Well, we've reached the final conference of our retreat and the subject entering into Christ's

passion, the mass as a sacrifice. So the Eucharist is a sacrifice. And this brings with it an

implication not only for what we understand is happening at the mass,

but also what we are doing when we go to Mass.

And here, Aquinas has some very rich theological resources that overflow, as it were, into a spirituality of the Eucharist.

So we've talked about the Eucharist as what it is in itself and what its fruits are, for example, in the reception of the Eucharist.

And now we're talking really about how the Eucharist is celebrated or something pertaining

to the mass as the representation of the sacrifice of Christ or how to understand that.

And how to understand what we are doing when we go to Mass

and unite ourselves to the sacrifice of Christ,

unite ourselves to the action of the priest at the altar in offering the sacrifice.

So I propose to ascend to the summit of this theme progressively,

beginning by talking about sacrifice itself as an act of the

virtue of religion, and the true interior act that gives the real value to sacrifice in the

eyes of God.

So the first three texts on your handout, if you have the handout handy for conference number

seven, they deal with that issue.

They're from the Secunda Secundi of Aquinas of Suma Theologiae in its treatment on the virtues of religion and

the acts of the virtues of religion.

The second set of texts and the second major part of this conference, retreat conference,

is they are taken from

question 22 of the terti of the suma, which comes from the section of the suma dealing with

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