Session XXII,
c. V.--These words lead us to treat briefly of the mass, the principal
act of divine worship during holy-week as at all other seasons of the
year. This we do now the more readily, that we may not afterwards be
obliged to interrupt our account of the peculiar ceremonies of Holy
week, which presuppose an acquaintance with the mass.
[Sidenote: Institution of the mass.]
Jesus Christ instituted the mass at his last supper, when he took
bread and blessed and broke and gave to his disciples 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 my blood
of the new testament, which shall be shed for many unto remission of
sins: Matth. XXVI, 26. In this brief account are mentioned all the
_essential_ parts of the mass. Christ commanded the apostles and
through them their successors to perform the same holy rite "in
commemoration" of Him, and they obeyed His commands, as we learn from
the acts of the apostles, and the first epistle to the Corinthians.
[Sidenote: Its early ceremonies.]
Gradually various prayers and ceremonies were added to the sacred
words pronounced by Christ, as the Apology of St. Justin, the writings
of St. Cyprian, the catechetical discourses of St. Cyril of Jerusalem
and other early works prove. The Apostles themselves had added the
Lord's prayer[3]. The liturgy however during the first four centuries,
as Le Brun maintains[4], or, according to Muratori followed by Palmer,
the first three centuries, was not written, but was preserved by oral
tradition, according to the received practice of the early church,
which, unwilling to give what is holy to dogs, or to cast pearls
before swine concealed from all persons, except the faithful, the
mysteries of faith.
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