THE POWER OF MASS IS SUCH THAT SAINTS SPENT HOURS THANKING GOD FOR EVERY ONE OF THEM

--adapted from Michael Brown's Secrets of the Eucharist]

There are angels at Mass and there are saints. There is Joseph. There is the Blessed Virgin, whose statue is so often near the tabernacle.

But above all, there is Jesus.

Above all, there is the Redeemer.

A priest in Northern Ireland once wrote that if you took all the bishops, priests, and religious now on earth, along with millions of the faithful and all the saints in Heaven and the souls in purgatory -- all the millions of angels also -- and watched them bow in Adoration before God, however incredible that would be, however much glory it would give God, still this would be less than a single liturgy.      

"And why?" he wrote. "Because in the Mass it is not angels and saints alone who pray for you; it is Jesus Christ Himself, and He not only prays for you but He also offers up His merits for you, and as He is God, His prayers and His merits give infinitely more glory to God and are infinitely more powerful than the united prayers and offerings of all the angels and men, even if they were continued for all eternity."

There have been saints who spent hours -- entire mornings -- just to thank God for that day's Eucharist.

There was even a saint who said two Masses a day: one the regular morning liturgy and then a Mass in thanksgiving for the previous one!

We don't need a miracle to know the Mass's value. We don't have to see visions to appreciate the Eucharist (though visions help).

We feel it. We live it. We receive its graces. Father Stefano Manelli, an Italian priest who wrote an invaluable little booklet, "Jesus Our Eucharistic Love," from which I have drawn material, points out that Holy Communion "is of much greater value than an ecstasy, a rapture, or a vision. Holy Communion transports the whole of paradise into my poor heart!" 

From the tabernacle comes the fragrance of Heaven.

[resources: Secrets of the Eucharist and New: What You Take To Heaven]

Mary Undoer of Knots plus The Holy Cloak novena, $7.25

Michael Brown's books on Kindle or Nook

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