As a young boy I wanted to become a Catholic Priest. This is probably because back then priests were revered and shown a great deal of respect. I suppose that as the third son of four I didn’t feel that I got enough respect. I went to Mass every morning before school. I would frequently serve as an alter boy and would listen to the priests intone the litergy in Latin. Today, there are many Catholics who want to go back to the Latin Mass. For them, the Mass has lost much of its aura. I think that they really believe that God speaks in Latin and that therefore he prefers to be worshipped in Latin. They do not want to know what is being said at the Mass. They want it to be a mystery.
At the Mass the priest would speak in Latin and the alter boys would respond in Latin. Most alter boys did not know what they were saying. They were given the responses on cards in phonetic form so that they did not even know how the actual Latin phrases were spelled.
The idea of the mass was that it was a re-creation of the Last Supper, and that in the Mass the priest would somehow transform mere bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus. It was to be understood that although the bread and wine continued to look and taste like bread and wine, they had actually been changed into Christ’s body and blood. So we were not just eating some spiritual thing in rememberance of Jesus, but an actual human body. For some reason, this was considered to be a powerfully holy thing to do. I now know that the idea for it came from the Greeks who honored their Gods by holding “agapes” in which they would merge with the gods by eating something that represented the body and blood of the gods.
The central belief of Christianity is that Jesus was a human sacrifice for mankind. Somehow, Christians have accepted this teaching from an ancient, barbaric time, and still believe it today. They believe that Man committed something called “Original Sin” and that the only way he could achieve salvation from original and other sins was by means of a human sacrifice. They believe that the almighty and eternal God, who is merciful, loving, and forgiving, could be appeased only by this hideous and grisly torture and lynching of a human being. Because an ordinary human sacrifice would not be sufficient, the Son of God had to come down to Earth to be the sacrificial victim. He had to be scourged, driven to Golgatha under the weight of the cross, nailed to the cross, pierced with a spear, and slowly suffocated until he bled to death. Crucifixion was one of the most horrible forms of execution ever devised. To this day Christians pray before crucifixes which show Jesus writhing on the cross.
So the Mass is actually a re-creation of a human sacrifice. It is referred to as the “Sacrifice of the Mass.” The priest wears ornate vestments, each part of which has some mystical significence. When he touches the bread,or the chalice holding the wine, he does so with only certain fingures. At High Mass he intones ancient chants and swings a censor with burning incense. I presume that the purpose of this is to send sweet odors up to God who apparently has a nose and a sense of smell. I have not researched the origin of incense, but it may have something to do with covering-up the odor of burning human flesh.
At some masses and other celebrations the bread is displayed in a Monstrance, which is an elaborate golden receptical for the body of Christ. It is intended to inspire awe and reverence. All Catholics kneel before the monstrance and genuflect whenever they pass before the sacristy holding the bread and wine. This is obviously taken from the ancient practice of kneeling before kings and rulers. In the Catholic religion, Jesus is referred to as the “King of Kings.”
As a boy I was deeply impressed by the Mass. Now, when I see it I wonder how people could believe in such superstition. The Mass seems like an ancient rite which one would expect to have disappeared centuries ago.
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