 Hey, good afternoon or a good morning wherever, whenever you are out there. Steve Cunningham with 10 books coming at you again with Father Jonathan Romanowski, the priest and attorney of St. Peter, and Father, welcome. Welcome. Thank you, Steve. Thank you for having me. No problem. Anytime. Before we start, can you kick us off in a prayer, please? Absolutely. How about in this joyful, pascal season, we sing the Regina celli. That works. In the name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Ghost, amen. Alleluia. Gaudi and Lettari Virgo Maria Alleluia. What is it? We ask the Lord to give us mercy, alleluia. Poremus. Deus qui peres orrexion impiditui domini nostri Jesu Christi, munum leitificari di gnatus es. Presta quesumus sud peraius genetrici in virgine Maria. Per petue capiamos gaudi aviti periunem Christum dominum nostri. Vivinem auxilii Maria tempe no viscum. Amen. Thank you. To be honest, when I first learned that prayer was your video that you did with the FSSP Mexico channel. I think I watched that over and over and over again just to get that down. Great. Great. Well, thank you for making this possible. I mean, as priests, of course, we're called to preach unto the ends of the earth and thanks to podcasts like your own and this social media, we're able to do that. So, God be your reward to them. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. Just give me a microphone. I just enjoy the ride to go with it and learn while I go. Great. So, today we're talking about praying the Mass, or especially praying the traditional Mass with the guide of St. Louis to Port Maurice in his book, The Hidden Treasure. So, Folly, can you expand on who St. Louis to Port Maurice is and why this book is even important to start with? Yeah. He's a great missionary, and if I remember correctly, from the 18th century, God, if someone could back check that for me. But it's a wonderful work because oftentimes, first, I came to know the Latin Mass or the traditional Mass, the extraordinary Mass, whatever you want to call it, but I got to know it when I was about 20. So, I'd already converted to the Catholic faith and was going to the ordinary forum for a couple of years, and when I discovered it, I was attracted immediately by the beauty, the sense of silence. I remember going back to my fellow pre-seminarians there at college where I'd studied with Mr. Konder Gallagher, president there of Tam Books, and I remember describing it to my friends. I said it was like the Mass and meditation at the same time, and some people are kind of thrown off by that because in the ordinary forum, there's not that much sort of silence structured into it, and so at first, it was a challenge for me. I tell anybody who's going for the first time and might feel a little bit lost at first, just stick with it. You can buy a hand missile, follow along with the prayers. My spiritual director told me to do my meditation every day just on the prayers of the Mass. And after about a month, I started to become accustomed to it. And I hope many of you, if you didn't know for any of our viewers out there, listeners, we have a website, livemass.net. And so again, under this, this had started over 10 years ago by one of our priests, Father Friar. And so it's transmitted from a number of our churches throughout the world, from Guadalajara, Mexico, Sarasota, Florida, Freeburg, Switzerland, Los Angeles. And so now we have, but given this quarantine that we're under here, many of our pastors started to live stream their Masses. So you get to see this, this beautiful treasure, which is how the saints have prayed throughout the ages, know in the Roman rites, and become accustomed to that. So but I imagine for many it's a challenge as it was for me at first to get used to it. So, you know, and some people say, well, I don't know Latin, so how can I go to the Latin Mass? And I say, well, if it was a church is what one priest, he remarked one time to a lady who asked that he said, don't worry, God understands, I'm talking to him. But of course, the church wants us to understand, but to understand the deeper mystery of the Mass, to enter into that spirit of contemplation, which is, as we'll get into today as St. Teresa tells us, is a higher form of prayer than just a vocal prayer following the literal text of the Mass, for example. So we notice that in this traditional form of the Roman rite that there are many parts which are in silence, like the offertory, the canon of the Mass. And that's on purpose. So it's not even a question of understanding Latin. It's a church inviting you now not to simply understand, which is what the first part of the Mass treats us, the Mass of the Catechumens, the part of instruction where we hear the readings, where the priest preaches to us. But then we turn towards the Lord, we enter into that sense of mystery, and it passes from the head to the heart, right? Because we're sanctified, as St. Thomas says, more by charity than by knowledge, right? Knowledge is a prerequisite. Absolutely. You can't love that which we do not know, St. Thomas says, but in the order of our moral perfection, what makes us a better person is not simply knowing more, but loving God more. And so it passes there. And the church invites us in knowing that the sacred ambience of silence will be even more efficacious for our participation in Mass, right? That deepest interior participation as likewise in prayer, your effective gaze, your infused contemplation where you feel more passive, is in fact a more active participation as it's God acting through you. And that's the reality of the Mass. When we approach it, the church tells us it's the source and summit of the Christian life. Sometimes they ask us, as members of the Greasy Fraternity of St. Peter, what's your charism? Like Franciscans, holy poverty, or the Dominicans, the Order of Preachers, what's the fraternity besides the Mass? What do you mean besides the Mass? The Mass is the charism of charisms. In fact, all charisms, particular devotions and practices should flow from and back to the holy Mass. So this is the original spirituality of the church, to love the Mass for everybody and whatever rights they may be pertaining within the Catholic Church as there's many rights right of the East and West. But first and foremost, the Mass needs to be the center of all devotion for any saint and especially for the priest. And it's anecdotal, but one cardinal told us that it was Pope Benedict's intention back in 2007 when he was about to release a Morton Pontificum is that he wanted to do this, particularly to restore the spiritual life of the diocesan priest who doesn't have a religious rule necessarily. And the Pope spoke of a mutual enrichment that things had changed too much, that we need to get back to our roots, that there's so much in this traditional form which priests have forgotten, it would be of such great service to their spirituality and so he said in particular to save the spiritual life of the diocesan priest and I can say honestly as I came to know this form of the Mass, let's see it was 20, so 21 years ago, just at a birthday, getting old, but in 21 years it's never become boring for me. If I don't have to say Mass, one day if I don't have a parish Mass, I