The Mass: Its Sacrificial Meaning

“At the Last Supper, on the night he was betrayed, our Saviour instituted the eucharistic sacrifice of his Body and Blood. This he did in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the Cross throughout the ages...” – Vatican Council II, Sacrosanctum Concilium, #47

At about the half-way point through the year of the Eucharist, proclaimed by our Holy Father John Paul II last October, perhaps it is a good time to pause and reflect on the meaning of the event, the ritual, the sacrament which plays such an enormous role in our lives and the life of the world. We believe, no doubt, that the Eucharist is the “source and summit of the Christian life”, just as the Church teaches, and most of us have probably been more keenly aware of the Eucharist and focused more upon it during this year. Perhaps we are aware of blessings, even great ones, having come into our lives through this blessed sacrament during this period of its study, appreciation, and adoration.

Perhaps too, though, we have been aware of a general weakness among Catholics in their estimation of the Eucharist as well as deficiencies and abuses—sometimes even serious ones—in the celebration of the Holy Mass. These are no secrets, sadly enough; the problems are so widespread that the Holy Father addresses them in both of his recent letters on the Eucharist. Pope John Paul is not one to be overly negative and does mention many encouraging signs of “Eucharistic faith and love” present in the universal Church. Yet in Ecclesia de Eucharistia, the encyclical teaching on the Eucharist and the Church, he notes, “with profound grief”, shadows alongside the lights. The Holy Father speaks of abuses of the liturgy leading to confusion, the abandonment of Eucharistic adoration, of a distorted notion of priesthood and what we might spend a few moments examining ourselves, “an extremely reductive understanding of the Eucharistic mystery.” The Mass, the Pope says, is sometimes “stripped of its sacrificial meaning, it is celebrated as if it were simply a fraternal banquet.” Simply put, some Catholics have forgotten that the Mass is a sacrifice.

We, however, must not forget. We must not forget that the Eucharist—as the Pope John Paul says in Mane Nobiscum Domine (the encyclical on the Year of the Eucharist)—“has a profoundly and primarily sacrificial meaning. In the Eucharist, Christ makes present to us anew the sacrifice offered once for all on Golgotha.”

Well, what will be the antidote to this widespread forgetfulness? How about some “intense catechesis”? That is what the Congregation for Divine Worship recommends in their recent Suggestions and Proposals for the Year of the Eucharist. This catechesis could have a number of points of focus; one that the CDW recommends is mystagogy.

Now what may be at first glance simply a long, foreign word, is really something very much familiar, if somewhat underappreciated: the words of the Mass itself! Mystagogy here is simply letting the form of the mysteries (the sacraments) speak to us. It makes very good sense, really, that the words that the Church chooses for the celebration of the Eucharist should give us a pretty clear idea of what she believes it to be. So, is the Mass a sacrifice, as the Holy Father so strongly asserts? Here are a few selections from the Maronite Mass:

“May the Lord accept your offering…”, “I will go to the altar of God…I will enter your house, O Lord, and worship in your holy temple.”, “The priest bears me [Christ, the Bread of Life] aloft to the altar…”, “This is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed and handed over for you and for many…”, “Each time you fulfill these mysteries you realize my death and remember my resurrection until I come again.”, “O Lord, we remember your death, we witness to your resurrection…”, “Through this sacrifice, offered to you by our sinful hands, grant, O Lord, a good memorial to our parents, brothers…”, “We have believed, and we have offered, and now we seal and break this oblation, the heavenly bread and living body of the Word of the living God.”, “You, O Lord, are the pleasing victim, who was offered for us; you are the forgiving sacrifice, who offered yourself for us to the Father. You are the Lamb of sacrifice, and yet also the priest who offered himself for us…”, “This is the cup which our Lord prepared on the cross.”

