Chapter XXIX
The Devotions to be Practised at the Elevation
The elevation is the central ceremony of holy Mass.
It was appointed by the special inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and has been performed by the Church in all times with profound reverence, to the great edification of the faithful. How solemn and sublime a ceremony when the sacred host and the consecrated chalice are lifted up above the altar! Songs of joy resound in the courts of heaven; the earth is visited with salvation; the souls in purgatory experience a mitigation of their pains; hell trembles and is afraid. How glorious a gift, how excellent an oblation, does the priest present to the Most Holy Trinity when he elevates the sacred host, and sends it up to heaven by the hands of the angels! How gratifying is this sight to the most high God! How gladly does He contemplate the wondrous mage of His well-beloved Son!
What is it, then, which the priest places before God the Father at the elevation? It is the divinized humanity of His only-begotten Son. It is the perfect likeness of the ever-blessed Trinity. It is a jewel costly beyond all compare. Not in one shape alone, but in many, is this God made man placed by the priest before the eyes of the Eternal Father. He shows Him to His Father once more become incarnate, born anew into this world; He shows Him to His Father in His sweat of blood, torn by scourges, crowned with thorns, crucified and slain. He shows Him to His Father reconciling God and man, redeeming the human race, discharging the sinner s debt, pleading from the cross for transgressors. He shows to God the Father the unsullied purity, the profound humility, the unconquerable patience, the fervent charity, the perfect obedience, all the virtues which His divine Son practised upon earth, thereby rendering Him the most exalted service and giving Him the greatest satisfaction. With what joy does God the Father behold this solemn elevation, this vivid image, of His only-begotten Son!
But it is not the priest alone who performs this act: Christ places Himself before the eye9 of God the Father, and offers Himself to Him in so sublime a manner that no created intelligence is capable of comprehending it% We read in the revelations of St. Gertrude that she was privileged to see this during the elevation of the sacred host: Christ standing before His Father, and making the oblation of Himself for the faithful in a manner past human comprehension.
St. Bonaventure places these words on the lips of both priest and people: “Behold, O Eternal Father, this Thy only-begotten Son, Whom all the world cannot contain, is now a prisoner in our hands. We will not surrender Him to Thee until for His sake Thou grant us what we earnestly request from Thee. We implore forgiveness of our sins, remission of our debts, an increase of grace, abundance of virtue, and the bliss of the world to come.” And the priest may at the elevation speak thus in all justice to the people: “Behold, O Christians, here is your Saviour, your Redeemer, your Sanctifier. Contemplate Him with sincere faith, pour out your hearts to Him. 4 Blessed are the eyes that see the things which you see.’ (Luke 10:23) Happy indeed are the eyes that gaze with reverence on this sacred host, and firmly believe that Jesus is hidden under this lowly form.” Each of us can then say with the patriarch Jacob: “I have seen God face to face, and my soul has been saved.” (Genesis 32:30) We have indeed a better right to employ these words than Jacob had, for he had only seen an angel sent from God, whilst we gaze upon the Saviour Himself, concealed under the appearance of bread. Believe firmly that it is in very truth thy Saviour, and pay Him the reverence due to Him, and it will be for thy salvation; thou canst then say with Jacob: “I have seen God face to face, and my soul has been saved.”
At the elevation the faithful should raise their eyes to the altar and gaze reverently at the Adorable Sacrament. This is pleasing to God and profitable to one’s own soul, as Christ condescended to reveal to one of His saints in these words: “As often as any one looks in devout adoration at the sacred host or, being unable, wishes that he could do so, his reward in heaven is increased, and he i? entitled to a special degree of bliss in the enjoyment of the beatific vision.” This is indeed a rich recompense for our devout contemplation of the sacred host; let us not lose it by our own neglect.
