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Purgatory and Masses

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Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Apr 20, 1876

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 2, No. 19.

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Purgatory and Masses.

By John Norton Loughborough

As stated in a previous article, it was Pope Gregory I., A. D. 590, who first discovered the doctrine of purgatory, which has been such a source of revenue to papist priests. It seems to me that the apostles, if on earth, would say as Peter did of old to Solomon, “Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money;” Acts 8:20, and that they would cry aloud in the ears of these pardon venders the words of the Lord by Isaiah, “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” Isa. 55:1. No wonder that Luther said of purgatory and its kindred doctrines that they “were invented by antichrist for the purpose of making the pope’s pot boil.”
Closely connected with their doctrine of purgatory is that of the mass. The papist calls it, “The holy sacrifice of the mass.” Weninger says:
“Ques. Which is the sacrifice of the new law by which all former sacrifices were fulfilled and replaced?”
“Ans. The oblation which Jesus Christ made of himself to his eternal Father on the cross.
“Q. How is this sacrifice constantly repeated and offered throughout the world?”
“A. By the sacrifice of Jesus Christ in the blessed sacrament.
“Q. How is this sacrifice called?”
“A. The holy sacrifice of the mass.
“Q. What is the holy sacrifice of the mass?”
“A. It is the perpetual and unbloody sacrifice of the new law, in which Jesus Christ offers himself, under the forms and appearances of bread and wine, to his Heavenly Father.
“Q. Is the holy sacrifice of the mass the same as the sacrifice of the cross?”
“A. It is; because the same Jesus, who offered himself for us on the cross, offers himself in the mass.
“Q. What is the difference between the two?”
“A. The sacrifice of the cross was bloody, while the sacrifice of the mass is unbloody.”
In Hughes’ Catechism, we read:—
“Q. What is the mass?”
“A. The mass is the unbloody sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ.
“Q. Why do you say that Christ is immolated in the mass? Does Christ die again?”
“A. Christ dies no more, but as the sacred species are consecrated separately, they represent on the altar that state of division which constitutes death; we offer, in the mass, the death on Calvary to the most holy Trinity, as an act of entire obedience and holiest worship.”
We will quote the words of Gavazzi on this continual sacrifice, “According to the Council of Trent, the mass is the continuation of the sacrifice on Calvary. Continuation! there was no need of any. Was this sacrifice of Christ incomplete, insufficient? Did it lack any condition needful to its mighty end? No! Why then this sacrifice of the altar? By Christ’s death was destroyed our fault; what need of more? It is an insult to Christ to pretend a continuation of this sacrifice, made once and forever.”
“Saint Paul says, without the sprinkling of blood there is no remission. The Council of Trent declares the mass to be an expiatory sacrifice; the profession of the church of Rome is that the mass is unbloody, without the shedding of blood. But, according to St. Paul, there is no remission without effusion of blood; therefore the mass is no sacrifice.”
Of the use of the mass, Weninger says that children should “continue to assist them (their parents) after their death, by the sacrifice of the mass offered up for them, and by other good works.”
Papists claim that “every mass delivereth one soul out of purgatory.” On this Tyndale says if it is true that every mass delivers one soul from purgatory, surely purgatory ought to be scoured ere this, with so many masses as Rome says.
Of the assistance obtained by masses Gavazzi says, “How are masses for the relief of suffering souls procured—by what means, and in what proportion? By money, and in proportion to the amount of money. In proportion to the alms, the mass, it is said, has more efficacy; not that the mass can increase or decrease in its intrinsic merit, but because God regards the money given, and in proportion grants more suffrage to the souls in torment.”
I suppose my readers are aware that all the words of the service of the mass are in Latin. Why is this? Hear Weninger:—
“Q. Why is mass said in Latin?”
“A. 1. In order to express more clearly at this, the most sacred action of our religion, the unity of the church throughout the world, and its connection with its head. 2. In order to raise the dignity of the sacrifice, by the use of a language which is not subject to change.”
Challoner, after giving reasons for saying mass in Latin, similar to Weninger’s, says, “It is unnecessary to understand what we are saying, if our hearts are only sincere.”
Brock, in his reply to Damen, the Jesuit, speaks of the Latin mass as follows: “Originally the service of the church in many parts of Western Europe was in Latin—but why? Because it was generally understood. When the Romans became masters of Western Europe they imposed their language on their subjects. Hence the common tongue of Western Europe was Latin. But to retain the use of Latin now in any portion of the service of the church, when to the mass of the people it is an unknown tongue, is to defeat the object for which it was originally introduced. It was introduced because the people understood it. Why then retain it now that the people do not understand it? To do so is plainly contrary to Holy Scripture, which pointedly condemns prayers in the church in an unknown tongue. It is plainly contrary also to the custom of the primitive church. One passage from Origen is so decisive that it may suffice. ‘The Greeks,’ he says, ‘used Greek in their prayers, the Romans, Latin, and so every one in his own language prays to God, and gives thanks as he is able, and the God of all languages hears them that pray in all dialects, even as if all spake with but one voice.’”
In closing this article I will quote from Kirwan on the subject of mass: “What does it mean? I could not tell, though for years a regular attendant upon it. Why does the priest dress so? What book does he read from, when carried now to his right, and now to his left? What mean those candles burning at noonday? Why do I say my prayers in Latin, which I understand not? Should I not know what I am saying when addressing my Maker? Why bow down and strike my breast when the little bell rings? What does it all mean? The darkness of Egypt rested upon these questions. I thus reasoned with myself: God is a spiritual and intelligent being, and he requires an intelligent worship. What worship I render him in the mass, I know not.
“And you know, sir, that with all devotion and honesty a Catholic may wait on your masses until his locks are as white as your surplice, and then pass into eternity without one single spiritual idea upon the subject of religion; resolving it all into external observances.
“The whole ceremony of your masses is yet more unmeaning to me. Often as I have witnessed it, I never gleaned one intelligent idea from it—nor does one out of one million of your people. . . . ‘In the mass,’ says Dr. England, ‘Christ is the victim; he is produced by the consecration, which, by the power of God, and the institution of the Redeemer, and the act of the priest, place the body and blood of Christ, under the appearance of bread and wine, upon the altar; then the priest makes an oblation of this victim to the Eternal Father on behalf of the people, and the victim undergoes a destructive change, showing forth the death of the Redeemer, and making commemoration thereof, by the exhibition of the apparent separation of the body from the blood; the former being under the appearance of bread, and the latter under the appearance of wine, and by the consumption of both by the priest.’”
“This is, on the whole, the clearest account of the mass that I have ever seen from the pen of a priest; and yet what mind can understand it? Sir, do you understand it? Christ produced from some bread and wine by a priest—this produced Christ is laid upon the altar by a priest—an oblation of this produced Christ undergoes a destructive change in the act of oblation—this oblation of the produced Christ is offered for the people—and then this produced, offered Christ, and after he has undergone a destructive change, is eaten by the priest! Sir, all this is as unmeaning to me as the leaves which the fabled sibyl scattered on the winds. And this unmeaning mass, a greater mass of absurdity than ever heathen ingenuity or depravity invented, is the chief source of edification to the nine-tenths of the papal world! If it were merely unmeaning, without being blasphemous and wicked, I could extend to it some toleration.
“And the absurdity of the whole thing is increased to intensity by the fact that the pantomime is performed in Latin! Pray, sir, how many of your worshipers at St. Patrick’s understand English, not to say Latin.”
J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH.