3. To thank the infinite liberality of God, Who requires an infinite return for all the favors bestowed upon His creatures.
4. To petition the infinite goodness of God, Whom nothing but a pleading of infinite value can move to grant us all needful blessings.
When Jesus Christ by the Holy Ghost offered Himself unspotted to God on Mount Calvary, He paid infinite adoration to the divine majesty, gave infinite satisfaction to the divine justice, made an infinite return to the divine liberality and moved the divine goodness by an appeal of infinite efficacy.
Now in Holy Mass, Jesus places Himself entirely in your hands, that you may offer to God the same great sacrifice of infinite value for the same most excellent ends, in your behalf as well as for others, whether living or dead. For all who devoutly assist at Holy .Mass are made one with the priest, and along with him present to heaven the adorable sacrifice. What would you, therefore, do without the Holy Mass?
"Holy Mass is the sun of Christianity, the soul of faith, the center of the Catholic religion, the grand object of all her rites, ceremonies, and sacraments, in a word, it is a summary of all that is grand and beautiful in the Church of God." —St. Leonard of Port Maurice.
" When a priest celebrates Holy Mass, he honors God, he rejoices the angels, he edifies the Church, he helps the living, he obtains rest for the departed, and makes himself partaker of all blessing. —Following of Christ.
With the view, therefore, that God may receive from His creatures that clean oblation which alone is worthy of Him, and that the faithful be not deprived of the immense benefit of the same adorable sacrifice, Holy Church commands her children under pain of grievous sin to hear Mass on all Sundays and holydays of obligation. But, surely, no Catholic who has any right idea of the importance and value of Holy Mass will remain satisfied with this. He will attend Holy Mass as often as he can on week-days as well.