Now, even without all the italics and color highlighting, it is pretty obvious from these passages that the Mass is being spoken of as a sacrifice. No mere poetic imagery, this language reflects the earliest Christian understandings of the Eucharist. It is true, as Cardinal Ratzinger points out in his Spirit of the Liturgy that “the new reality of Christian worship”–the Eucharist–was born, so to speak, in the context of a Passover meal and still retains something of the structure of a meal. Nevertheless, meal does not suffice as a description of the Mass because it was the “new reality” which Our Lord commanded us to repeat, not the meal as such. And the new reality involved real sacrifice. So the Mass developed in the early Christian community and very soon, as the Cardinal points out, “found its proper and suitable form, a form already predetermined by the fact that the Eucharist refers back to the Cross and thus to the transformation of Temple sacrifice into worship of God...”

But is this an outdated theory or an opinion of a few? No. Pope Paul VI in 1968 taught in the Credo of the People of God: “We believe that the Mass, celebrated by the priest representing the person of Christ by virtue of the power received through the sacrament of Order, and offered by him in the name of Christ and of the members of His Mystical Body, is indeed the sacrifice of Calvary rendered sacramentally present on our altars.” And the Holy Father was here echoing the solemn definitions of the Council of Trent, four hundred years earlier: “If anyone says that in the Mass a true and real sacrifice is not offered to God, or that the offering is nothing else than Christ being given to us to eat: let him be anathema.” Very strong and very clear; the Mass is a sacrifice, and not just a meal.

Well, what of it? How does knowing that the Eucharist is truly and primarily a sacrifice help us in this Year of the Eucharist? The answer will, perhaps, be clear if we turn to the words of the Second Vatican Council. The council fathers, speaking of Christians wrote: “Taking part in the eucharistic sacrifice, the source and summit of the Christian life, they offer the divine victim to God and themselves along with it.” So when we assist at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, we are not “mere spectators” but rather are true participants in the Eucharistic Sacrifice, not simply by receiving the sacrament, but by joining ourselves to Christ our High Priest, and offering up with Him all that we have, all that we do and all that we are. How awesome! It is precisely this that we must not forget.

Throughout the 20th century, the Popes constantly and forcefully preached on the sacred liturgy and the need for all of Christ’s Faithful to participate in it fully, consciously, actively (phrases the 2nd Vatican Council borrowed from the allocutions of Pope Pius X, given sixty years earlier). What we need to keep in mind in this present century is what, exactly, we are participating in. In order to do that we probably all need, as the CDW suggested, some “intense catechesis”. Well, maybe this be some sort of small start.

As a conclusion, why not meditate briefly on the words of Pope Pius XII, from his encyclical Mediator Dei? The Holy Father here presents us with a forthright call not to miss the enormous opportunity we have in each celebration of the Holy Sacrifice. Let us never miss that opportunity!

“...[A]ll the faithful should be aware that to participate in the Eucharistic Sacrifice is their chief duty and supreme dignity, and that not in an inert and negligent fashion, giving way to distractions and daydreaming, but with such earnestness and concentration that they may be united as closely as possible with the High Priest, according to the Apostle: “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.” And together with him and through Him let them make their oblation, and in union with Him let them offer up themselves.”

You said "...we do not need a robed priest in a Catholic Priesthood to claim to be of the order of Melchisedek(sp) and to make an offering of Christ at each mass."

We participate in what is happening continuously in heaven. Christ intercedes for us (in the present tense) in Hebrews and Romans. He continues this action. Why would He do that, following the Protestant's concept that all is done and there is nothing left for us to do? Also, note the verses I previously posted. Sacrifice continues to be part of Christianity. Why? Not because Christ's sacrifice was ineffective; it is because the merits of His sacrifice are to be applied to us today, 2000 years later. As to the need for priests, you will first have to see that the Eucharist is actually Christ. If you don't, naturally, the Mass will make no sense.

I submit, as the history of Christianity has proclaimed, the interpretations of what is happening during the Mass...
Take these as history, if you wish. There is no reason to doubt that these are what the Church believed in 100 AD.

