The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, MARCH 28, 1918. HOLY THURSDAY

New Zealand Tablet, 28 March 1918, Page 25

The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, MARCH 28, 1918. HOLY THURSDAY

§OLY WEEK, with its ineffable memories, is the centre of the liturgical year. Its lesson is renewed with all the beautiful symbolism of the devotions dedicated to its commemoration. Not only in the panting heart of Rome but in the humblest churches of Christendom do the faithful congregate to renew their faith in the mysteries which thronged the last week of the Saviour on earth. And although the climax of His life was reachftd when He expired on the Cross on Calvary on Good Friday, it was on the preceding night that He left us the greatest memorial of His love for mankind by the institution of the Blessed Eucharist. In the beginning God made man to His own image and likeness. His love for man went yet further when He united the Divinity to the soul by sanctifying grace. It was not even then satisfied, for God so loved the world that He sent His only Begotten Son amongst us, and in the pure womb of Mary Christ became our Brother by taking upon Himself a human nature like ours. Even yet Love was not at rest. He had made man like to Himself He had united Himself to the soul in the state of grace He had joined humanity to the Divinity in a personal union ; and He still sought another means of becoming closer united to man whom He loved with such an infinite Love. This means was the Blessed Eucharist whereby He gave Himself to become our spiritual food, and in which He is eaten and drunk under the appearances of bread and wine. * Having loved His own who were in the world He 'loved them to the end. Seated among them for the last time He took bread into His hands and brake it with the words: "This is My Body which is given for you." And a little later, taking the cup, lie gave thanks and gave it to them, saying: "Drink ye all of this. The chalice of the new testament, which shall be shed for you unto the remission of sins. Do this for a commemoration of Me." What a mystery these

words contain! How human reason fails before them ! And how faith is vindicated by them ! The Apostles did not reason about them. In the simplicity and plenitude of their faith, knowing that He who spoke was Truth, they believed and received as so many faithful Christians were to believe and receive *» in after . years. There was the culmination of the Christian religion. In that hour, in that upper room of Jerusalem on the night before He suffered He created the Eternal Priesthood and the Eternal Sacrifice of the New Law, revealing the whole mystery of His life and fulfilling at once all the figures and all the types and all the prophecies which foreshadowed this stupendous moment. Here was the sublime Sacrifice which was henceforth and for ever to atone for the sins of men, the infinite ransom which was worthy of being offered to an offended God. It was not for once only. It was for all time. And through it men were to be made participators of all the benefits of the Passion which was to take place on the morrow and to be represented mystically on our altars by the Mass until the end of the world. By eating His Body and drinking His Blood worthily man was to be united in spiritual and material bonds with the Lamb, who offered Himself for our sins: by the renewal of that Sacrifice on the altars of the Catholic Church the fire of God's Love was to be kept burning for ever, and the Innocent Victim was to take upon Himself the burden of the sins of mankind who were powerless to atone for their rebellion' against God until the Son clothed Himself with our infirmities and expiated for them by His Death. This is what we commemorate on Holy Saturday: this and unspeakably. more is contained in one Mass at which we assist by virtue of Christ's divine, creative words on the night of the Last Supper. All the old sacrifices are gathered up and renewed and perfected in one Mass ; the sacrifice of the Cross is brought in contact with our souls by every Mass : God Himself is offered in sacrifice to the Eternal Father; a God adores our Creator and our Redeemer for us a God appeases our Judge a God impetrates on our behalf at the throne of the Divine Mercy. . In the presence of this miracle of Love we must humble ourselves and pray for the faith of the Apostles in order that appreciating all it means we may be duly grateful for all that our Lord did for us on that first Holy Thursday night. * The vengeance of God upon sinful people in preChristian years was terrible. His punishments at the present day are so obvious that we cannot ignore them. We have not the devouring fire nor the devastating floods in which the Jews saw God's hand so unmistakably ; but we have our own scourges, and if we do not see in them signs of the wrath of God it is because we are blinded by sin and worldliness. The Pope has pointed out to us that sin and greed and lust are tho causes of the war, and no other explanation is possible for a war that is waged in defiance of common sense and with disregard for human life and the sufferings of helpless peoples. The sin and the greed and the lust continue, and even grow greater, in spite of the years of punishment through which the world has gone ■without being purified ; and because the sins continue and there is no humility nor penance among the nations the hand of God is still heavy on His people. "Without the Holy Mass," says Saint Leonard, "I am convinced the world would be already overwhelmed under the weight of its iniquities." In the Mass we have a constant means of appealing powerfully to God, and it is because so few—so comparatively few—-turn to Him m prayer at the present day that He permits the terrible suicidal war to go on year after year, with, humanly speaking, as little sign of the end as there was three years ago. In the Mass the faithful few will find their strength and consolation amid all the tribulations brought on the world by men who have forgotten God. In the Mass those who are parted from their friends will find a close union and:a constant comfort in the hours of loneliness and anxiety, and they who know that they shall never again in this

life look on the face of the loved ' ones whom the war has taken will find the only source of strength and the only consolation worth having in the thought that the Mass is a living bond between them and the dear dead whom they assist and whose sufferings in Purgatory they shorten and lighten every time they are present at the Sacrifice of the Lamb of God. We will •all recall these things during the present Holy Week. We will try to realise as we riever did before all the Mass means. We will remember the living who need our prayers, and the dead whom nothing but our prayers can help now, and the sinners whose hearts may yet be softened by God's mercy through our prayers when in commemoration of the Last Supper the Divine Victim is again elevated on the altar as a living and continual sacrifice for the whole world. 0, saving Victim! open wide The gate of heaven to men "below I Sore press our foes from every sides; Thine aid supply, Thy strength bestow.