him our acts of adoration, thanksgiving, petition, and reparadon ascend to the Father in union with His and do more to please God than all the sins of men can achieve to displease Him.

Above all at Holy Mass are St. Paul's words verified: "Now you are the body of Christ, and members of member." 24 "But doing the truth in charity, we may in all things grow up in Him who is the head, even Christ." 25 "Christ is the head of the Church. He is the savior of His body." 28 It is chiefly through the Mass, the perpetuation of the sacrifice of the cross, that these words of St. Paul continue to be realized until the end of time: "Christ also loved the Church, and delivered Himself up for it; that He might sancdf y it, cleansing it by the laver of water in the word of life: that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing; but diat it should be holy, and without blemish." 27

In the Sacrifice of the Mass the victim is the same as in die sacrifice of the cross, being present there substantially. The same High Priest offers the sacrifice, never ceasing to make intercession for us, 28 continuing to offer Himself for us through the ministry of His priests by applying to us the fruits of His merits and giving Himself to us as our food. The Council of Trent expressed it thus: "For die victim is

3 o6 THE LOVE OF GOD one and the same, the same now offering by the ministry of priests who then offered Himself on the cross, the manner alone of offering being different. The fruits of that bloody sacrifice, it is well understood, are received most abundantly dirough this unbloody one, so far is the latter from derogating in any way from the former." 29

On the cross the victim and the immolation were evident; the priest and His intention of offering a sacrifice for all mankind remained mysterious and hidden for many. To some Christ on the cross has nothing of victory about Him, but seems Himself vanquished by sin and Satan and His work destroyed. Since the resurrection, the priest as Christ's minister, the intention of offering sacrifice, and the offering itself are all evident; but the mystical and unbloody immolation wrought through the separate consecration and transubstantiation of the bread and wine changed into the body and blood of Christ is mysterious. On the altar Christ is represented in die state of death, and so continues to offer Himself through the ministry of His priests until the end of time. The Cross and the Mass serve to illuminate one another in a wonderful way. What lies concealed in the Cross becomes manifest in the Mass; and what remains mysterious in the Mass stands out clearly in the Cross. Both hold in common die principal priest, His interior act of oblation, and the victim offered; that is, each contains the substance of the sacrifice.

Since Jesus came into the world His interior act of oblation has never been absent from His heart. This act continues in heaven, the ever-living Christ never ceasing to make intercession for us. His act is no longer meritorious, because He has reached the end of His journey; but it applies to us the

merits of the crucifixion and remains ever an act of adoration of infinite worth, an oblation alone worthy of the victim offered. "Idem nunc offerens sacerdotum ministerial'

Together with Himself Christ offers His Church militant, His suffering members, who do what they can to make up for what is wanting in the sufferings of Christ, 30 not that the passion of Jesus of itself lacks anything, but it needs to find its reflection and application in His members throughout the centuries; and Jesus Himself accomplished what suffering remains to be done in His mystical body, really configuring us to His own image. 31

After the last Mass, when the world has passed away, no sacrifice of expiation or of impetration will endure. Sacrifice properly so called will be over; the time of symbols and figures and sacraments will have passed; we shall see God face to face. Christ will no longer ask of His Father die remission of our sins, the grace for us to avoid sin. Yet His priesthood will be no less eternal: Tu es sacerdos in aeternum. 32 If sacrifice will no longer exist, there will be the consummation of sacrifice. Jesus in a perfect and eternal act of adoration and dianksgiving, will continue His interior offering of Himself and His wholly glorified mystical body.

St. Augustine speaks of this eternal adoration and thanksgiving in his work De praedestmatione sanctorum; and the Church associates us even in this world with the worship of the elect when she has us sing at Mass, Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus. . . . 33 Christ is "a high priest of the good things to oo Col. 1: 24.

3 o8 THE LOVE OF GOD come." 34 He has entered once and for all into the holy of holies, and the blessed are enriched with glory merited by Him as the consummation of His sacrifice. "For the glory of God hath enlightened it (the city of God), and the Lamb is the lamp thereof." 36

Theologians ask what formally constitutes our Lord's priesthood, what corresponds in Jesus to the priestly character in His ministers. Is it the substantial grace of personal union with the Word, by which Jesus is the Holy One, the Sanctifier, and Mediator ? Or is it rather the created habitual grace received into His sacred soul, constituting Him head of the mystical body and exercising His influence immediately on the members of that body ?

