The Sacrificial Emphasis in Eucharistic Prayer 2

One of the Integrist complaints concerning the Revised Roman Rite of Pope Paul VI (ie., the Pauline Rite) is that it has decreased the number of overt references within the text of the Mass to the nature of the Mass as a sacrifice specifically in Eucharistic Prayer 2 (EP2). Since EP2 is the shortest of the Eucharistic Prayers, it is the one most often used even on Sundays. Many radical Integrists are even questioning the validity of the Mass when EP2 is used. They claim that there is no overt sacrificial terminology in EP2 and that it does not support the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist. They have even gone so far as to call it a “protestant” corruption of the Mass.

This brief essay hopes to respond to these charges and briefly show that EP2 is sufficiently Catholic in content to reflect the Church’s immemorial understanding of the Eucharist as a sacrifice and as the transubstantiated Body and Blood of Christ.

1) When Jesus instituted the Eucharist, he did so in the context of a Jewish Passover meal or Seder. The Seder in Our Lord’s time was a sacrificial meal since in that meal the participants consumed a lamb that was a sacrificial victim the blood of which was offered to God in the Temple in Jerusalem. Furthermore, many experts consider the Seder to be an example of a Todah sacrifice, which in Old Testament times was often made to God in thanks for God’s providence or in anticipation of deliverance from some threat. The Todah sacrifice was the only one in which the lay people who commissioned the sacrifice were permitted – in fact required – to partake of the flesh of the sacrificial victim. The word ‘todah’ in Hebrew means ‘thanksgiving.’ The Greek equivalent is ‘eucharistia.’ By its very nature therefore the Last Supper and the Mass, which is derived from it, represents a sacrificial meal, not merely a sacrifice. Overemphasis on the sacrificial aspect to the neglect of the meal aspect therefore detracts from what Our Lord was actually doing. While the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist as Jesus instituted it is clear for any unbiased person to see, he did not use any of the overtly sacrificial terminology that the Integrists think is lacking in EP2. In fact there is more sacrificial language in the Mass using EP2 than in what is preserved of Jesus’ words at the Last Supper or in the traditional Jewish Seder liturgy.

2) Every Christian sacrament is composed of matter and form. The matter of the Eucharist in the Latin rite is grape wine and unleavened wheat bread. The form in the Latin Rite consists solely in the words of institution. There are several different compositions for the words of institution in the Latin Rite, but the least common denominators among them are the words “This is my Body” and “This is the cup of my Blood.” These words recited by a priest over the appropriate matter with the intention of confecting the sacrament are sufficient in themselves to validly confect the Holy Eucharist. The overtly sacramental terminology that the Integrists are concerned about is not required to validly confect the Mass. The use of such terminology is only licit in the Mass when it appears in an approved liturgical usage. As such, the presence or absence of such terminology does not in and of itself affect either the liciety or validity of a Mass.

3) Regardless of which Eucharistic Prayer is used, every Mass in the Pauline Rite includes the following prayers which contain explicit references to offering sacrifice:

{Presentation of the Gifts / Preparation of the Altar:} Priest: Blessed are you, Lord, God of all creation. Through your goodness we have this bread to offer, which earth has given and human hands have made. It will become for us the bread of life. All: Blessed be God for ever.

The deacon (or the priest) pours wine and a little water into the chalice, saying quietly: By uniting this water and wine we ask to share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity.

Priest: Blessed are you, Lord, God of all creation. Through your goodness we have this wine to offer, fruit of the vine and work of human hands. It will become our spiritual drink. All: Blessed be God for ever.

The priest bows and says quietly: Lord God, we ask you to receive us and be pleased with the sacrifice we offer you with humble and contrite hearts.

{Suscipiat} Priest: Pray, my brothers and sisters, that our sacrifice may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father. All: May the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands, for the praise and glory of his name, for our good, and the good of all the Church.

4) In EP2, the ancient liturgical prayer of Epiclesis was restored. It had been part of many liturgies since the First Council of Constantinople in order to emphasize the divinity of the Holy Spirit but dropped out of western usage sometime in the first Christian Millennium. By the time of the Leonnine Sacramentary in the 8th Century the Roman liturgy clearly did not have an Epiclesis, but it has remained part of the liturgies of the East to this very day. The Epiclesis states:

Priest: Let your Holy Spirit come upon these gifts to make them holy, so that they may become for us the body and blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

This is a clear reference to the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation. There is no corresponding prayer in the old Tridentine Rite. On this point, EP2 actually has a prayer reaffiming the orthodox Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist that the Roman Canon does not have.

