material altar as symbolically representing Christ. This tradition was to continue very strongly throughout the middle ages, even to the time of St. Thomas himself. Such was John Belethus in his Ratione Divinorum Officiorum.58 "The body of Christ, the true altar, we believe to have been covered with His own water and blood on the cross." Hugo of St. Victor says the same thing.59 "The altar is Christ on which we offer not only the sacrifice of our good works, but also our prayers." And again: "The altar signifies Christ without whom there can be offered no gift to the Father that is pleasing to Him." A contemporary of St. Thomas, Durandus of Mende, tells us "The stone (altar) represents either Christ Himself (according to the teaching of the Apostle Jesus Christ Himself is the chief cornerstone') or His humanity."60 St. Thomas Aquinas himself was very familiar with this tradition when he says in his Summa Theologica: "The altar signifies Christ. The material altars are called altars by analogy with the unique altar of Christ."61 This tradition has come down to us in all of the sacramentaries and pontificals which we possess today. One of the clearest evidences of this tradition is a rubric in many pontificals which required that when an altar was consecrated, three consecrated hosts were sealed in it along with grains of incense as a sign of the union of altar and Christ's perpetual worship.62 This was the common practice in the West up until the thirteenth century inclusive of Rome. As late as the fifteenth century this rubric appears in the Vatican Pontifical: "Deficientibus reliquiis ponat Corpus Domini."63 We have kept much of this symbolism in our liturgical books of today. In the pontifical at the ordination of Sub-Deacons we read: "The altar of Holy Church is Christ Himself, in the words of St. John, who in his apocalypse testifies that he saw the golden altar, standing before the throne, in whom and through whom the oblations of the faithful were offered to God the Father." 58 C. 104 (MPL, CCII, 109). 59 MPL, CLXXVII, 902. 60 Rationale, I, c. 7, n. 27. 61 Summa Theologica, III, q. 33, art. 3, ad 5. 62 Cf. Pontificals of Noyon and York. 63 Lat., 4744. Finally, in the Roman Breviary itself on the feast of the dedication of the Basilica of the Holy Saviour we read: "Even though from apostolic times, places have been consecrated to God where the Christian people were accustomed to receiving the Eucharist: still, it was not for that reason that they were consecrated with solemn rite, neither was there, for that reason, an altar erected there in title-which altar, covered with chrism, expressed the figure of our Lord Jesus Christ who is our altar, Victim and Priest."64 This tradition explains so well the many reverences and venerations paid to the altar. It is certainly not due to the relics of the martyrs contained in it, since the altar existed for hundreds of years before their obligatory introduction either into or under the altar. The kiss, for example, is symbolic for Christ whom the altar represents;65 the stripping of the altar on Good Friday while the Priest recites Psalm 21-the very prayer of Christ on the cross-is symbolic of Christ's passion; the wiping of the altar at its consecration, the five crosses as signs of Christ's wounds, the consecration with chrism, whose name in Greek (Xristos) was always associated with Christ by the early Christians, and finally the many prayers of consecration of an altar recited by the consecrating Bishop, are only further proof that the altar is the figure and symbol of Christ Himself. CONCLUSION Our historical study has been a short one, but sufficiently long enough to show us the basic meaning of the Christian altar which is the image of Christ. This theology of the altar had its beginning as far back as the Old Testament with its imperfect and even materialistic ritual and worship. The New Testament showed us the only true worship and sacrifice which was performed once and for all by the person of the Word Incarnate. His humanity substantially united to His divinity is the instru 64 Fourth lesson for the feast. 65 The rubric which requires that the Priest kiss the altar while praying "quorum reliquiae hic sunt" dates only from the eleventh century. In former pontificals and rubrics, the whole prayer was recited before ascending the altar, then the kiss was given to the altar. Also see kisses of altar without any prayer on Candlemas, Ash Wednesday, and Palm Sunday. mental cause of salvation in the words of St. Paul in his epistle to the Eph. 2:14-18: For He is our peace-He who from two peoples has made but one, destroying the barrier which separated them, suppressing in His flesh hate, making void the law of commandments contained in decrees in order to create in His person the two in one new man; and reconciling both to God in one body by the cross, He killed hate. And, coming, He preached peace to you who were afar off, and peace to them who were nigh. For by Him we both have