In Mediator Dei, Pope Pius XII encourages an age-old tradition: the imitation of Christ:
102. All the elements of the liturgy, then, would have us reproduce in our hearts the likeness of the divine Redeemer through the mystery of the cross, according to the words of the Apostle of the Gentiles, “With Christ I am nailed to the cross. I live, now not I, but Christ liveth in me.”[Gal. 2:19-20] Thus we become a victim, as it were, along with Christ to increase the glory of the eternal Father.
The saints have urged this, two doctors are cited: Augustine and Robert Bellarmine:
103. Let this, then, be the intention and aspiration of the faithful, when they offer up the divine Victim in the Mass. For if, as St. Augustine writes, our mystery is enacted on the Lord’s table, that is Christ our Lord Himself,[Cf. Serm. 272] who is the Head and symbol of that union through which we are the body of Christ[Cf. 1 Cor. 12:27] and members of His Body;[Cf. Eph. 5:30] if St. Robert Bellarmine teaches, according to the mind of the Doctor of Hippo, that in the sacrifice of the altar there is signified the general sacrifice by which the whole Mystical Body of Christ, that is, all the city of redeemed, is offered up to God through Christ, the High Priest:[Cf. Saint Robert Bellarmine, De Missa, 2, c. 8] nothing can be conceived more just or fitting than that all of us in union with our Head, who suffered for our sake, should also sacrifice ourselves to the eternal Father. For in the sacrament of the altar, as the same St. Augustine has it, the Church is made to see that in what she offers she herself is offered.[Cf. De Civitate Dei, Book 10, c. 6]
Any comments? Is it just about Good Friday, or do we imitate by the daily burdens of sacrifices, the ones that maintain us in life, and in a holy life?
Catholic Sensibility 