How much we may profit from thus fixing our devout gaze upon the sacred host may be gathered from one of the types of the Old Testament. In the twenty-first chapter of Numbers we read that when the people murmured against God and against Moses the Lord sent among them fiery serpents, which bit them and killed many of them. The people in their alarm came to Moses, asking his help, and he prayed for them. And the Lord said to him: “Make a brazen serpent, and set it up for a sign; whosoever being struck shall look on it shall live.” In obedience to this command Moses made a brazen serpent, and set it up upon a high staff, and those who were bitten were healed by looking at it. We know this brazen serpent to have been a type of Christ, from His own words: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of man be lifted up.” (John 3:14) Now, if looking upon that serpent of brass was efficacious to preserve from death the Jews who were bitten by the venomous serpents, how much more will the pious, looking at Christ Himself when He is lifted up in the holy Mass, heal souls suffering from the fatal poison of sin, console the afflicted, strengthen the faint-hearted!
When the sacred host is lifted up in our sight, it is above all things necessary to awaken a lively faith in the real, personal presence of our blessed Lord in the sacred host, as our Creator and our Redeemer, making the oblation of Himself to God the Father for us miserable sinners.
This exercise of faith is highly meritorious, because we believe that which is contrary to the evidence of our senses, above the grasp of our understanding. How much we merit by this act of faith Christ Himself tells us: u Blessed are they that have not seen, and have believed.“(John 20:29) That is to say: Those who, though they are unable to see Me in the Adorable Sacrament, yet firmly believe Me to be present in it, exercise so excellent a virtue that by it they may earn eternal felicity. The more often we do this the greater will be our share of grace here and of glory hereafter.
The following incident taken from the life of the famous theologian Hugh of St. Victor bears the same testimony. It had long been the earnest desire of this pious priest to behold Our Lord in the consecrated host, and many were his prayers to obtain that favor. At last his prayer was granted and his desire fulfilled. One day, while he was saying Mass, he saw the divine Child reposing upon the corporal. His joy and the consolation he experienced were boundless, but presently the holy Child whispered to him: “Because thou hast thus seen Me with thy bodily eyes, O Hugh, thou hast lost all the merit of faith.” Thereupon the Infant vanished from sight, leaving the priest as full of regret for the merit he had lost as he had been of delight at the visible presence of his Lord. Let this example serve to strengthen our faith, and at the same time encourage us by the assurance that we merit greatly in the sight of God when we look upon the sacred host and make an act of steadfast faith.
St. Louis of France was deeply impressed with the value of faith. One day, when a priest who was celebrating the holy sacrifice in the palace chapel elevated the sacred host, all who were present beheld in its place a lovely Infant. A servant went running to the king, who was not in the chapel at the time, begging him to hasten thither to see this wondrous sight. But Louis calmly replied: “Let unbelievers go to look upon the divine Child; I, for my part, am so firmly convinced of His personal presence in the sacred host that I do not care for further evidence.” It cannot be supposed that this pious king did not feel a natural desire to see the beauteous Infant; he denied himself the gratification which the sight would have afforded him in order not to lose the merit of believing what he had not seen, and thus gaining a higher degree of glory. Imitate this good king, and however thou mayst desire to behold Christ in the sacred host, content thyself with believing, and comfort thyself with the thought that thou wilt see thy Lord in His glory all the more clearly hereafter.
After this act of faith and the adoration of the sacred host the act of oblation should follow. The oblation of the sacred host is the most real and most powerful atonement for the guilt of man. In other words: There is no more efficacious means of appeasing the anger of God than by offering to Him the body and blood of His Son in the consecrated host. Let sinners remember this, and immediately after the elevation offer the sacred host with all their heart for the remission of their sins. This applies to all who are present at Mass, whether guilty of mortal or venial sin.
After this oblation comes the elevation of the chalice, which has a special meaning and supernatural power. For in it the precious blood of Christ is shed anew in a mystical manner, and sprinkled upon all who are present. This is signified in the words of consecration: “This is the chalice of My blood,... which is shed for you and for many to the remission of sins.” Thus, when thou dost assist at holy Mass, it is just as if thou didst stand upon Calvary beneath the cross, with contrition of heart, and wert sprinkled with the precious blood. And as thou wouldst then have been cleansed from all stain of sir*, so now, no less surely, wilt thou be sprinkled with that same blood, and, if thou art repentant, be cleansed from thy guilt.