The Carmelites of Salamanca maintain 36 that what formally constitutes Christ's priesthood is habitual created grace (gratia capitis) so far as it presupposes and connotes the grace of union. According to this view, the same grace that designates Christ as head of the Church also makes Him our priest.

Other theologians, many Thomists among them, 37 come to the apparently correct conclusion that what formally constitutes the priesthood of Jesus Christ is the grace of union, because of which He is the Holy One, the Sanctifier, and

36 Cursus theoiogicus, de incarnatione , (lisp. XXXI, dub. i, sec. 4, no. 16.

87 Cf. Goncl, O.P., Clypcus thorn, iheol., de incarnatione, disp. XXII, a. 3 (Paris, 1876); Hugon, O.P., De Verbo incarnate 2nd ed., pp. 628 ff. (Paris: Tequi, 1913).

Mediator. To be priest and universal mediator, the offerer of a sacrifice of infinite value, means more than to be head of mankind. In the state of innocence Adam was mankind's head (caput naturae elevatae), but he had no power as priest and mediator to offer a sacrifice of infinite worth. The formal cause of Christ's priesthood would therefore seem to be the grace of substantial union with the Word, which makes Him God's anointed. 38 The grace of union implies in fact a unique priestly vocation and is the principle of created habitual grace, by which Christ, the head of the Church, immediately influences His members and communicates supernatural life to them. All these gifts are essential to His priesthood, but the grace of union is its formal constituent.

Such seems to be St. Thomas' thought in those passages treating of Christ as the universal mediator. 39 To his mind, Jesus as man acts as mediator between God and men by die grace of the hypostatic union, through which He touches the two extremes to be reunited or reconciled, God and mankind. His substantial grace of union with the Word sanctifies Jesus, giving Him not an accidental sanctity like ours, which proceeds from created habitual grace, a divinely engrafted accident in the soul, but a substantial sanctity, acting as the principle of His infinitely meritorious and satisfactory human acts. 40 Now among these acts, the offering of the sacrifice of the cross, substantially perpetuated in the Mass, is His greatest priestly act. While Christ's ministers are constituted

40 Cf. St. Thomas, Catena aurea, in Joan. 10:36, ad ilia verba: "Quern Pater sanctificavit el misit in mundum," dicit ex Hilario: "Praecedit coeteros per id quod sanctificatus in Filium est, beato Paulo dicente: praedestinatus est Filius Dei in virtute secundum Spiritum sanctum."

priests by an indelible accident or mark imprinted on thensouls, the priestly character, Jesus Himself is our priest by reason of die substantial grace of union, which makes Him die saint of saints.

He is a priest, therefore, because of the Incarnation itself, and His priesthood, like His sanctity, is substantial. God decreed the Incarnation and called Jesus to the priesthood and to His universal mediatorship by one and the same act. For Jesus to communicate His holiness to us, He had to be the head of humanity as well, through habitual grace, the proximate principle of meritorious and satisfactory acts. 41

Bossuet, in speaking of the nature of Christ's priesthood, has die same thing to say.

O Christ! O Messias! You who were expected and given under the sacred name signifying the Lord's anointed! teach me, in the excellence of Your unction, the origin and basis of Christianity. . . . O Christ! The Psalmist saw You under this name when he sang: "Thy throne, O God is forever and ever . . . therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness." 42 When the angel Gabriel announced the exact time of Your coming, he made it known by saying that the saint of saints would be anointed and that the Anointed, the Christ, would be slain. 43 And You Yourself, of what did You preach in the synagogue when You told Your mission ? What did You choose but that beautiful text from Isaias, "The spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because the Lord hath anointed Me" ? 44 "For God doth not give the Spirit by measure," says St. John, 45 but without measure and with perfect fullness. . . . Jesus is therefore anointed by the Holy Ghost, having the

Holy Ghost within Him because of His divinity and thus made Christ and by this divine union our anointed king, high priest, and prophet.

