Perfect Offering

Then the sacrifice of Judah and Jerusalem will please the Lord.
–Malachi 3:4

Today is a great day to say Holy Mass. One of the prayers the priest prays today includes:

“You have given us this memorial [the Mass] as the perfect form of worship.”

He gave us the Mass on Holy Thursday, of course–so why do we say this prayer right before Christmas?

It is true that the Mass was instituted in the springtime of our Lord’s 33rd year on earth.

But the preparations for the Holy Sacrifice began long before that…

It started in the Garden of Eden, when God made us with a desire for Himself. He made us want to offer something to please Him. He made us religious.

He called Abraham to offer a sacrifice. He gave the Israelites the Passover and all the sacrifices of the Temple.

The holy Victim of the Mass is the Incarnate Word of God. The Word became incarnate on Annunciation Day, when the Blessed Virgin said yes to the Archangel. There would be no Mass without that day.

And Christmas is a special day for priests to reflect on our role in the Mass. We priests get to cradle Christ in our hands at the altar, like the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph did on Christmas.

So Christmas is the perfect day for priests to give thanks to God for the Holy Mass…

Jeremy Lin

…Unusual Wednesday noon game today for the Hoyas.

Harvard is by no means an easy opponent.

They have a Chinese-American phenom. They beat Boston College and almost beat Connecticut.

Hoyas need to bounce back from Saturday’s bone-cruncher with a solid win. Root hard, people! Chvotkin has the call on AM 980…

…I was thinking about ‘favorite Bible verses.’ Here is an encore presentation of one of the funniest comedy routines ever:

Imagine My Amazement

I have no choice but to admit that in the past two days, I have witnessed not one, but two miracles of liberal journalism.

I.
Don’t know if you heard how a professor at Harvard was arrested in his own house. He claims to be the victim of police racism.

The first thing that occurred to me when I read the conflicting accounts of what happened: Wasn’t the police officer probably trying to secure the house after having received a burglary report? Why would Dr. Gates refuse to comply with the officer’s request that he step outside? Isn’t it reasonable to think that the officer asked Dr. Gates to step outside for his own safety, in the event that there was an intruder in the house?

Imagine my amazement when I read something in the Washington Post to the effect that the officer may in fact NOT be a racist goon, and Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., was probably acting like a defensive jerk.

II.
Don’t know if you have heard that there will soon be a new justice on the Supreme Court.

Imagine my amazement when I read something in the Washington Post to the effect that Sonia Sotomayor is a woefully uninspiring Supreme-Court nominee.

My brother used to write for the Washington Post. Of course I would always be glad to buy my brother a beer. But other than that, I have never wanted to buy beers for Washington Post writers.

But the Omnipresent Specter is full of surprises.