But our opinion is in accordance with the Eucharist, and the Eucharist in turn establishes our opinion. For we offer to Him His own, announcing consistently the fellowship and union of the flesh and Spirit.(5) For as the bread, which is produced from the earth, when it receives the invocation of God, is no longer common bread,(6) but the Eucharist, consisting of two realities, earthly and heavenly; so also our bodies, when they receive the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible, having the hope of the resurrection to eternity.
IRENAEUS AGAINST HERESIES -- BOOK IV, CHAPTER 18

"Accordingly, God, anticipating all the sacrifices which we offer through this name, and which Jesus the Christ enjoined us to offer, i.e., in the Eucharist of the bread and the cup, and which are presented by Christians in all places throughout the world, bears witness that they are well-pleasing to Him….For such alone Christians have undertaken to offer, and in the remembrance effected by their solid and liquid food, whereby the suffering of the Son of God(5) which He endured is brought to mind, whose name the high priests of your nation and your teachers have caused to be profaned and blasphemed over all the earth. JUSTIN THE MARTYR: CHRIST REFERS ALL THINGS TO THE FATHER AND OTHER ARTICLES -- CHAP. CXVII.--MALACHI'S PROPHECY CONCERNING THE SACRIFICES OF THE CHRISTIANS.

Take ye heed, then, to have but one Eucharist. For there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup to [show forth(1)] the unity of His blood; one altar; as there is one bishop, along with the presbytery and deacons, my fellow-servants: that so, whatsoever ye do, ye may do it according to [the will of] God.
THE EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE PHILADELPHIANS, CHAPTER 4

See that ye all follow the bishop, even as Christ Jesus does the Father, and the presbytery as ye would the apostles. Do ye also reverence the deacons, as those that carry out[through their office] the appointment of God. Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop. Let that be deemed a proper(18) Eucharist, which is[administered] either by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude[of the people] also be; by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude[of the people] also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church. THE EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE SMYRAEANS, CHAPTER 8

Seems like the Catholic interpretation is the same as that of the Church of circa 110 AD. Are you saying that the Church got it wrong ONE GENERATION after the apostles died off? I understand that the Fathers' interpretations in of themselves individually are not infallible, but as a historical basis of what Christianity BELIEVED, at least in 100 AD, is clear. It is Catholic. Where is your evidence or proof to show that the Church, EVERYWHERE, began to believe in a false Gospel so quickly, without a murmur of protest???

The problem, as I wrote to you last week, is that you refuse to see that God's Word includes BOTH Scripture AND Apostolic Tradition. The Bible itself doesn't say that it is the sole rule of faith. It says there are TWO rules of faith, given by word and orally. Your refusal to see this anti-Biblical idea called sola scriptura, a tradition of men, is AGAIN keeping you from seeing that another Catholic practice is in line with Scripture and the Apostle's Teachings from 2000 years ago.

If you say that the Church was wrong in 100 AD, then why do you agree with their claim that the New Testament is the Word of God? Why the inconsistency of the Authority given to the Church by Christ?

Regards

"O Lord, We Praise Thee"
by Martin Luther, 1483-1546

1. O Lord, we praise Thee, bless Thee, and adore Thee,
In thanksgiving bow before Thee.
Thou with Thy body and Thy blood didst nourish
Our weak souls that they may flouish:
O Lord, have mercy!
May Thy body, Lord, born of Mary,
That our sins and sorrows did carry,
And Thy blood for us plead
In all trial, fear, and need:
O Lord, have mercy!

2. Thy holy body into death was given,
Life to win for us in heaven.
No greater love than this to Thee could bind us;
May this feast thereof remind us!
O Lord, have mercy!
Lord, Thy kindness did so constrain Thee
That Thy blood should bless and sustain me.
All our debt Thou hast paid;
Peace with God once more is made:
O Lord, have mercy.

3. May God bestow on us His grace and favor
To please Him with our behavior
And live as brethren here in love and union
Nor repent this blest Communion!
O Lord, have mercy!
Let not Thy good Spirit forsake us;
Grant that heavenly-minded He make us;
Give Thy Church, Lord, to see
Days of peace and unity:
O Lord, have mercy!

Hymn #313
The Lutheran Hymnal
Text: Ps. 118: 1
Author: unknown, c. 1400, St. 1
Author: Martin Luther, 1524, St. 2 & 3
Translated by: composite
Titled: "Gott sei gelobet und gebenedeiet" Tune: Gott sei gelobet
German melody, c. 1400

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