will always say a private Mass and here with my assistant always serve his Mass as well. It's really, it's my favorite meditation, it's never grown boring, it just brings me deeper and deeper and so that's part of what I'd like to share on this podcast today of just as one who came to know it and appreciates this great, as the Pope said in that same letter that what was sacred for previous generations remains sacred for us and we do well to draw from that treasure and so like I said it's and it's this is, so think back to the Apostolic Church, right, before they had the Bible completely written, what was the Christian experience or what was Catholicism for the first believers was the Mass, right, that's where you heard the Word of God preached by the hierarchy, sent by our Lord as a father have sent me so I send you, he gives them the same mission and he prays for them that for Peter that his faith may not fail, he who hears you hears me and so the Apostolic preaching is the rule of our faith, right, the hierarchy and the Church of Christ preaching the faith to us and they do that of course in the context of Mass, right, that's where we hear the Word of God and we hear sacred tradition as we draw from the fathers of the Church, expounding on the same scriptural readings and but even more so, you know, St. Paul had planted churches without giving them all of his epistles which he had yet to write, he gives them the Mass and that phrase I have handed on what I have received, right, is first and foremost our Lord himself in the Holy Eucharist and to perpetuate this Mass until the end of time as our Lord humanity apostles do this in remembrance of me so it makes him present not only in his Word but his body, blood, soul and divinity so the Mass is the quintessential Christian essence really, no, where you both hear the Word of God interpreted correctly and then receive our Lord and then the Holy Sacrament so the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass so that's kind of the background for the early church too and you think about it, it's still true for most Catholics, right, what is Catholicism for them? The average Joe who just goes to Mass on Sunday, Catholicism is, the Christian faith is what he experiences in Mass, right, he's probably not reading that many books, although he should and all those books from Dan Books are so great to support them today and but that primarily he's learning from the Mass and this was throughout the centuries the fathers of the Church spoke of this and that phrase we've seen in Latin, the lexorandi establishes the lex credendi but the law of prayer establishes a law of belief and so it was often even the conclusions of the Mass, right, when we say, peredominum no, surimiesum chriestum through our Lord Jesus Christ, our Lord who lives and reigns with you and with the Father in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God world without end, those sort of Trinitarian formulas were often introduced against the Arians, right, and so as the Arians denied the divinity of Christ, the Church through liturgical formulas reinforced our belief, knowing that the people are instructed, and here's here's an incredible quote from Pope Pius XI, so this is from his encyclical Quas Primas on Christ the King in the 1930s, he's explaining why he established this feast of Christ the King because the social kingship of Christ is often denied and forgotten and warred against by the powers of secularism of Freemasonry trying to destroy Catholic culture, Catholic civilization, so he establishes this feast day as the most important means to perpetuate the doctrine, the truth about Christ who came into this world that bear witness to the truth, so here's a quote from paragraph 21, he says that these blessings may be abundant and lasting in Christian society, it is necessary that the kingship of our Savior should be as widely as possible recognized and understood, and to the end nothing would serve better than the institution of a special feast in honor of the kingship of Christ for people are instructed in the truths of faith and brought to appreciate the inner joys of religion far more effectually by the annual celebration of our sacred mysteries than by any official pronouncement of the teaching of the Church. Such pronouncements usually reach only a few and the more learned among the faithful, feasts reach them all, the former speak but once, the latter speak every year, in fact forever. The Church's teaching affects the mind primarily, her feasts affect both mind and heart and have a salutary effect upon the whole of man's nature. Man is composed of body and soul and he needs his external festivities so that the sacred rites and all their beauty and variety may stimulate him to drink more deeply of the fountain of God's teaching, that he may make it a part of himself and use it with profit for his spiritual life. So that's a wonderful quote there from Bias 11 and just reminding us of how the ceremonies as they speak to the whole man and as St. Thomas says, there's nothing in her mind which is in first in our senses. We're not angels. That's why it's it's just it's all most agnostic dualism expressed in the phrases. It doesn't matter, you know, what you see in the ceremonies or how you express it. It's only what matters is what's in your heart. Okay. The heart is principle, but if it's not in your senses, it's never going to get to your heart. Right? If you think that's true, you know, husbands try that out with your wife, honey, does it matter if I tell you that I love you? I don't have to give any external sign of that. I feel it in my heart, even though it's never expressed. I think I told a couple Mormons that was read the book of Mormon. You'll get this feeling in your gut. I said that when I resports illustrated. Yeah, so, so again, we're human beings. And especially, you know, I think sometimes Greece repeats as these two spiritual ideas. Because, you know, as salivate men with a habit of prayer, maybe it's easier for them. But for anyone who's raised a kid, you know that everything depends on what's in their senses, right? That's reality they absorb. So so and I think of anecdotes too. I remember Father Jackson, whom you know well, right, has interviewed many times, but he recounted one time he was in a diocese and, and the bishop asked him, he said, you know, your people have a great respect for the Holy Eucharist. They kneel, they dress well to come to mass, they kneel with great devotion, they prepare themselves for like Thanksgiving after he said, I'd love to see that throughout my diocese. And so what do you think I could do to increase reverence to the blessed sacrament? And our priest said, Well, you know, I don't think it's so much a question of a, you know, sort of a campaign. It's, it's how we treat our Lord really, you can say whatever you want. But if you treat him as if he were just bread or blessed bread, then that's what people are going to believe in the end. And he said, and the bishop interrupted him to say, Wait, I think I know where you're going with that. He said, I remember when I was a kid, in this traditional form of the Roman right, he said, I remember the, the priest came down, Old Monsignor McGillicuddy, they