d or be a
sacrifice because of the sacrament, but only because of the food
which is gathered and the prayer with which God is thanked and
with which it is blessed.

[Sidenote: The Offering at the Mass]

23. Now the custom of gathering food and money at the mass has
fallen into disuse, and not more than a trace of it remains in
the offering of the _pfennig_ on the high festivals, and
especially on Easter Day, when they still bring cakes, meat,
eggs, etc., to church to be blessed. Now in place of such
offerings and collections, endowed churches, monastic houses and
hospitals have been erected, and should be maintained for the
sole purpose that the needy in every city may be given all they
need, that there be no beggar or needy one among the Christians,
but that each and all may have from the mass enough for body and
soul.

But all this is reversed. Just as the mass is not rightly
explained to men, but is understood as a sacrifice, not as a
testament, so, on the other hand, that which is and ought to be
the offering, namely, the possessions of the churches and
monastic houses, is no longer offered and is not given, with the
thanksgiving and blessing of God, to the needy to whom it ought
to be given. Therefore God is provoked to anger, and now permits
the possessions of the churches and monastic houses to become the
occasion of war, of worldly pomp, and of such abuse that no other
blessing is so shamefully and blasphemously managed and wasted.
And since it does not serve the poor, for whom it was appointed,
it is indeed meet and right that it should remain unworthy to
serve for anything but sin and shame.

[Sidenote: The Mass Not a Sacrifice]

24. Now if you ask what is left in the mass to give it the name
of a sacrifice, since so much is said in the Office about the
sacrifice, I answer: Nothing is left. For, to be brief and to the
point, we must let the mass be a sacrament and testament, and
this is not and cannot be a sacrifice any more than the other
sacraments--baptism, confirmation, penance, extreme unction,
etc.--are sacrifices.[17] Otherwise we should lose the Gospel,
Christ, the comfort of the sacrament and every grace of God.
Therefore we must separate the mass clearly and distinctly from
the prayers and ceremonies which have been added by the holy
fathers, and keep the two as far apart as heaven and earth, that
the mass may remain nothing else than the testament and sacrament
comprehended in the words of