Thursday, June 2, 2011

The Mass - unchanged throughout the centuries!

"When the priest sayeth his Mass at the altar, commonly there is an image before him, and commonly it is a crucifix, stone or wood or protrayed.

For every Mass is a special remembrance of Christ's passion, and therefore he hath before him a crucifix to enable him to have the more fresh remembrance, as he ought to, of Christ's Passion.
Before this image the priest says his Mass, and makes the highest prayers the holy Church can devise for the salvation of the quick and the dead.
He holds up his hands, he bows, or else he kneels down, and all the worship he can do, he does.

Moreover, he offers up the highest sacrifice and the best offering that anyone can devise, that is Christ, God's Son of Heaven, under the form of bread and wine.
All this worship does the priest at Mass before the image".

From "Dives and Pauper" printed by Wynken de Worde 1496

Please pray for the soul of Henry Thompson whose Requiem Mass will be held today at St Paul's Church, Haywards Heath

And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes and there shall be no more death nor crying nor sorrow for the former things are passed away

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