5) The words of institution in and of themselves are inherently sacrificial despite Protestant sophisms to the contrary. They begin by offering the Body of Christ, which was to be ‘given up’ in sacrifice. After that, the blood of Christ is offered, which was ‘shed’ by his sacrificial death for us. This shedding of blood was used to seal a new covenant with God just as the blood of the Passover Lamb initiated the Mosaic covenant in Egypt and the blood of oxen sealed that covenant on Sinai in Exodus 24:8. There are also overt references to sacrificial offering and transubstantiation in the prayers that conclude this section of the liturgy. It is these elements of EP2 that led to it being rejected by Protestant denominations as being “too Catholic” for them to use.

In EP2 these are the official the words of institution (in bold) with the prayers that immediately follow them:

Priest: Take this all of you and eat it; this is my body which will be given up for you.

Take this, all of you, and drink from it: this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant.

It will be shed for you and for all men so that sins may be forgiven. Do this in memory of me.

In memory of his death and resurrection, we offer you, Father, this life giving bread, this saving cup. We thank you for counting us worthy to stand in your presence and serve you.

May all of us who share in the body and blood of Christ be brought together in unity by the Holy Spirit.

So in conclusion, the Pauline Rite when using EP2 is overtly and unmistakably Catholic in its doctrinal presuppositions supporting the dogmas of Eucharistic Sacrifice and transubstantiation. The Integrist claims that EP2 is a ‘protestant’ corruption of the Mass are false.

Totally irrelevant Max. The Novus Ordo translation says: "for all so that sins MAY be forgiven", not "for all FOR the remission of sins". The later implies universalism, the former speaks of the efficacy (but not the sufficiency, as mentioned in the Tridentine Catechism) of the sacrament and the Cross.

Also, the quote from De Defectibus relates to a simple Priest altering the Mass at will, not the Pope decreeing revisions to it. Of course you knew that, but are just trying to score points.

The Novus Ordo translation says: "for all so that sins MAY be forgiven", not "for all FOR the remission of sins".

So in your mind the 2 bad translations cancel each other out and result in 1 good translation? It's not for me to tell you what to believe, but that doesn't work for me. Both parts are supposed to be accurate translations, but in fact neither are, they are both wrong.

Also, the quote from De Defectibus relates to a simple Priest altering the Mass at will, not the Pope decreeing revisions to it.

It doesn't actually say that, does it?

Let's continue shall we?

No lets go back. You are spewing heresy.

You: "If Christ said His blood would be shed for "all"; hell would be empty."

1 St. John 2.2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.

1 St. Timothy 2.5-6 For there is one God: and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus: Who gave himself a redemption for all, a testimony in due times.

Hebrews 2.9 But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour: that, through the grace of God he might taste death for all.

Popes Innocent X and Alexander VII: "It is Semipelagian to say that Christ died and shed his blood for all men. - Condemned Proposition"

The Roman Canon of the Tridentine Mass: "Who, the day before He suffered for our salvation and that of all men"

End of discussion. Go away and skulk somewhere else. We aren't interesting in the heresies you are peddling to the Catholic Raucous. There is nothing more to say because its just so plain and simple. Just repent or go away and stop pretending to be Catholic here. You're just plain wrong. Okay? Got it?

You are spewing Calvinism. Welcome to the Reformation, Irish. Enjoy your heresy.

Also, the quote from De Defectibus relates to a simple Priest altering the Mass at will, not the Pope decreeing revisions to it.

It doesn't actually say that, does it?

Sure it does, right at the start of the document:

1. The priest who is to celebrate Mass should take every precaution to make sure that none of the things required for celebrating the Sacrament of the Eucharist is missing.

Which the document then proceeds to copiously list.

Of course, I doubt you've ever read the whole thing through (just like CatholicGuy has pointed out how you folks have missed St. Pius V terming the Tridentine Mass a "new rite" in "Quo Primum"), whereas I was the person who initially typed up the version now circulating around on the Web (on so-called "Fr." Morrison's Traditio site, Daily Catholic, the-pope.com, etc.) way back around 1997 and posted it to Jim McNally's Sedevacantist mailing list at that time. I know this, because every version out there has the Post-Vatican II rules for the Eucharistic Fast in Paragraph 28: "28. If a priest has not been fasting for at least one hour before Communion, he may not celebrate. The drinking of water, however, does not break the fast." See I took the document straight out of a 1964 or 1967 Latin-English Missal I obtained from the ex-Most Holy Family Monastery, Berlin, NJ.