give Holy Communion when he tripped. And a few of the hosts fell to the floor. And he was just a kid at the time, but he remembers, you know, one lady fainted, people were gasping, signing themselves, the priest turned pale, and, and he remembers all this vividly. And he said, the priest and follow just the rubrics for this accident that might occur a material sacrilege, you will, and then recollecting, taking up the host, putting it back on the altar. If you can remove even the tile on the floor, you should do that to carefully purify it over over the altar. And then afterwards, of course, you pour wine, then waters, you recite the misery rate, the psalm of asking for mercy. And then he saw on the next day too, with a magnifying glass, looking to see if there were any more particles. And he said, that was the best sermon I ever heard on the real presence in my life, because I saw how people responded. You think, who's read encyclicals, right? Very few people, as the Pope just mentioned to us in that quote, but you remember the Corpus Christi procession, you know, in Guadalajara, it was beautiful. We have a church in the, in the historic downtown center. And so on feast days we'll go out and do a procession through the streets. And, you know, to see the 90 year old lady come out of her house, and takes about three minutes, but she has to kneel before her Lord, as he passes by little girls and veils throwing petals of flowers before him. That's what teaches people, right? More than any. I don't know how many times I've heard, I thought I gave a good sermon and, you know, people compliment me afterwards, Father, that was, it was a good sermon. I see, what, what did you learn or what, what's part of it, did you like in particular? I don't remember what it was about, but it was nice. It was like, great. But they remember those ceremonies. And that, and that's why Saint Teresa, right? St. Teresa of Avila, doctor mystic of the church, she said, I would give my life for the smallest ceremony of Holy Mother Church. What was happening at that time, she was horrified to hear how the Protestants were traveling around, destroying Catholic churches, desecrating the blessed sacraments, mutilating, changing the rights and this Protestant revolution. And she said that, not as a Rupertist, right? She said it as a mystic. And she knows God is in the details, right? Think of, you know, even this is a, remember one man in Guadalajara came into our church and he was praying before the Sacred Heart statue like this. I said, I just have to ask her, why do you pray like this? He says, I don't really remember, but I remember the priest used to stand before God. Somehow I think I have a better chance of being heard if I stand before Him in that same holy, mystical posture. But, and then I explained to him, you know, it's actually a profession of our faith because after we consecrate our Lord, so as not to lose a particle in which his body, blood, soul and divinity, right? The second person in the most holy divinity is contained, we keep our fingers together until they're purified at the ablution at the end of Mass. So, you know, God is found in the details. Even the pagans of the Indians knew that with St. Isaac jokes. Yeah, exactly. That's right. I just listened to that on my retreat. It's on Keep the Faith there. Wow, what an inspiring story. But yeah, they chewed off his thumb so that he couldn't say Mass. So, so that's how we're taught. And it's, if you wanted at a higher level too, the abstract point would be, if anyone's ever studied any philosophy, but we say the transcendentals, right? The most, the greatest perfections in this life would be what? Oneness, truth, goodness and beauty. And those are perfections which don't have any limit as such. So, we can apply them to God. This is how philosophy takes us from the creature to the creator. St. Paul says in his first chapter to the Romans, but so we can know, it's particular that God is one, that he is truth, that he is goodness, that he is beauty itself. And God is absolutely simple. So, those properties we say are convertible. What does this mean? I'm going pretty high. I expected it here, I know, but it'll be a test later. Exactly. So, but because they're convertible, that is, if something is good, it's because it's true. And if something is good, therefore it's beautiful. And for liturgy, it's really the expression of truth and goodness through beauty. And beauty is the most subtle and efficacious at the same time, right? Somebody hits you with a doctrinal preposition, you don't like it. You know, somebody who's done me give a talk to his college students on some point in morality and explained it very logically in one of the kids afterwards. Dude, I don't like his logic. Like, it forces me to agree and I don't, I don't want to agree, right? Or how many rejected our Lord's teaching are rejected. But you know, nobody, and even though we have this subjective phrase, the beauties in the eye of the beholder, well, your disposition can affect it to a certain degree of what you perceive. If you have an evil disposition, you won't like beauty, but everybody recognizes the objective beauty of a beautiful sunset, right? I live down here now in Naples, Florida, where there's 15 minutes from the shore or so, you know, the sun sets on the ocean, people start clapping, playing the trumpet. So everybody knows, I've never heard anyone say that sunset's disgusting, right? Same with a beautiful church, you know, you walk into a beautiful church and you start praying automatically. Wow, God is here, that Gothic architecture which points your mind up towards God and so it imposes truth and goodness upon you, but in that most subtle and attractive way. So that's, that's a point regarding liturgy and in general, too, our whole Catholic life. There's a great work, Revolution and Counter Revolution, in which the author Professor Plinio Corre de Oliveira speaks of the tendential revolution in society. You know, the enemy knows this, too, as St. Thomas says, that most people lose their faith because they give themselves over to carnal sins. So not because they're reading heretical books so much as they love more the flesh than the spirit and they reject that truth which, you know, which bothers their conscience and so the revolution uses this likewise in terms of corrupting our morals, our way of dressing, of speaking, pop culture, music, I mean just think of all the garbage out there and you know, parents are observing it with their kids. What happens after they listen to all this stuff and follow these worldly programs? They have no interest in the faith. They don't want to go to church. I remember talking to one young lady and I said, I gave her all these proofs for God's existence and thought I was going to convince her and she said, it just stops. I don't believe in God because I don't want to believe. Oh, okay. So even in the life of our Lord many rejected him. So anyways, back to the topic though, how liturgy through beauty proclaims truth and goodness in the most objective way and disposes us towards that. So anyways, that's the importance of the liturgical life. Dame Guérangé, wonderful work, the liturgical year. I received that as a gift when I was in college