God commanded the Israelites: “The whole multitude of the children of Israel shall sacrifice a lamb. And they shall take of the blood thereof, and put it upon both the side-posts and on the upper-posts of the houses. And I shall see the blood and shall pass over you; and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 12:6,7,13) If the blood of the paschal lamb, sprinkled upon the doorposts, preserved the Israelites from the sword of the destroying angel, how much more will the precious blood of the spotless Lamb, shed for us upon the cross, and daily applied to our souls in holy Mass, avail to protect us from the rage of the evil spirit, “who goeth about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” (1 Peter 5:8)
And what are those to do who are not present in the church? For their benefit the custom of ringing the church bell at the elevation was introduced, as a signal to all who heard it that their Lord and God was lifted up in holy Mass. At the sound of this bell we ought to kneel down, look in the direction of the church, and adore our Lord God in the hands of the priest. This is a good and salutary practice.
What Our Behavior Ought to be after the Consecration
After the elevation of the sacred elements we can do nothing better than follow the example of the priest. As this sacrifice is ours as well as his, and it is incumbent on us as well as upon him to offer it, let us as far as possible imitate his actions. After he has replaced the chalice upon the corporal he says: “Wherefore, O Lord, we Thy servants, as also Thy holy people, offer unto Thy most excellent majesty, of Thy gifts and presents, a pure host, a holy host, an immaculate host, the holy bread of eternal life, and the chalice of everlasting salvation.” There are no more consoling words in the whole Mass, according to Sanchez, than this prayer after the elevation, for neither priest nor people can do anything better than offer this holy sacrifice to God. To resume our own private devotions immediately after the elevation would therefore be to miss the oblation of the Mass, and to offer to God our miserable cold petitions in the place of the unspeakably precious sacrifice; by this we should indeed lose much.
What have we poor mortals, then, to offer to a God of infinite riches? Destitute though we are in virtue and in grace, yet we possess in holy Mass a treasure of inestimable value, wherewith heaven and earth may be enriched. To this St. Paul refers when he says: “He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how hath He not also, with Him, given us all things?” (Romans 8:32) Not only did God give us His Son in times long past: He delivers Him up for us again and again in holy Mass (as has already been abundantly proved in these pages), and with Him He bestows on us all His riches, so that we have wherewithal to pay our debt and purchase eternal treasures. Make good use, therefore, of this wealth that is in thy hands, and offer it to thy heavenly Father during the celebration of Mass with words such as these:
“I offer Thee, O heavenly Father, this holy sacrifice; I offer Thee Thy beloved Son, His incarnation, His birth, His passion; I offer Thee His sweat of blood, His scourging, His crowning with thorns, the carrying of the cross; I offer Thee the crucifixion, the cruel death He endured, the crimson stream that flowed from His wounds; I offer all that He did and suffered for me, which is now reenacted in this Mass. I offer it to Thee for Thy greater glory and for my own salvation. Amen.”
This simple but useful prayer may be learnt by heart, and repeated after the consecration. We know how powerful this act of oblation is, and how much may be gained by it, from the words of Christ Himself, Who said that whoever should offer His passion and merits as if they were his own should receive them again in twofold measure. It is well, therefore, to make it our habit, every time that we hear Mass, to beseech Our Lord to make amends for our indevotion and the imperfection of our oblation, and for this end to offer the holy sacrifice to His Father in our stead. “Since I know not how ta offer this holy Mass aright, do Thou, my dearest Lord take my place, and present it for me, I pray Thee, to Thy Eternal Father.”
Above all, make it thy endeavor to assist at Mass with the utmost reverence and attention. Be careful not to speak or laugh with others, or to rise from thy knees without urgent cause, from the time of the consecration until the communion; for it ill becomes us, in Christ’s immediate presence, to study our own ease when He stoops so low for us. Any sin which is committed during the time of Mass is of greater moment, for it is a profanation of the highest act of worship, an insult to Christ, Who is present in person, renewing the great work of redemption. St. Chrysostom says that those who talk and joke at the time of Mass deserve to be struck with lightning there and then. He bids them remember, and those also who do not check or rebuke them, that they will have to answer for it at the judgment-seat of Christ.
About ReligiousBookshelf.com · A Supernerd Media project