Come, Jesus, eternal Son of God, without mother in heaven and without Father on earth. In You we see and acknowledge a royal descent; but Your priesthood can come to You and be held by You only from Him who has said to You : "Thou art My son, this day have I begotten Thee." 46 To possess a divine priesthood one must be born of God; You have Your vocation by eternal birth. 47 The privilege of Your priesthood has been established by an unshakable oath, without repentance and without alteration : "The Lord hath sworn, and He will not repent, Thou art a priest forever." 48 You alone are the eternal priest; yet You have left us priests as Your delegates, without power to offer any other victim than that which You onetime offered upon the cross and which You now offer eternally at the right hand of the Father. 49

Pope Pius XI in an allocution (December 28, 1925) also said that the Omoousios became man and poured out and still pours out His inexhaustible and infinite person in Jesus Christ, who is consecrated priest by this union, called by theologians substantial: "E unicamente perche I' Omoousios di Nicea si e incarnato . . . che si effuse e si effonde, inesauribile ed infinita, in Gesu Christo, quella che i teologi chaimano unzione sostanzialc, che los consecrava saccrdote." R0

To end with a practical conclusion, it would be impossible to recommend too strongly that interior souls have a great devotion to the consecradon, die very essence of the Sacrifice

40 Elevations sur les mysteres, 13th week, nos. 1, 6. (Euvrcs completes de Bossuet (Paris: Gaume, 1846).

3I2 THE LOVE OF GOD of the Mass, the most solemn moment of each day. It is, Bossuet says, "the action of Jesus Christ, setting His body on one side and His blood on the other by virtue of His words, showing Himself to God under the imagery of death and burial, honoring Him as Lord of life and death, plainly acknowledging His sovereign majesty by the most perfect obedience . . . even to the death of die cross. The oblation made on the altar is but a mystical death and immolation. The Lamb is nevertheless diere, and the blood too in its entirety, and it is shed, although in a hidden and mysterious manner, that to each may be applied what was once offered for all." 51

When Christ instituted the Eucharist He lifted His eyes to heaven and His face shone. He burned with desire to annihilate Himself in a way under the species of bread and wine, in order to remain really and substantially among us undl the end of time, giving Himself to us as our food. At the moment of consecration, the priest, as the minister of the universal Mediator, lifts his eyes to heaven and should also ardently desire to unite himself to the oblation of Christ ever living to make intercession for us. 52 Christ never ceases to offer to the Father, together with the offering of Himself, all the living members of His mystical body, particularly those who follow His example and suffer some little of what He has suffered. 53

81 Op. at., VIII, 432, 434, the beginning of the "Explication de la Messe." »2 Heb. 7: 25-

83 According to St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, St. Thomas and his disciples, St. Bonavcnture, and the great majority of theologians, Christ in glory, in heaven, is not satisfied with recalling to the Father the prayers that He said for us on earth but continues to pray for us in the proper sense of the word. Cf. St. Thomas, Ha Ilae, q.83, a. 11; Comm. in Ep. ad Haebr. 7:25; Salmantictnses , "De incarnations" disp. XXX, dub. II; Gonct, Clypctis thorn, thcol., "De incarnatione," disp. XXII, a. 2.

At the moment of consecration, the faithful assisting at Holy Mass should also unite themselves to the oblation of the eternal Priest, who continues to offer Himself through die ministry of His priests, as the Council of Trent tells us. Interior souls should offer Christ's sacred body and precious blood to His Father in union with our Lord. Under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost they too offer themselves and should ask to love the future crosses reserved for them from all eternity by Providence to purify them and make them cooperate in some measure in the great mystery of the Redemption. People and communities who live deeply united to the act of consecration enjoy Christ's love to an eminent degree and, as it is said in the beautiful prayer to the Eucharistic Heart, they enter more and more deeply into the secrets of divine union and find great peace therein, whatever trials may come to them. They dispose themselves to renew this act with special fervor at the hour of death, to make it a perfect sacrifice of adoration, of supplication, of reparation, and of thanksgiving, capable of immediately opening the gates of heaven for them. 54

84 Recently some articles have appeared in La vie spiriluelle entitled "Elevation* sur la prierc au Cceur Eucharistique de Jesus" and written some time ago by someone whose complete renouncement had led to intimate union with the priestly heart of the Master. We strongly recommend these "Elevations" to interior souls to be read during their visits to the Blessed Sacrament or as a preparation for mental prayer.

Footnotes

1. Sess. XXII, chap. 2. Cf. Denzingcr, no. 940. 2 1 Tim. 2: 5. ↩