Notes on Daily Mass by St. Leonard of Port Maurice

Many years I was not able to attend daily Mass because of homeschooling, pregnancies, toddlers, sicknesses, etc.  So this post is not to cause us to feel guilty and push us to neglect our home duties….

At the same time, it is a good reminder that, if we can,  take in an extra Mass during the week. And if we are in a time of life we can get to daily Mass, it will be the most efficacious thing you will do in your day!

It is also a call to priests to fulfill their serious obligation of offering daily Holy Mass….

Angelo is second altar server from the right.

from The Hidden Treasure by St. Leonard of Port Maurice, 1676

VARIOUS EXAMPLES TO INDUCE THE FAITHFUL OF EVERY CONDITION EACH MORNING TO HEAR HOLY MASS

Many are the excuses which those who attend holy Mass grudgingly and with reluctance find for their tepidity. You may observe them all immersed in business, all anxious and intent (to use a common and most accurate expression) on promoting their own interests.

For these, every fatigue is a trifle; nor is there any inconvenience which they will allow to stand in their way; while, for attending holy Mass, which is the great affair of all, you will perceive them languid, cold, with a hundred frivolous pretexts at hand about important occupations, weak health, family troubles, want of time, multiplicity of business, and so on.

The Mass – Active and Fruitful Participation

From Jesus, Our Eucharistic Love

The infinite greatness of the Holy Mass should enable us to understand the need of attentively and devoutly taking part in this Sacrifice of Jesus. Adoration, love and sorrow ought to have undisputed predominance among our sentiments.

In a very moving reflection, Ven. Pope Pius XII described the state of mind with which one should take part in the Holy Mass: it should be “the state of mind that the Divine Redeemer had when He sacrificed Himself—the same humble spirit of submission—that is, of adoration, love, praise and thanksgiving to the great majesty of God, so that we reproduce in ourselves the condition of victimhood, the self-denial that follows the Gospel’s teaching, by which of our own accord we make a willing sacrifice of penance, sorrow and expiation for our sins.”