The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1914-05-09

In one of the Dominican churches in
London, England, a few Sundays ago,
the Reverend Fabian Dix, o. p,
preach on the relation which exists
between the sacrifices of the Old Law
and that of the New. He dealt par
ticularly with the Paschal sacrifice of
the Jews as related to the Paschal
Lamb offered for the sins of the world
in the holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
simultaneously with the fall of our
first parents, said Father Dix, and the
apparent hopelessness Of a recovery,
there cleaned through the surrounding
gloom a ray of hope, promise of ulti-
mate victory. True, the glory of the
Creators handiwork was sullied and
despoiled: sin had entered into the
world, and our first parents had been
condemned to a life of labor and sOr-
row because they had rejected the
lordship of our Eternal God and had
listened to the base persuasions of
Fallen Angel who had slithered along
the ground in the guise of snake.
But still, for all that, there rang out
the promise of ultimate restoration
and victory, inasmuch-so ran the
prophecy-in the ages afar off Re-
deemer should arise who would deal
a deathblow to the powers of evil.
This was the hope which stayed the
Jews through their desperate history;
this was the promise which the father
handed to his sons; this was the
theme which mingled itself with the
dying parents last blessing, clear and
we'll defined. The rest of the world
knew it too, but knew it dimly-
wrapped for the most part in legend
and superstition-that one day Great
Parsonage would put crooked world
straight and bring man back to God;
and one great act of worship served to
keep this hope alive in Jew and Cen
tile; that act was sacrifice.
From the fact that sacrifice was
universal and carried out in detail in
everyday life, we gather that it was
natural for man to offer sacrifice, and
we gather something further, namely,
the deep-rooted conviction that man
had offended God and that atonement
for sin was to be made by Redeemer
who should one day come.
But the sacrifices first offered under
the law of nature were, after a time,
offered under the law of worship &C
cording to the directions given by God
to Moses. The majority of Catholics
feel no desire to study the Levitical
code of worship-they say it is so ex-
traordinarily intricate and too full of
bewildering ceremonial to be mastered
without much labor and fatigue. A
little arrangement is all that is neces-
sary to give a fairly clear outline of
the ancient sacrif1cial rites. First of
all, let us start with the great principle
that the end and intention of these
sacrifices were twofold-frst, the &C.
acknowledgement of mans dependence on
God, and secondly, the confession that
man had sinned.
We can divide the Jewish sacrifices
into three-the sacrifice for sin, the
holocaust, and the peace offering, and
in all, the blood of the victim was
shed.
Blood is the principle of life, and
thus the shedding of blood was mans
acknowledgment that God was justl-
fed in demanding his blood as an ex-
piation for his sins, but man could
not offer himself because he was IN
sin and abhorrent in the sight of God;
and, moreover, man had never re-
ceived from God the right to take his
own life, and therefore the atonement
for sin must be made by the blood OF
an innocent victim.
The sacrifice for sin concerned the
individual. Thus, the Jew conscious OF
his offenses would bring lamb to the
priest, and, placing his hand upon its
head, he would confess his sins. Then
the blood of the victim was shed and
offered in expiration, and the sacrifice
for sin was complete.
The holocaust was the daily sacri-
flee offered each morning and evening
not merely for the individual, but for
the whole nation, and the fire which
perpetually burned upon the altar en-
tirely consumed the sacrifice. When
atonement for sin had been made, the
offerer was then in a right relation.
ship with God, and this was symbol
lied by his eating portion of the
peace-offering, by which he made him
self one with the victim consecrated to
God. But there was one sacrifice