stituted the great Eucharistic Sacrifice of His Body and Blood in remembrance of His Passion and Death. In this Sacrifice, called the Mass, He is mystically immolated every day upon our altars, being Himself both Priest and Victim. This Sacrifice is the principal worship of the New Law, in which, and by which, we unite ourselves to Jesus Christ; and with Him and through Him we adore God in spirit and truth; give Him thanks for all His blessings; obtain His grace for ourselves and the whole world, and pardon for all our sins; and pray for the living and the dead.
12. We must believe that there is, in the Catholic or Universal Church of God, a Communion of Saints, by means of which we communicate with all holy persons and in all holy things. We communicate with the Saints in heaven, as our fellow-members under the same head, Christ Jesus; we give thanks to God for His gifts to them, and we beg a share in their prayers. We communicate with all the saints upon earth in the same Sacraments and Sacrifice, and in a holy union of faith and charity. And we also communicate with the faithful who have departed this life in a more imperfect state,—and who by the law of God's justice are for a while in a state of suffering,—by offering prayers and alms and sacrifice to God for them.
13. We must believe that, by the full concession of Christ, there ever resides in the Church the active power of forgiving sin, and of granting Indulgences for the remission of the temporal punishments of sin; which may be applied to the souls both of the living and of the dead who have died friends of God and in the peace of Christ.
14. We must believe also the necessity of Divine29
