The faith of our fathers - Carmel Apologetics

358 THE FAITH OF OUR FATHERS.owu times and the recorders. of the past, if we con.suit the General Councils, at which were assembledthevenerable hierarchy of Christendom, they willall tell us, with one voice, that the sacrifice of theMass was the centre of their religion, and the acknowledged institution of Jesus Christ.Another remarkable evidence in favor of thedivine institution of the Mass, is furnished by theNestorians and Eutychians who separated from theCatholic Church in the fifth century, and who stillexist in Persia, and in other parts of the East, aswell as by the Greek schismatics who severed theirconnection with the Church in the ninth century.All these sects, as well as the numerous other sectsscattered over the East, retain to this day the oblation of the Mass in their daily service. As theseChristian communities have had no communicationwith the Catholic Church since the period of theirseparation from her, they could not, of course, haveborrowed from her the doctrine of the Eucharisticsacrifice, and consequently they must have receivedit from the same source from which the Church derived it, viz., from the Apostles themselves.But of all proofs in favor of the Apostolic origin of the sacrifice of the Mass, the most strikingand the most convincingis found in the Liturgiesof the Church. The Liturgyis the establishedKitual of the Church. It is the collection of theauthorized prayers of divine worship.are fixed and immovable.These prayersAmong others, we have