Page:Complete ascetical works of St Alphonsus v6.djvu/24

22 the ancient sacrifices, nor by all the works of men, he offered himself to atone for all the sins of men, and hence he said to God, ''Sacrifices, and oblations, and holocausts for sin, Thou wouldst not. … Then said I, Behold, I come to do Thy will, O God. Then the Apostle adds immediately, In which will we are sanctified by the oblation of the body of Jesus Christ once.'' This last text is remarkable. Sin had rendered all men unworthy of being offered to God and of being accepted by him, and, therefore, it was necessary that Jesus Christ should offer himself for us in order to sanctify us by his grace, and to make us worthy of being accepted by God. And this offering which our Lord then made of himself did not limit itself to that moment, but it only then began; it always has continued since, and it will continue forever. It is true it will cease on earth at the time of Antichrist: the Sacrifice of the Mass is to be suspended for twelve hundred and ninety days; that is, for three years six months and a half, according to the prophecy of Daniel: And from the time when the continual sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination unto desolation shall be set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred ninety days. Yet the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ will never cease, since the Son of God will always continue to offer himself to his Father by an eternal sacrifice, for he himself is the priest and the victim, but an eternal victim and an eternal priest, not according to the order of Aaron, of which the priesthood and the sacrifice were temporary, imperfect, and inadequate to appease the anger of God against rebellious man, but according to the order of Melchisedech, as David predicted: Thou art a priest