CAPG's Blog 

 Persons out of the Church have no other idea of worship than united prayer. They are utterly ignorant of the doctrine of Sacrifice. With an appalling blindness they are blind to the true worship of God. The highest and holiest act of religion is unknown to them; is as if God had never ordained it. If they speak of Mass, they only speak of it to blaspheme. We can therefore easily see how wisely the Church acts in this matter when she ordains Mass must be said in Latin. And if in some parts of the East other languages are allowed, yet the are ancient languages, long forgotten, which the people generally do not understand. This is a great safeguard of the true doctrine. And thus everyone, unfettered by the letter of any book, can assist at the great Sacrifice which the High Priest after the order of Mechisedech offers on the Altar by the hands of His Ministers; and can bring, as and when he pleases, all his joys and griefs and perplexities and fears and thanksgivings to God, and lay them at His Feet. His prayers are not cramped or hindered by formal words unsuitable to him at the time, but in the liberty of the Spirit, and in the freedom wherewith Christ hath made him free, he can make known with confidence all his wants to God. It is different of course with the Priest who says Mass. He must use the prescribed form of words, for he offers the Sacrifice not in his own name, but in the name and as it were in the person of our Lord. But when he hears Mass he can pray with the same liberty as others. It is of this worship our Lord spoke when He said, “the true adorers shall adore the Father in spirit and in truth.” “God is a Spirit; and they that adore Him must adore Him in spirit and in truth.”

Mass therefore being the very holiest and highest act of worship, we ought to assist at it with intense reverence and devotion. We ought to be very careful never to hear Mass carelessly, but try to gain from it all the fruit that we can, and give to God by it all the glory that we can.

Source: Septem or Seven Ways of Hearing Mass by Fr. Henry Augustus Rawes, O.S.C.