5 Dear Members, Benefactors and Apostles of the Living Rosary, During this time of Pentecost, the power of the Most High has descended upon us all, and draws us to Himself through the Fire that burns in His Heart and which He has enkindled in our own hearts. Love grows not only by receiving but also by giving. This is one of its mysteries. True lovers of all times and places show their desire to give and receive gifts. New names are coined, in which gift-giving is encouraged as a token of love and appreciation. Flowers, cards, candy, cigars and sending telegrams have all been called upon to form the gift. Still, love’s proverbial blindness often overlooks the greatest gift of all, the Mass. God is Love and Love’s greatest gift is Love Itself! Some think of the Sacred Mass as a gift only at times of great suffering in the lives of their loved ones or in terms of funerals and Masses for the dead. The Mass is Christ offering again, through His priests, the sacrificial gift of His Life on Calvary. “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13) On the blood-drenched altar of Calvary, Christ gave us His greatest Gift, His very Life itself. Still, He did not leave us orphans. The night before He died, He embodied the Gift of His Life in a perpetual, commemorative and sacrificial service through the Consecration of bread and wine. The Mass is Calvary! The Mass is Christ! He offers Himself as the Victim on the Cross for the sins of all mankind. The Sacred Mass is the fullest expression of Christ’s Love for us. Christ came into the world as one who serves. He came to us as a Babe at Christ- Mass. At Mass, Christ comes again into the world by the miracle of Consecration, more helpless than a child; swathed by His own divine Power, in the helpless, mute bonds of bread and wine, entirely Our Savior, subject and servant: subject to every word and motion of the priest. What more could man ask than this supreme act of divine service and self-sacrifice? Calvary, though a perfect gift, was far from beautiful. It was wrapped in hateful faces, savage sounds, reviling jeers; in the blood, sweat, pain and shame of the Savior. The Mass, the same Gift, is renewed by divine genius in a setting that befits the beauty of the Gift. It is wrapped sacramentally in the spotless Species of bread and sparkling wine, and in the soaring stone of new and ancient cathedrals. To the eye, Calvary was hideous, but the Mass is beautiful to behold! Cardinal Newman said, “To me, nothing is so consoling, so piercing, so thrilling, so overcoming, as the Mass. It is the greatest action that can be done on earth! Christ becomes present on the Altar in Flesh and Blood, before whom Angels bow and devils tremble.” Not only is Mass the greatest Gift of the Greatest Lover, it is a Gift which we, too, can make of ourselves a part. Baptism works an internal change in our souls, a rebirth by which we become a part: a member of the Mystical Body of Christ. This
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