and so very grateful but read through the whole work over a couple years and he's meditating on the mysteries, the history and the mystery of each liturgical season and feast day. Find a reminder of how it was in the ancient church and how we need to restore that beauty as he was working then after the French Revolution to re-establish the Benedictine life, liturgical life really amongst the French people. It was a work that Saint Rez's dad or sister would read to her every day. So I really recommend it for the Catholic home to meditate. The first time I read that I was just blown away and then obviously seeing the pre-55 and his a holy week write-ups just, wow. And it serves as a missile, right? I mean it has a missile. It's one, although it's on the IP ETA and apps, you can read it online now. I have it in four languages. Wow. But to have it in a book form, it's also like a missile. It has the the ordinary of the mass there, the croppers of each day and then commentaries on them. So it's really one it's worth the investment for your family. But he describes the liturgy as tradition professed. It's the life of Christ made incarnate in this mystical body of the church. It's how we're clothed with with the mind and the virtues of Christ, right? Beginning each each year with Advent in this holy expectation, recognizing our sinfulness, longing that God might come, then in Christmas, it would have to become his little children. But to be humble, we have to trust in God. But to enter the kingdom of heaven, that's the foundation of the spiritual life. We receive this human nature, passable, capable of suffering, so as to offer it back to God. We follow them through through Lent and that ultimately what we sacrifice, what we sow, we will reap in the resurrection. So the whole liturgical cycle, it repeats itself in our calendar the same every year as I say, people meet not so much to be instructed as reminded, right? To the central truths. But it closes with the life of Christ. So it's really that life of Christ extended to all the members of his mystical body. So anyways, in terms of how to pray the Mass, there's many aspects to it. Oftentimes people ask, I think the two most aspects which jump out the most at first are that why is it in Latin why is there silence? Why is the priest facing the other way? Those are some of the most visible differences that challenge people when they first go. And I tell them, you know, in terms of Latin, remember it was good Pope John, the 23rd, who instead of, you know, there's this mythical history that he came along and said, hey, let's put the mass and the vernacular and the language of the people so they can understand. No, he wrote the most important encyclical as to why we need to preserve our last. It's called Veterum Sapienza. I think you'll have another talk on that in the near future. No, I don't want to. Hopefully, wait for Father Verone if you're listening. Don't steal his thunder, but it's the thunder of the church. So Veterum Sapienza there, the church explains, you know, this is a universal language. It's Catholic. It agrees perfectly to the church's mission, right, which is universal, which is sacred, which proclaims an unchangeable truth. Therefore, it's fitting that we have a language which is dead, which doesn't change, which is not our common vulgar tongue, but rather something we can consecrate to God and that it's universal. And this is what missionaries said. I've been reading about, I read this wonderful work in Spanish. It's in the IPA as well, but this tells it's what I wish someone would translate it, but it tells the whole story of the evangelization of the Americas from the Caribbean, even to the North American martyrs there, and the French missions in Canada. But again, they found Latin to be perfect. There were so many different languages, so many different tribes and divisions amongst them that finally when they went to Mass, they found a language which united them. We have a priest, a Franciscan priest, just gave us a conference and he told us of how in, I think it was New Guinea when they were given that mission. Again, so many different languages, people divided amongst themselves and they achieved a unity amongst all those different peoples by the Latin Mass. That's when they forgot about their particular identity and discovered above that they have their Catholic identity, that Roman Catholic identity, right, which links them to the most ancient prayers of the Roman Church which St. Peter and Paul founded with their blood. Another friend of ours, Jonathan Arrington, he was telling me, he was out there with Denver and I'm trying to get him to come back. He was talking about one time being at Mass. A Japanese family was in front of him. A Spanish couple was to his right. Chinese family was behind them and there was somebody from I can't remember where it was but it wasn't Colorado. But we were all together unified knowing here in the same Univoje. Instead of being kind of like in this now tower of Babel in a sense where you're separated here, you're separated here. That's how the church brings that unity. I remember one anecdote of, I think it was in Latin Mass magazine years ago, but how Communists converted, you know, with these dreams of establishing this international order and fraternity. He was following just on satellites. It was midnight mass at Christmas and he just tuned in on satellite and saw that in Germany, Spain, France, Poland was the same mass. The Catholic Church had already achieved that unity. So, importance of Latin, obviously the importance of facing the Lord, right? So when people say, you know, they often ask, why do you have your back to the people? I say, I always tell the people afterwards of my explanatory talk I give every month to newcomers that say, hey, you people in the first row, are you turning your back to the people in the second row behind you? That's really rude, right? Nobody thinks that because no, we're just looking in the same direction. Well, me too. You know, Father, one of my priests used to say, what direction do you want your bus driver to be facing towards you or towards where you're going? And that's a sense and that's really the ancient even Jewish sense of the mass is that it's the Passover, right? We're passing over from Egypt to the Brahmas land, from servitude and to holy freedom and to heaven, right? And so the mass reminds us, as again, as Pope Emeritus Benedict reminded us is that it reminds us we're not we're pilgrims on a mission. We can't stay here. You want to go to mass because you want to get to heaven because you want to leave this valley in tears. And the priests, you're leading us. Exactly. I come from amongst you, right? In the high mass, you have to proceed out and from the people as our Lord takes our nature but then he enters into the holy of holies and then he in turn gifts dispensing his gifts to men because we contemplate in the letter to the Hebrews and the time of ascension. So that's a sense of the orientation, too, is that it's towards God and that cannot be underestimated. Once you get used to that, it really and again, it delineates, right? I'm facing you for the sermon. But then we face the Lord. We face the cross, right? That's the focus. It's through the cross, per cruciam ad luciam, through the cross to the light. I was reading that you turn for a mail just that what you just say about the sermon just popped in, you know, like you see these pulpits off to the side and in Bar-a-Mail writes, you preach with never turning your back on God. So there he's preaching sideways, diagonally. He said, you never put your back to God or the bishop if it's a pontifical mask on. