The Mass is the same sacrifice as the sacrifice of the cross, it perpetuates and extends unto the end of time the fruits of the sacrifice of Christ on Calvary, and applies them to each one of us individually and in person. And, because the Mystical Body makes us but one with Christ, He the head and we the members, at each Mass He gathers our prayers and petitions unto Himself and offers them to His heavenly Father with the sacrifice of His body and blood. The prayer of Christ is always heard, "who in the days of his flesh, with a strong cry and tears, offering up prayers and supplications to him that was able to save him from death, was heard for his reverence". (Hebr. 5:7.)

Together with the prayer of His divine Son, God hears our prayers also, for in the Mass our prayers ascend to God not merely as our own but in the name and in the person of Christ. What worth, what value, what dignity is hereby added to human prayer by the fact that it is, as it were, made one with the prayer of Christ Himself! It is no wonder that "the continual prayer of a just man availeth much" (James 5:16), and "the prayer of him that humbles himself shall pierce the clouds". (Ecclus. 35:21.)

Love your Mass; prize it and cherish it. It is the grandest prayer that can be offered to God by man; no private prayers, no novena, no other form of devotion can approach it in its beauty, grandeur, and worth. You have difficulties, you have needs; you pray for these and you ask others to pray for them. That is commendable indeed; continue to do so. But how much greater assurance would you not have of an answer to your prayer if you took your innumerable needs and wants and difficulties to holy Mass, laid them on the altar side by side with the Immaculate Lamb of God, and offered them together with the sacrifice and prayer of Christ to the Eternal Father!

Bring to the Mass all your intentions. Ask at Mass for the graces and the blessings that you need. Humbly beg of God at Mass favours spiritual and temporal, personal and general. Ask at Mass the blessing and protection of God for yourself, for your family, for those near and dear to you, for the state, for the nation, for the Church. Bring your personal difficulties to Mass and ask God's benediction upon them. Bring your business problems to Mass and beg of God a solution for them. Bring your financial difficulties, and request from God an answer to the problems; bring your social difficulties and ask God's light and guidance. No request is too small, no difficulty too insignificant, nor is any situation too weighty and appalling to bring to the Mass. It is in the Mass that by Christ and through Christ we can come "with confidence to the throne of grace: that we may obtain mercy and find grace in seasonable aid". (Hebr. 4:16.)