The Catholic bulletin., 1914-08-15


of God?
The High Mass is the normal form
OF the Mass. Low Masses are COM
moner nowadays because priests are
TOO few and too busy to be able to
take part every day as deacons, sub
deacons, celebrants etc. If there were
as many priests in proportion to the
laity as there are Protestant minis
ters, there might be a chance of hav-
ing nothing but High Masses. The
ceremonies of High Mass are the
Church's method of showing to Al
Sacrifice, and impressing that esteem
on the minds of her children, thereby
increasing their devotion and rever-
ence. 1t is reasonable to think that
Almighty God will reward this effort
of His Church to honor His wonderful
gift, and will more readily bestow the
fruits of the Mass upon those of her
children who make some sacrifice to
enable the Church to do it. The
Church offers the ceremonies of the
Mass to God in gratitude and in rever-
ence, and with the prayer that the
particular intention of the person for
whom Mass is sung may be granted
the more readily.
Do priests and Bishops do much for
charity, for building churches, schools,
ETC.? If they do, why do we not see
all about it in the papers? ,..
Ecclesiastics do more than their
share for the purposes you mention.
They do not ask for newspaper fame,
remembering the words of Christ:
when thou dost an almsdeed sound
not a trumpet before thee as the hypo-
critics do in the synagogues and the
streets, that they may be honoured by
men," If they did sound the trumpet
there are folks not far from your
home town who would quote this text
for them. Perhaps you mean that
they are bound to account to you for
their expenditure of their personal
funds; that is a sad mistake on your
part. You stand "agast" as you say,
at the number of rich ecclesiastics
you know. Your acquaintance with
and knowledge of priests must be very
limited indeed. Remember that
ecclesiastics are free men like your
self, that they are entitled to a decent
wage, that they have more real nerve
racking toll and trouble than you who
criticize them, will ever know, that
they are cut off from the human com
forts of home life, that they earn
pretty hard the respect and the graft
tude and the affection shown them by
decent folk. In the homes of the poor
and the heart-broken, not in the pages
of professional slanderers will you find
the records of priestly charity.
st. John in the Apocalypse describes
heaven But st. Paul q Cor. 2, 81
says: "That eye hath not seen, nor
ear heard, nor hath it entered into
the heart of man, what things God
hath prepared for those that love
Him." Please explain this seeming
contradiction.
If you read on into the very next
verse of the passage in First Corinth-
ians you will find that st. Paul says,
"But to us God hath revealed them
by His Spirit" We are not to assume
that st. Paul contradicts himself, in
the very same sentence: and the
words in verse 10 give the key to
his apparent contradiction of the rev
elatons granted to st. John. Man by
his merely natural powers Of sense,
imagination or intellect could net
come to the knowledge of the mys.
tepies of revelation, especially of the
more profound mysteries; when man
knows them he owes this knowledge
to special supernatural Illumination
There is no contradiction between the
following two statements: Man can
not know the mysteries of the King
dom of God by the use of his natural
faculties alone, and without supernat
rral illumination; and: man can and
does know those mysteries by super
natural illumination. If you turn to
the second Epistle to the Corinthians
chapter II, verses / to 4, you will find
that st. Paul himself was favored BY
Almighty God with very special
visions and revelations, in which he
was caught up into the third heaven
caught up to paradise, and heard Sc
cret words which it is not granted tC
man to utter. OF course when st
Paul tells of these visions and revela
tions, he does not contradict his for
mer quotation from Isaias GA, 4, 'eye
hath not seen, etc." wherein he as
serted that such visions are above the
reach of mans natural faculties; in
deed you will see that in this passage
of the second epistle he brings ou
very plainly that those visions were
very special supernatural favors. As
was pointed out in this column on {
former occasion July 25, 1910, We
do not know what was the exact ma
ture Of these visions of s. Paul
whether he saw God for time face
TO face, as the blessed do in heaven
or enjoyed a lower kind of illumina
tion; even if we suppose that he dit
see God face to face, we should no
be contradicting his teaching that thi!
highest of all kinds of supernatura
illumination is wholly above the reacl
of the merely natural faculties of man
So, too, when we consider the visions
and revelations of st. John, we mus