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Rather, you preach from them to the people, but that's the point then when we turn to the offertory what is the sacrifice proper of the mass into the canon, consecration. It's turning towards our Lord and so if you're lost in that part because you don't understand, wait, time out. This isn't instruction for you. This is your chance to worship God and this is really what challenges modern man in this neo-pegant culture the most is that we've lost a sense that we exist for God but that we go to mass for God. If people say, well, you know, I can't receive Holy Communion right now or I don't understand the language and I'm not going to mass. You don't go to mass just primarily for your instruction or even to receive the sacrament but to offer yourself and your worship to God through him, with him, and in him, in Christ. So really, and you know, so the ancient pagans, right, as we've read in those stories of the many of the Native Americans throughout this whole continent here offered human sacrifice, right, but they at least had the humility even though they're offering human sacrifices to the blood-sucking wizard demon, as horrible as it was, they at least had the humility to realize, I need to appease a higher power. I'm not God, I'm just a creature. So I need to offer sacrifice to please a higher being, to make reparation for my offenses, to obtain favor. It's even that only modern man in this neo-pagan culture lives as if God only existed for man. And that's the whole perversion of things, right? And think of our Lord's statement. He who seeks to save his life will lose it. He who loses his life for my sake will find it, right? How many people waste their whole life looking for happiness, the meaning of life? But only I had a different job or different spells or lived in a different place and somehow I'm going to find happiness. It's not in you. It consists in forgetting about you, giving yourself to God. So that's where, you know, our cult that is in the Latin sense worship is the basis of our culture. The cult that we offer to God, the worship that we offer God orients our whole entire culture, right? And so that I think is what we've lost and why I think that orientation towards God, towards the Orient, that's what we say, Orient towards the East where the Son of Justice comes out to our encounter. We're waiting for Christ to come. We're journeying towards him. We haven't arrived and we're offering this sacrifice as the Son of arises in the heavens. So the Son of Justice is lifted upon our altars and Holy Communion, the life Saint Padre Pius said the world could live longer without the Son than it could without the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. So so that's, you know, I think the most important point is that we get oriented towards God and only when you're faced with, you know, the back of the priest's head do you realize, wait, what's our focus here? Can't hear him. I can't see him. Oh, wait. He's just representing me. I'm united with him and we're worshiping God. And even the, you know, Saint Padre Pius said, best way to participate in mass, and this was the mass that he prayed, of course, par excellence, right? And he would meditate. Hopefully we have time to get into more details, but you would meditate on each part of the passion of Christ and each part of the mass. And he said, look, for the simple faithful, the best way to participate in mass is to offer yourself as a victim with Christ. Because that is actually what occurs. Pope Pius XII explains it as in a cyclical Mediator day on the sacred liturgy says, the mass is a sacrifice of the whole Christ, right? Christ the head with all its members, as any Protestant convert finally realized, you know, from that phrase of Saint Paul, you know, Saul's conversion, why do you persecute me? You know, our Lord says, having ascended into heaven, me, the church, Christ and the church are one. What God is united, let no man separate. It's why it's, that's how Saint Paul always speaks of it, right? It's one head with many members that we form. And so the Pope reminds us, it's never a question of, do you love God or Christ or do you love the blessed Virgin Mary? It's like, you love your dad or your mom? Yes. You know, like, crazy. So it's all one body. And he says liturgically, this is what happens. And notice how many churches are structured like a cross. In fact, to show that we are members of Christ offering the mass with him and being offered with him. So you are offering the mass in virtue of your baptism. So you participate in Christ's life as priest, in virtue of your baptism, not the sacramental order of priesthood. So what I offer, what a priest offers, physically, sacramentally, all the faithful united with them offer morally and spiritually. And that's why, you know, the non-baptized Catechumans were dismissed before the beginning of the offertory. You can't be here for this part. You're not yet members of Christ and you can't offer this sacrifice. So that's your great baptismal privilege. And that's why St. Leonard of Port Maurice will explain one of the great ways to offer the mass, to pray the mass, is to think of the four ends. Right? I came up with the acronym of part, like four parts. So P-A-R-T, petition, adoration, reparation, Thanksgiving. So we offer it for those four ends of sacrifice to petition. Ask and you shall receive. You ask anything in the Father's in my name. You ask the Father anything in my name, it will be granted to you. I know what he says. I do not say that I will ask but the Father himself loves you. Because you are in Christ. He looks upon you, baptized soul in the state of grace and sees his dearly beloved Son. And whom he is well pleased. And he can't deny his own. Right? So all that you ask in his name, Jesus, which means the Lord who saves anything for your salvation, you will receive. Because our Lord desires the salvation of all men and he died to make you holy. And he waits for you as a prisoner in the Tabernacle to sanctify you. So petition, adoration, reparation and Thanksgiving, reparation, one mass, St. Stellis, is worth more than a whole year of fasting on bread and water. Yeah? Just think about that in terms of your penance. Many of you have seen the passion of Christ, right? That brutal scourging. That is mystically present in holy mass, the shedding of his blood, which takes place, of course, in a gradual manner as you can follow in the prayers, right? It essentially consists in the consecration that makes that sacrifice present. But even in the offertory, we're referring to the Ostia, the victim, the Immaculate Victim and the Chalice of Salvation, all pointing towards as one sacrifice that the Church is forming us in, just as Christ began to shed his blood drop by drop