The prayer of Christ

"The mystery of the most Holy Eucharist which Christ, the High Priest instituted, and which He commands to be continually renewed in the Church by His ministers, is the culmination and center, as it were, of the Christian religion." (Mediator Dei, Pius XII)

The most sublime worship of God on the Earth is the Catholic liturgy.

The liturgy is the central act of the Church of Christ, and hence is the central act of every Catholic, especially that of priests and seminarians. The liturgy is the highest form of worship of God. Liturgy refers first of all to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and secondarily to the other Sacraments, the Divine Office, the Processions, and the various other rites and official prayers of the Church.

Liturgy is the most perfect form of worship of God and is the way God Himself desires to be worshipped. It is the way that Jesus Christ Himself taught His Apostles to worship Him (especially in the Holy Mass), that which the Holy Ghost has perfected through the centuries by the saints and doctors of the Church, and that which was solemnly canonized for all time by numerous Vicars of Christ.

The liturgy has its roots in apostolic Tradition, is inspired by the Holy Ghost, and is the soul and life of the Church. Only the Catholic Church possesses this most unique treasure which alone is able to perfectly please God and embody His most sacred Mysteries.

The liturgy bestows blessings and graces not only upon those who pray the liturgy, but upon the entire Church. It is the primary and ordinary way that God has established to pour out His greatest graces to mankind. The Church’s prayer of the liturgy is, in fact, Christ glorifying His Heavenly Father through the members of His Mystical Body (the Church), obtaining pardon for sins, and filling its members with grace and with the love of the Holy Ghost.

The liturgy presents the Catholic Faith to its members in a complete, precise, and beautiful form that communicates with the soul. Pope Sixtus V said, “The ecclesiastical liturgy is the most beautiful confession of the true Faith.”

Liturgy at the Seminary

At St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary, seminarians learn to live, to love, and to administer the sacred liturgy in all of its rites, diversity, and beauty. Every day, seminarians assist in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, pray many parts of the Divine Office in common, and participate in many other rites and prayers of the Church, including the Holy Rosary, Benediction, and Processions. The liturgy is the focus and center of every seminarians’ life and studies.

Without priests, there is no liturgy, and without seminaries there are no priests. Therefore, the Seminary is the source and guarantee of its continuation. In few other seminaries in the world is the sacred liturgy preserved so perfectly and with such integrity and love as it is in the seminaries of the Society of St. Pius X. In an era where the sacred liturgy has never been so abused and neglected, the work of this seminary and others like it is not only a breath of fresh air and a most assured preservation of these traditional rites, but is essential to the very survival of the Roman Catholic Church itself.

Increasing numbers of people are recognizing that the traditional rites of the Mass and of the other liturgical ceremonies best embody and communicate the sacred Mysteries and Faith of Our Lord Jesus Christ in all of its integrity, clarity, and beauty. This is one of the reasons why there is such a dramatic increase in priestly and religious vocations which are based on using the traditional and perrenial rites of Holy Mother Church.

St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary is a leading institution in the United States for preserving the traditional rites of the sacraments and guaranteeing that the Church in America will have priests who will readily provide these traditional rites. We believe that this work of preserving and providing the traditional liturgy will continue to bear those fruits of priestly and religious vocations, of saintly men and women, and of the glorification of God which it has borne for over twenty centuries.