31 March 2012: On the Island of Limasawa

On this day in 1521, the first Christian Mass was celebrated in the Philippines. Humabon, Chief of Cebu and many of his subjects were converted. Ferdinand Magellan gifted Humabon’s wife with an image of the Infant Jesus which in 1565 was recovered by one of Miguel Lopez de Legazpi’s men.
This providential find made Legazpi to name Cebu in honor of the “Santissimo Nombre de Jesus” (Most Holy Name of Jesus); still the official name of the Archdiocese of Cebu.
Ref: In “2000 Years of Vatican Treasures”, 1994, p235

The Holy Mass, a renewal of Calvary
The Holy Mass and the Sacrifice of the Cross are one and the same sacrifice, although separated in time. Re-enacted is the total loving submission of Our Lord to his Father’s will.
This unbloody offering is identical to the sorrowful and bloody circumstances on Calvary: Christ’s oblation. The Priest and Victim are one.
The external manifestation of the Passion and Death of Jesus proceeds in the Mass, sacramentally, by means of the transubstantiation of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ.
In the Mass, the priest serves as the instrument of Christ, the Eternal and High priest. Christ offers himself in every Mass.
“... even though it is celebrated privately by a priest, every Mass is not a private action, but the action of Christ and of the Church. In the sacrifice that she offers, the Church learns to offer herself as a universal sacrifice, and applies the unique and infinite redeeming virtue of the sacrifice of the Cross for the salvation of the whole world.” (cf Paul VI, Encyclical, “Mysterium Fidei”, 4, 3 September 1965)
How do we attend and take part in the Mass? “Are you at Mass with the same dispositions that Our Lady had on Calvary? Do we realize that here it is the presence of the one and the same God and the consummation of the same sacrifice?” (St Jean Vianney [The ‘Curé d’Ars’], “Sermon on Sin”) A total identification with God’s will, perfect love, an offering of oneself, a desire to co-redeem.
Ref: Cf F Fernandez, “In Conversation with God”, 2:185-6

Holy Mass
528 -- “A very important characteristic of the apostolic man is his love for the Mass.”
529 -- “‘The Mass is long’, you say, and I reply: ‘Because your love is short.’”
530 -- “Many Christians take their time and have leisure enough in their social life (no hurry here). They are leisurely, too in their professional activities, at table and recreation (no hurry here, either). But isn’t it strange how those same Christians find themselves in such a rush and want to hurry the priest, in their anxiety to shorten the time devoted to the most holy sacrifice of the altar?”
532 -- “How that saintly young priest, who was found worthy of martyrdom, wept at the foot of the altar as he thought of a soul who had come to receive Christ in the state of mortal sin!
Is that how you offer him reparation?”
537 -- “When you approach the tabernacle remember that he has been waiting for you for twenty centuries.”
Ref: St Josemaria Escrivá, “The Way”

Fruitfulness
934 -- Practise and ‘live’ the Holy Mass!
You may be helped by a consideration which that priest, in love, used to repeat to himself: “Is it possible, my God, to take part in the Holy Mass and not be a saint?”
And he would continue, “Each day, in fulfilment of an old promise, I will remain hidden in the Wound of Our Lord’s Side!”
Shouldn’t you do the same?
935 -- You can do so much good, and yet also so much harm!
You will do good if you are humble and you give yourself cheerfully, with a spirit of sacrifice: good for yourself and for your fellow men, and for that good Mother of yours, the Church.
964 -- Pray for the priests of today, and for those who are to come, that they may really love their fellow men, every day more and without distinction, and that they may know also how to make themselves loved by them.
965 -- I have been thinking of all the priests throughout the world. Help me to pray for the fruitfulness of their apostolates.
“My brother in the priesthood, please speak always about God and when, you really belong to him, your conversations will never be monotonous.”
Ref: Cf St Josemaria Escrivá, “The Forge”

Jesus mocked by the soldiers and servants of Caiphas
Caiphas, triumphant at having condemned Jesus, retired for the day. He left his captive to the insolence of his servants and soldiers who immediately dragged him into an underground prison for criminals.
The hatred they knew their masters had for Jesus fired them up. They tried to outdo one another in ridicule, scorn, blasphemy, curses on him.
This horror lasted all night. Try to imagine our Lord’s suffering and humiliation; and our difficulties will be nothing. The days we spent among vulgar, ungrateful, and ill-tempered people will be less unbearable.
“Then did they spit on his face.” (Mt 27:30) If this were not in the Gospel, we could not believe that men could be so brutal and cruel. Or that God made man could have allowed and borne such an insult. But our Lord allowed it repeatedly, silently, as Isaiah had prophesied: ‘I have not turned away my face from them that spat upon me.’
And yet men often complain and long to take revenge when injured even if they deserve it.
We ought to fall at the feet of Jesus and cry out with St Bernard, ‘What, shall my Master and King be insulted and spat upon by his vilest subjects, and shall I be honored, who have deserved for my sins to be cast with the refuse of the human race to the bottom of hell? No, never! Let me rather be forgotten and despised, that I may obtain mercy in eternity.’
In grief and silence we will contemplate the King of Glory seated on a block of wood -- blindfolded, hands bound, surrounded by coarse, half-intoxicated men, who alternately strike him on the face and cry out, “Prophesy, who is it that struck thee?” (Mk 14:65; Mt 26:58)
When we meditate on the three degrees of humility [refer to 5 September], we resolve that we be despised and thought nothing of by the world with our Master, rather than be esteemed and highly exalted before men.
Ref: Cf “Practical Meditations” by a Father of the Society of Jesus, 1964, pp110-111

• Our Lady of the Holy Cross, at Jerusalem, where is kept a part of Our Lady’s veil, given by St Helena. — Onuohrius, lib. vii.. Eccl. (“Catholic Gems or Treasures of the Church” Historical Calendar; www.bethlehemobserver.com)
• Our Lady of the Holy Cross (Jerusalem). (maryfest.htm / www.starharbor.com/santiago/m_feasts.html); (www/divinewill.org/feastsofourlady.html); (www.iskandar.com/ourlady/ourladyfeasts.html); (www.miraclehunter.com/marian_apparitions/calendar/index.html)
• Our Lady of the Holy Cross. Namesake of a college in New Orleans [Louisiana, USA]. (www.marylinks.org/Mary-Calendar.htm)
• Our Lady of the Militia (Sicily, 1091). (http://mariedenazareth.com)