E SACRIFICE OF THE MASS

176
THE BEGINNING TO THE OFFERTORY.
Sion and a vow shall be ; paid to Thee in
Jerusalem O hear ; my prayer all flesh shall come
;
to Thee.
This Psalm in the mouth of the Holy Souls expresses
their ardent desire to chant the canticle of praise in the
Heavenly Jerusalem. God will grant their prayer
more willingly, because it is His wish that
"
all flesh,"
all mankind, should be with Him in His Kingdom.
Next follow the Kyrie Eleison, Collects, Epistle,
Tract, Sequence, and Gospel, all specially selected
by the Church for a Requiem Mass. In that Mass
the Jube, Domne, benedicere pray, Sir, bless me is
omitted, as also the following prayer before the
Gospel said by the priest at Low, and also by the
deacon at High Mass " The Lord be in my heart and
on my lips that I may worthily and in a manner announce His holy Gospel.
becoming
Amen." The
book is not kissed at the end nor is the prayer said,
"
our sins be blotted
By the words of the Gospel may
out." The thoughts of the Church turn solely
to her
dead. She omits all signs of joy and gladness. Since
the Christian s holy death is a motive for joy and
thanksgiving, Alleluia was formerly sung in the Roman
Mass for the dead ; and, as St. Jerome tells us, even at
funerals. She even robs her High Mass of a portion
of its solemnity by forbidding the deacon before singing
the Gospel to ask the celebrant s blessing. She will
not even allow a short prayer like the per evangelica dicta
ddeantuv nostra delicta, because it refers more to the
living than to the dead.