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No one will ever replace priests! Nothing will ever replace Holy Mass!

08-28-2022Weekly Reflection

'Shun the worship of idols!', (1 Cor. 10:14), [Saint Paul] writes to a community deeply marked by paganism and divided between the observance of adherence to the novelty of the Gospel and the observance of old practiced inherited from their ancestors. ...

The word 'idol' comes from the Greek and means 'image', 'figure', 'representation', but also 'ghost', 'phantom', 'vain appearance'. An idol is a delusion, for it turns its worshiper away from reality and places him in the kingdom of mere appearances.

Now, is this not a temptation in our own day – the only one we can act upon effectively? The temptation to idolize a past that no longer exists, forgetting its shortcomings; the temptation to idolize a future which does not yet exist, in the belief that, by his efforts alone, man can bring about the kingdom of eternal joy on earth! ...

Christ has willed that His Sacrifice be renewed, in a bloodless manner, every time that a priest repeats the words of the Consecration over the bread and over the wine. ... Millions of times over the last two thousand years, in the humblest chapels and in the most magnificent basilicas and cathedrals, the risen Lord has given himself to his people, thus becoming, in the famous expression of Saint Augustine, 'more intimate to us than we are to ourselves' (cf. Confessions, III, 6, 11). ... The Mass invites us to discern what, in ourselves, is obedient to the Spirit of God and what, in ourselves, is attuned to the spirit of evil. ... [Christ] alone teaches us to shun idols, the illusions of our minds. ...

Do not be afraid! Do not be afraid to give your life to Christ! Nothing will ever replace the ministry of priests at the heart of the Church! Nothing will ever replace a Mass for the salvation of the world! Dear young people, and those not so young who are listening to me, do not leave Christ’s call unanswered!

Benedict XVI, Mass at the Esplanade des Invalides, Paris September 13, 2008

From the Archives

Pope John Paul II, before becoming Pope said as Cardinal Karol Woytjila” (November 9, 1976): We are today before the greatest combat that mankind has ever seen. I do not believe that the Christian community has completely understood it. We are today before the final struggle between the Church and the Anti-Church, between the Gospel and the Anti-Gospel.

One thing remains certain: the final victory belongs to God and that will happen thanks to Mary, the Woman of Genesis and of the Apocalypse, who will fight at the head of the army of her sons and daughters against the enemy forces of Satan and will crush the head of the serpent.

Cardinal Ivan Dias

Virgo Maria Décor Carmeli (The Virgin Mary, the Beauty of Carmel)

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