Compare to this French translation from a 1962 Missal on the web with the Pius XII fasting rules: "1. Si avant la messe le prêtre n'est pas à jeun depuis trois heures au moins pour ce qui concerne la nourriture solide et la boisson alcoolisée, et depuis une heure au moins pour la boisson non alcoolisée, il ne peut pas célébrer. Toutefois boire de l'eau ne rompt pas le jeûne."

So why not read the whole document now?

Max, I've come to expect better of you. Come on now and try a little bit harder.

The Roman Canon of the Tridentine Mass: "Who, the day before He suffered for our salvation and that of all men"

You mislead your troops. That is only the "Qui pridie" of Holy Thursday. What's your "Qui pridie" "in ordinay time"?

Until you address Christ's actual words at the Consecration of His Body and Blood, I will "end the discussion" as you requested.

I prefer to dialogue with Catholics, anyway.

May you have a blessed and holy New Year.

You mislead your troops. That is only the "Qui pridie" of Holy Thursday. What's your "Qui pridie" "in ordinay time"?

Irrelevant from a doctrinal point of view because it doesn't address the point at hand.

Until you address Christ's actual words at the Consecration of His Body and Blood, I will "end the discussion" as you requested.

No, we're long past that, since you dragged heresy into a liturgical discussion by denying the suffiency of the Cross for the redemption of all men.

Because the Epiklesis invokes the Holy Spirit to accomplish what the words of consecration set out to cause.

Your words were still with me at Mass this morning (a N.O. liturgy -- not my customary worship -- using Eucharistic Prayer #1). In adoring the Eucharistic Elements immediately after the repetition of the words of institution, celebrant and congregation alike signify the belief that Christ is really present on that altar. It seems that an epiclesis after this point would be redundant so far as "accomplishing" transubstantiation is concerned. In my unlearned layman's view, the logic of a "wishful" epiclesis in advance of the words of institution seems more persuasive than to pray for the ratification of something the Church teaches has already taken place. I believe the Greeks do not share the Roman interest in defining the precise moment at which the change occurs, or whether it can be said to happen in a moment at all. But we Latins make a point of adoring the Blessed Sacrament at the elevation, and that seems hard to get around.

Happy New Year, btw.

The Greeks, following their doctors such as St. Basil and St. John Damascene, teach the change occurs at the Epiklesis (after all, the prayer says "changing them by your Holy Spirit", not "having changed them").

I don't see any reason that in the Greek Church, this cannot be the moment of change.

Recently, the Vatican has held that the Anaphora of Addai and Mari is consecratory, although it lacks completely the words of institution. At what moment does the consecration occur there?

It seems the entire matter is somewhat conditioned by the intention of the Church in creating the rite.

thanks all for the posts on this topic.

Hermann, T'heck did you find the time to learn all of this ?:)

Any Catholic who has ever lived can be said to have assisted at the mass of all times if we remind ourselves what mass (or liturgy, or service, or eucharist ect ect) consists of in its essence- it is Jesus acting on our behalf(priest and victim) offering Himself to the Father in an act of propitiation. (not to omit mass is also a sacred banquet).

Christians in the time of Peter went to the Mass of all times.

Christians in the time of Pope St. Deusdedit went to mass of all times.

Christians in the time of Pope Lucius II went to the Mass of all time.

And Christians alive today - whether they go to the Pauline Rite or whether they go to the mass accrd to the 1962 R.M. - go to the mass of all times.

We ought be cautious about allowing ourselves to be marketed to for polemical reasons as that tends to obscure the truth. The Mass,(Divine liturgy, eucharist, service ect) is primarily about Jesus and what He does and to allow the accidents of the setting of the Mass to obscure that substantial truth is to let Jesus receede into the background and HE must increase and we must decrease.

I don't see any reason that in the Greek Church, this cannot be the moment of change.

Me neither. My quibble is with the comprehensiveness of what you said above, that a "proper epiclesis" must occur after the words of institution. I'm happy to accept the Greek teaching that in their liturgy the change happens then, since this is plainly what they pray for. My point is that we Latins also have a proper epiclesis, notwithstanding its anticipatory nature.

In any event, when one recalls that God transcends time, the whole question of chronology becomes irrelevant.

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