What is the Mass? Is it an elaborate form of a Protestant Communion Service, or is it as described in the 39 Articles of the Church of England—

“Wherefore the sacrifices of Masses, in the which it was commonly said, that the Priest did offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to have remission of pain or guilt, were blasphemous fables, and dangerous deceits ” (Article XXXI)?

Par 1364 says, “ When the Church celebrates the Eucharist she commemorates Christ’s Passover and it is made present: … ‘As often as the sacrifice of the Cross by which “Christ our Pasch has been sacrificed” is celebrated on the altar, the work of our redemption is carried out’ ”

Par 1366, “ The Eucharist is thus a sacrifice because it re-presents (makes present) the sacrifice of the cross”.

 To say that the Mass (missa = dismissed, it is finished) is the same sacrifice as that of the Cross, only in a non-bloody manner, and that it carries on the work of redemption, obtaining blessings both temporal and spiritual for the believer in this life, and freedom from purgatory in the next, shows that Rome has not changed this blasphemous doctrine.

The Council of Trent, Twenty-second Session, defined it in this way:—

“…in the divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the mass is contained and immolated (i.e. killed as a sacrifice) in a bloodless manner the same Christ who once offered himself in a bloody manner…. For, appeased by this sacrifice, the Lord grants the grace and the gift of penitence and pardons even the gravest crimes and sins.”

Canon 1 says, “If anyone says that in the mass a true and real sacrifice is not offered to God … let him be anathema”.

Canon 3 says, “If anyone says that the sacrifice of the mass is one only of praise and thanksgiving; or that it is a mere commemoration of the sacrifice consummated on the cross but not a propitiatory (to obtain forgiveness) one … let him be anathema”.

 Here we see that the Church of Rome claims that her priests offer up to God in an unbloody manner the Lord Jesus Christ (i.e. the communion bread which they claim to have changed into the body, the flesh of Jesus) as a sacrifice to obtain forgiveness of sins.

The Scripture, however, declared that: —

Heb 10:10, “By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all”.

Heb 10:12 , “But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God”.

Is it not strange that there is no mention in the New Testament of “The Mass” or any priesthood, apart from the priesthood of Jesus, and the “priesthood of all believers”?

The structure of the Mass depends on the doctrine of transubstantiation. As transubstantiation is false the Mass is further proved blasphemous.

Dermot nash