That's exactly my point. If Christ died once for all and totally paid our debt to a righteous God, why would it be necessary to re-sacrifice Him again?
I ask this with the understanding that your church considers the Eucharist to be a true but un-bloody sacrifice of the actual body and blood of Jesus.
As far as being at the cross with Him, I've gotten way past that. I've been raised with Him and seated with Him in the heavenly realms. (ref Ephesians 2:6)
The Holy Mass is not a different sacrifice but the same sacrifice.
I said RE-presentation, not RE-sacrifice, TB.
In the Holy Mass, you are PRESENT at that VERY moment that happened on Calvary 2000 years ago.
What is happening on the altar at that moment of Consecration is not Calvary happening AGAIN, it is Calvary happening STILL.
How can this be?
Because Christ’s sacrifice is ETERNAL, — eternally PRESENT to the Father — and to you, too, at that moment of Consecration in the Holy Mass.
Eternity is a concept beyond our understanding.
It doesn’t mean “forever” nor a long period of time. It means “outside of time itself”; a perpetual present, a never-ending now. God apprehends all events in time in a single glance of “now”. The “thousand years is a single day” suggests how different the Divine Perspective is from ours.
The sacrifice of Christ is not time-bound. That’s why the institution of the Holy Eucharist was possible at the Last Supper — hours before Calvary. It anticipates the Sacrifice on Calvary, because the future is PRESENT from God’s eternal perspective. Easy-peasy for God.
The Catholic Church believes, as you do, that there is no need for a subsequent sacrifice since the first is infinitely more than sufficient in itself.
And infinitely more than we deserve.
As far as being at the cross with Him, I’ve gotten way past that. I’ve been raised with Him and seated with Him in the heavenly realms. (ref Ephesians 2:6)
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+1
Because that is what He directed His disciples to do, and those who have been following in their footsteps have continued to do so.