until he finally died shedding the last drop on the cross. So that's made present on your behalf if you're praying mass devoutly. And so it's worth more than all the penances you could do, one holy mass. In terms of Thanksgiving, it's called Eucharist, which means Thanksgiving. Our Lord complains in his revelations to the Sacred Heart that he longs to die for us. What makes him sad is that people will still not respond. Behold the heart which is so loved mankind but which receives even to consuming itself for love of him, but which receives from the majority nothing but indifference and the ingratitude. That's what pains him. He's a crazy lover. He's willing to die for love of you just to win your heart. But then people still don't respond before the most infinite, incredible act of infinite love. They remain cold and indifferent. That's, you know, as we see in the Apocalypse, that's what he wants to vomit out of his mouth. But that's either hot or cold, but this luke warmness is the gratidus is what pains him. And so we fulfill and what's the purpose of our life? What's our raise on detra other than to give glory to God, right? That's the whole reason we're made as creatures, is to glorify the Creator as his handiwork. Blessed be God in his angels and in his saints. And so in thanking God, that's this is the heart of Christ. And again, every act of mass, it's Christ praying through you. And so he's offering this infinite act of petition, of reparation, of Thanksgiving and of adoration on your behalf. That's how it ends. And through him with him in him, you are offering this sacrifice and you are offered in this sacrifice. And that's what it's a mystical interpretation of why we lift up the chasable. You'll notice that the the acolyte lifts up the chasable, the priest brings the bell as the priest elevates the sacred host. Literally, historically, goes back to when the chasable was very long and gold, lots of gold during the gold, it was hard to actually lift up your hands. So it was actually physical help to make that possible. But chasable means, the etymology is a little house. So it represents, again, the house of our Lord, the church, the mystical body. So that as Christ ahead is offered in sacrifice, he's offered with all of his members at the same time. So this is why St. Bajapio said, you know, the best way to offer pray the Mass is offer yourself with Christ as a victim. It's more blessed to give than to receive. Right. Dying to ourselves or born to eternal life. And this is adoration. Right. This is why we go. Our Lord said to St. Catherine of Siena after all these mystical revelations, right, her whole book of the dialogue, she didn't know how to read or write until St. Dominic already dead, appeared to her and taught her. But so she dictated these locutions and ecstasy. So all these heavenly revelations she received is that our Lord said, everything I've taught you is summed up in one phrase. I am he who is and you are that which is not. Yeah. That's adoration. Right. And that's why, you know, in the beauty of the mass, you go and, all right, there's readings, there's instruction over here, something good from a fraternity priest about St. Thomas Aquinas and we're always repeating. But then and then there's beautiful sacred music, which moves us even more, I think. But then what's the climactic moment of the mass? It's not any words. It's not any sacred music. It's silence. Right. And that silence is what, you know, be still and know that I am God. Right. And that's when we are most active, when we are on our knees and silence, adoring, saying, Lord, you are he who is. I am that which is not. I adore you. Everything that I have is from you. I give it all back to you. And so that's why we go to mass. And if we, I think for many people, they just have lost the sense of the faith first of what is the mass. Right. If you understood the mass, you would need no book. I was explaining, you know, who's the most perfect model for participating in mass? The Blessed Virgin Mary. Right. Co-redemptrix. She together with Christ redeemed the human race. Both Benedict the 15th tells it. So, you know, why? How? Our Lord is a divine person. Only he offers a sacrifice and perfect justice. But our Lord, our lady isn't separable. Right. She's a new Eve. She gave him his life. She formed his humanity. And there she is, like the new Abraham at the foot of the cross, consenting to this emulation. Right. She doesn't protest. The church condemned the devotion to the swoon of our lady that she passed out there overcome with sorrow. No, no, no. She stood the Moliere forties. Right. The strong woman at the foot of the cross. She repeated her fiat. Right. She knew from the annunciation to be the man of sorrows through the stripes we are healed. Who would give his life as a victim for all? And that she consented to this from the beginning to the end. She orders her fiat. And, you know, did she need a guitar? Did she need a hymnal? Did she, no. She was so deeply participating that she couldn't speak. Right. And so, again, that's really why, again, for me in 20 years, it's never become boring. And I've never just gone and asked, well, I need to make the Eucharist or I need to want to receive. I love the literature because I love the sense of, because it forms in me that sense of sacrifice in which I find my identity and happiness. Right. He who seeks to save his life will lose it. He who loses his life for Christ's sake will find it. So, again, that's a key to participating in the Mass. Remember that it is, you're at the foot of Calvary. What other book do you need? Right. And Saint Padre Pio, and it's related by a spiritual disciple of his. You can find it, I think, on the Internet. Father Darrow Bears. But he said, this is what Father Saint Padre Pio taught me. He said, he connected just, you know, when you hear of people, oh, they used to take out their rosary during Mass because it was in Latin and then nobody understood what was going on. So like, I guess I'll just pray my rosary till this ends. No. They were using the rosary so as to participate in Mass. So it's a lot of custom, the Church tells us to use the rosary as a means to meditate on the mystery of the Mass. Okay. So Saint Leonard of Port Marie talks about these four ways and, you know, the first is just a literal way. Follow the prayers, follow the ceremonies. But just like a mental prayer, that's just the beginning. And if you want to give space to the Holy Ghost to really direct your prayer, it should become more simplified. It should become more of an effective gaze. You know, the contemplation of I am he who is, you are that which is not. That sums up everything, right? So another way, and I discovered it too then in seminary, I thought maybe I'll try praying the rosary and just connecting, you know, the first part of the Mass when we're saying our confetti or Kyrie Eleison, notice how the priest doesn't approach the altar first. He stays down until he's repented for his sins and received absolution from our Lord of all our venial sins. And only then does he enter into the Holy of Holies, right? So think of how our Lord begins his sacrifice in the agony in the garden, right? There he is meditating and he's sorrow even and sorrow