E SACRIFICE OF THE MASS

THE FOUR ENDS OF SACRIFICE.
bound to thank God for all that He has done for us.
Our thanks are unworthy of Him, as we are sinners and
He is infinitely holy. Mass supplies our deficiencies,
and the offering of the Divine Victim to the Father by
Jesus Christ Himself is of infinite value independently
of the virtues and vices of the priest who celebrates.
The Church again insists on thanksgiving in the Gloria
in excelsis, in the familiar words : Gratias agimus tibi,
propter magnam gloriam tuam "We give Thee
thanks for Thy great glory." This is the very highest
form of thanksgiving in which all thought of self is
lost in gratitude for the glory which encircles the
Godhead. Mass then infallibly, as the work of Christ
and offered by Christ, gives glory and thanksgiving to
God.
Thirdly; Mass is offered to obtain pardon of our sins.
Two things are to be considered in sin (i) its guilt;
(2) its punishment. Mass as it helps to the forgiveness of
sin is propitiatory, in its power of cancelling punishment
it is satisfactory. The Council of Trent teaches (Sess.xxii.
"
ch.
2) that this Sacrifice is truly propitiatory, and that
forgiveness of sins and of enormous crimes is obtained
by those who with a true heart and right faith, with
fear and reverence, contrite and penitent, approach to
God." The Mass then obtains the pardon of mortal and
venial sins and of the temporal punishment due to sin.
The Mass as propitiatory appeases the anger and
of God. The Lord, being appeased by the
justice "
offering of this Sacrifice, granting grace and the gift
of repentance, wipes away crimes and even enormous
sins." (Council of Trent, Sess. xxii. ch. 2.) A distinctive
effect of this Sacrifice is that by it God is appeased,
as a man forgives an offence on account of some
homage which is paid
him. For Mass does not