access to the Father in one Spirit. The Jewish dispensation is over, fulfilled by the perfect sacrifice of Christ who now united all to Himself. Christians are, therefore, the new Israel and Christ their new Moses and perfect Mediator. This tradition of the one Priest, the one Victim, and altar was kept by the early Christians in their new Eucharistic worship which was Christ. Symbolically, therefore, it was applied, from the very first, to the place of the sacrifice of the new Israel the altar. St. John Vianney Seminary PETER RIGA THE SERVANT OF GOD APOSTLE OF THE IMMIGRANTS Few words spoken by any clergyman within the last seventyfive years in America have more meaning and are filled with more prophetical foresight than those of the Servant of God John Baptist Scalabrini, Bishop of Piacenza, Italy, during an address to New York's popular Catholic Club on Oct. 15, 1901: America, and I say this with heartfelt emotion, is the land bequeathed to the world by our Lord Jesus Christ, the promised land of the Catholic Church. Here, some day, if quiescence and self-satisfaction and ignorance do not lead people astray from the divine plan, all of the national groups within this fortunate land will bring forth numerous and rich, contented, moral and religious generations which, although clinging still to their own national characteristics, will be closely knit into an integral whole. At the same time that Pope Leo XIII in his Rerum novarum called the loss of the proletariat to the Church the worst scandal in the nineteenth century, Bishop Scalabrini was decrying the fact of the loss of the emigrant to the Church. In 1905, Bishop Scalabrini presented to Pope St. Pius X a plan for a systematic codification of all the laws and regulations of the Church regarding migration. These recommendations were later embodied by Pope Pius XII in his classic work on migration, the Apostolic Constitution Exsul familia (1952). In order to better understand the words of Bishop Scalabrini, to catch his spirit as a pioneer in the sociology of migration, it is necessary to go back to the origins of the religious congregation he founded whose primary purpose is specialization in the field of migration in general and assistance to the Italian emigrants in particular. The Servant of God John Baptist Scalabrini (1839-1905) was born in the Lombardy region of Italy. As seminary professor, pastor and then bishop of Piacenza, Italy, for more than twenty-five years, he was the Apostle in that tidal wave of emigration from Italy which took place at the turn of this century and which, to some extent in the United States, and more extensively in Canada, Australia and South America continues to this day. He was a man whose courage, foresight and determination, fired by heroic charity and apostolic zeal, were and still are shining beacons to all those who work among and for migrants. Bishop Scalabrini's work in behalf of the emigrants began by sounding the alarm, arousing the Italian government to action, and shocking the people into the realization that thousands were annually leaving Italy for foreign shores, unaided either socially, economically, or spiritually. Principally interested in the spiritual welfare of the emigrants Scalabrini founded with the approval and wholehearted encouragement of Pope Leo XIII a religious congregation of priests and brothers. On Nov. 28, 1887, in the Basilica of St. Antoninus Martyr, Piacenza, Bishop Scalabrini received the vows of the two missionaries who formed the nucleus of a congregation which has since mushroomed into a world-wide organization working in fifteen countries on four continents from Brazil to Australia. The purpose of the Scalabrini Fathers, their very raison d'être, is in Scalabrini's own words: "to bring to the migrant the comfort of the faith and the smile of the homeland." These missionaries aim at the migrant's smooth integration into the cultural pattern of his newly elected country. They make use of all established and available means: both national and territorial parishes, missions, retreats, radio, television, newspapers, etc. The present number of priests in this specialized work of the Scalabrini Fathers is 530. The Society also has more than 1,000 seminarians now training in the United States, Italy and Brazil. The first band of Scalabrinian missionaries received the missionary cross from Bishop Scalabrini himself during a departure ceremony on July 12, 1888, and left for America. This group consisted of seven priests and three lay brothers. Two priests and one brother came to New York where they established St. Joachim's Mission Church on Roosevelt Street, then the heart of "Little Italy." The church, named after Pope Leo XIII whose baptismal name was Joachim, was the first national parish canonically erected for assistance to the Italian migrants in the United States. Perhaps the most significant and fruitful relationship in the life. of Bishop Scalabrini was his friendship with St. Frances Xavier |