even unto death. He's in the garden as Adam was in the original garden. That was the new Adam to say, Thy will be done, not mine. And so a theme of contrition through the first part, even in the readings he would contemplate still that agony of Christ said, again, he's preaching the truth. But, you know, many did not receive him, right? They preferred darkness to light. Then in the offertory to start to contemplate the second and third sorrowful mysteries, again, it's Christ beginning his sacrifice. We hear the priest speak of this victim, this immaculate victim, this chalice of salvation. It's a beautiful prayer in spirit of humility, in the spirit of humility. Not always well translated, I think in that red misalette, but sushi di amur harte, we mean in Latin, may we be received by thee, O Lord. And so what are we offering? And that's our very selves, again, as members of the body of Christ we're offering ourselves as members of that eucharistic body, which will be offered. And so everything points towards that as the Lord begins to shed his blood, as he's crowned with thorns, in the spirit of humility, all for the glory, the sushi besang de trinitas, for the glory of the most holy trinity. And then on his way to Calvary, too. So we begin the canon with this gesture and a very profound bow to the altar. And it's like our Lord taking the cross upon him notice he heads to Calvary. His eyes are fixed on it. The priest doesn't even turn around to say, Dominus Vaviscum, with that point he's focused on going to the cross, on going to Calvary. And we mentioned the saints who have carried the cross throughout the centuries, all those holy pokes, lioness, gletus, gleamon. We wouldn't have the mass, we wouldn't be participating in the very sacrifice of Christ amongst us, if it wasn't for all those saints who carried that sacrifice with Christ who carried his cross throughout the centuries. Shedding their blood, they're all martyrs that we mentioned in the canon. Thanks to them, the cross has arrived to us. And then we are invited to carry it. Then the honky tutorial. You'll hear this. The bow's wrong, as the priest extends his hands over the oblata, over the bread and wine just before the consecration. And this reminds us of in the Old Testament how the priest would transfer the sins of the people upon a scapegoat which was to be sacrificed for their sins. So to the priest, mystically transferring the sins of the people, asking for forgiveness, upon Christ his victim, who now falls to be nailed to the cross. And notice how the priest, he puts his puts his wrists on the cross, which on the altar, which represents the cross, to be nailed with Christ, who is elevated upon the cross and who sheds his blood and the chalice, mystically upon us. And so again, you know, and then even the word ostia that we use probably translated as post or but better still as victim is what it means in Latin. But it refers to a living victim, one who's suffering. So I think after the consecration as a priest keeps his arms like this and another Western writes at the Dominicans, for example, they extend their arms. I've lost my zoom space here but extends his arms out in the form of a cross. And so that's to contemplate in this moment, it's Christ on the cross suffering for us of offering himself and adoration, reparation, thanksgiving, petition for us on the cross. And that takes us to the whole consumatum est, right? It is consummated when you know, the priest threw him with him in him is to be a God, Father, all honor and glory forever and ever. And so that's and then think of that because of the offering of Christ think about it from the passion of Christ. When he offered himself and you see that tear fall from heaven, that drop of rain, that drop of grace because now the heavens are opened, right? The veil has been rent. Now we have access to God as our Father, Father and Oster, we continue. And even the resurrection of Christ too, you can contemplate because you'll notice and after before communion, there's the fraction of the host, the breaking of the bread which we hear in the Acts of the apostles symbol that he comes not only as our nutrition, as our spiritual food, but also as a victim who's broken for us. And but then we mix a particle, right? Saying, the peace of our Lord be with you forever, be with you always as he does this, he makes three signs of the cross with the particle of his body over the chalice of his blood and announces peace. What does three and peace remind us of and body and blood coming together again for the resurrection, right? We're now risen, the pure city apostles, peace be with you. He's with us again and desiring to be with us always in holy communion to the end of time. So anyways, and even the ascension, no, we contemplate when we receive Christ, we are mystically transported up with him, right? He doesn't change his place, even though he's substantially present in the host. It's another very mysterious thing, but the point is, is that we are in the presence of Christ who is the, at the right hand of his father, who is the king of the angels. If we could only see behind that host, behind the veil of those accidents of that appearance, we would be in heaven. We would be in glory as we would see him as he is. And so, you know, even the ascension of Christ, the glorious mysteries, the item is as go your sense we're being sent out with the Holy Ghost now as, as the light of the world, the salt of the earth, and even the final mysteries do of the, the assumption of our Lady, think of how the mass ends with the the last Gospel of Saint John contemplating from the Trinity his incarnation and that we have seen his glory, the glory of the only begotten Son of God, a fool of grace and truth. So we see his glory as our Lady saw it in her assumption and, and even in our low masses too, we have that beautiful custom on from Leo the 13th and pray the three Hail Marys and the Salvi Regina. So anyways, I hope that wets your appetite a little bit to realize, you know, that's the deeper way to participate in the mass and, and that work from Saint Leonard of Port Maurice just reminds us that, oh yeah, our forefathers knew how to meditate. They didn't complain about, I don't understand the mass. They knew what it was as a mystery. They didn't try to, but to comprehend it, but to adore it rather, oh, and to bow before that mystery and to enter in just based on those simple truths. So again, it corresponds, so I found just the impact on my spiritual life. Again, it's my favorite prayer that I say every day if I attend a second mass I do because it's, it follows the whole order of meditation. It takes you from vocal prayer to deeper meditation to effective prayer to hopefully receiving infused lights from God as well. So that's where you can see the wisdom of Holy Mother Church who knows our frame and what we need more than just instruction. We need that forming of the whole man in Christ. So anyways, I can ramble on forever, Steve. Please interrupt me. I don't know if we have any. No, I'm just saying very well. There's always a line I like to tell somebody if somebody's rolling in there, they know more than you. Just sit back and let him talk. It's, you know, we end on what we received. If