...in the Mass there is supplication until the Body and Blood of Christ, since in them there is the commemoration of holy things from which we gain confidence to ask for benefits. In the mystery of the consecration there is prayer since it is meditation on those things that Christ did. Up to communion there is intercession for the living and the dead and for oneself. At the end there is thanksgiving.
[Thomas Aquinas, Commentaries on St. Paul's Epistles to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon, Baer, tr., St. Augustine's Press (South Bend, IN: 2007) p. 23. This is from the commentary on I Timothy.]
