E SACRIFICE OF THE MASS

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
earth will be the signal for the Archangel s trumpet
to summon the dead to Judgment. "God Himself,"
says St. Alphonsus,
performed which is holier and grander
" cannot
cause any action to be
than the Mass."
In one word, to obtain the conversion of non-Catholics,
the release of souls from Purgatory, to avert the anger
of God, to satisfy His justice, to thank Him for count
less favours, to obtain grace in special needs, Mass
is the surest and speediest, because the heavenly
appointed, means.
I have also endeavoured to explain in this book the
Rubrics of the Mass.
By
the Rubrics are meant directions which the
Church has laid down for the fitting celebration of the
Holy
Roman law, in which the titles, maxims, and principal
Sacrifice. The word Rubric is taken from the
decisions were written in red (ruber). Burchard,
the master of ceremonies under Innocent VIII. and
Alexander VI., first set out, so says Le Brun, the
ceremonies of the Mass in the Roman Pontifical
printed at Rome in 1485. The ceremonies were
finally arranged more or less in the present form by
Pius V. when he revised the Missal in 1570. Various
rites, such as the Ambrosian, Mozarabic, Carthusian,
Dominican, and others are approved by the Church ;
the Rubrics at these Masses are somewhat different
from those of the ordinary Roman Mass. The history
of the Rubrics is full of interest to any student.
The Rubrics, says Le Brun in his famous work on