anyone's ever liked that talk from the fraternity, thank St. Thomas Aquinas. You know, he's our intellectual patron. We're clothed in his mind there for seven years in seminaries. And Mr. Thomas, in the book of Hidden Treasure, it mentions him serving Mass. He would never say Mass without serving a Mass afterwards. Yes. Pope, some folks had discussed and do that after they would offer Mass, then they would hear a Mass in Thanksgiving. And one, one saint said it would take, you know, three eternities, right? So we'll work to worthily offer a Mass an eternity of preparation, an eternity of celebration, and an eternity of Thanksgiving. So the closest we can get is, you know, a Mass before, a Mass during, a Mass after. If you ever go to a monastery, like out there in Clear Creek, for example, the Benedictine monks or one time I went to their mother house in Foncombeau, France, probably 60 priests offering each their Mass that they're at privately for the conventional Mass, which one of them offered. But so I sat there for about an hour and a half and it was like turns, like 20 at the same time. And I probably, you know, saw 60 Mass in being offered this is heaven on earth. But if I could recommend too, if while you check the questions there too, just for our books, we can put these in the comments at the end. But again, I mentioned the liturgical year by Don Guillermas Day, Saint Leonard of Port Maurice, the Hidden Treasure of Holy Mass. Von Cochum, this is like a 17th century German work translated, explains how all the mysteries of Christ's life, passion, death, resurrection, are made present in Mass. And then another one, it's really wonderful. It's not in print right now, because you can get it on Kindle. Although I think the author is open for someone printing it in print. We know it's not in print. Father Thomas Creme, Dominican, the Mass in the Saints, that just goes through the whole Mass with quotes. Excellent, please. So it's just quotes from Saints, like a paragraph quote on each part of the Mass. So it's perfect for meditation before Mass. So yeah, that should be enough to get everyone started. It is available on Kindle though in the meantime too if anybody wanted to. Yeah, another publishing company took it up Ignatius. Okay. I don't know if I'm supposed to beep that out or not, but we're all the same team. And the other one, of course our priest, Father Jackson, made a synthesis of all those kind of works and spiritual commentaries in a work called Nothing Superfluous. And that's a wonderful synthesis of all those spiritual commentaries, which you will love as well. So. The incredible Catholic Mass. Yes, yes. There's so many, we just have to have the humility. If you go to Mass and say, I don't understand this, I don't really like this. That's not what I'm used to. Just be humble. Right? Our forefathers were much holier and had more reverence than we do. We're not doing very well in this day and age in which only like 25% of Catholics who go to Mass actually believe that our Lord is there. So we're not. And I always think from Mexico too, St. Jose Sanchez del Rio. So why you're Michoacan, a Niño Cristero, in that movie, was it for greater glory? Right? They tried to tell his story. There's this 13-year-old boy who wants to join the Catholic army against the Masonic Federalists trying to destroy the country. And his mom says, no, Nijo, you're too little, you'll easily be killed. And he says, yeah, mom, it's never been so easy to gain heaven as now, giving our lives for Christ the King. Wow. Yeah. I think 13-year-old boy, where are the 13-year-old boys with this spirit? And how many books had he read? I don't know. It's a small town. I've been there, smaller in his day even. So maybe they were poor. Maybe he didn't have that many books. But I know he was an acolyte. I know he knelt before the cross and prayed the Mass and offered himself with Christ because he was imbued with that spirit of the Mass, the sacrifice. As the sacrifice of Christ, he was ready, even at 13 years of age, to give his life for Christ. They're in a, for times like right now, everyone's, I don't know their mindsets. And the popular thing to say is give us back the Mass, give us back the Mass by the Lady. So, you know, usually you need something taking away to know what you have before. What would you tell somebody that say two months after everything comes back to normal, if it does? And weekday Mass, like St. Louis, the hidden father, can't think of his name and the incredible Catholic Mass. They all talk about going to Mass daily no matter what you can, get the Mass, to give some fruits you'll get from it. And for the excuses that we come up with, like I was telling you off camera, I was doing Uber, get up at three in the morning, start driving and that was my only source income. If I didn't go get my goal, I'd come home short of it. I couldn't, it was, it was hard for me. So Mass at eight o'clock would be, oh man, that's, I gotta take an hour out of potentially making a 30, $40. So now putting $30, $40 above the Mass. Well, think of the great example of the saints, you know, St. Isidore the farmer, right, they used him, oh, he skips out on his work. When he would go to Mass, the oxen would continue to till for him. St. Louis, King of France, like, oh, you're a king, you're very busy, never missed Mass. He prayed at the divine office too. So we have example of some of the busiest saints. And remember, St. Pius X, do his favorite work, the soul of the apostolate, right? Here's a, you know, somebody with about in that time, what, 700 million people under his care, right? And it's, you know, it's all around the clock, right? Well, you go to sleep, the other half of the world, the Catholic world is awake, asking questions and sending letters. So if anybody had an excuse to say, I'm too busy, right? It would have been him, but no, that was his bedside book. I am the vine, you are the branches. Remain in me, without me, you can do nothing, nothing. So again, you can't, he who prays will be saved, he who does not pray will certainly be condemned. That's referring to mental prayer. The most perfect mental prayer is to unite your mental prayer to the public prayer, the mind of the mental prayer of Christ, part of Christ, to offer some stuff in Holy Mass. So again, I made the decision when I was recently converted there in high school, I was going to go before high school, earliest Mass, changed my life, solidified my vocation because then I was up early, I was praying the rosary on the way. I started running into good people who gave me great works of the saints to read and there was born my vocation and the rest is history, but it came when I decided I would go to daily Mass and that kept me on that straight and narrow. Well, Father, I appreciate it. Yeah, we can go on forever on this. We'll maybe do a sequel. Let's do it again. Part two. Yes, sir. Can we get a final blessing before you go? Absolutely. Amen. Please pray for me and my Apostle here too. Yes, we'll have that linked underneath. What's that? We'll have that linked underneath so donate to the followers, parents underneath the books, et cetera will be in the show notes underneath. Great. Thank you so much. Thank you for watching. Thank you.