The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass

“The Necessity and the Nature of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass"

By Rev. J. Fuhlrott

"If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever; and the bread which I will give, is my flesh for the life of the world" - John vi 52.

Index 

Jesus Christ is, in His person and in His life and conduct here upon earth, an historical character, separated from us by space and time.  His work of redemption, His life and death of sacrifice, is of itself and in itself a complete fact.  If we stopped at this idea we should have no other association with the historical Redeemer who died upon the cross, than we should have with any other historical character of antiquity, and the work of redemption itself would be simply an historical fact; the acquisition of the redemption would consequently be nothing else than a remembrance, just as we acquire historical facts by tradition.  This is the Protestant standpoint, and that is the reason why the Protestant can not grasp the thought that Christ continues to live in His person and in His works in the visible Church.  They cannot comprehend that Christ is really present in the Holy Eucharist, but they only acknowledge Christ present therein figuratively, as a token, as a remembrance.  How different is our Catholic view and conviction!  We believe in a real communion of man with Christ, we know that we who are living are united with the living Christ; we know and believe that the living Christ is present in our midst.  We are consequently not satisfied with merely an historical Christ, nor with an historical consummated redemption, but we require that the past should become the present, that the sacrifice of Golgotha should be a continuous and ever-present sacrifice whose fruits we can acquire at all times.

We know from our Holy Faith of Christ's presence in the most holy Sacrament of the altar.  Our expectations of a continual ever-present sacrifice is accomplished by the Holy Eucharist, the most Holy Sacrament of the altar, as a sacrifice.  We will consider to-day briefly:

I   -  How necessary this Eucharistic sacrifice is.
II -  Why it is a real sacrifice worthy of God.

                                                                I

 From what has been already said, we know that the sacrifice accomplished by Jesus Christ is no sufficient for us; that we must have a sacrifice continually present with us, in which we can take part.  If we could have seen the sacrifice of the life of Jesus, and lived through it, and if we could have united our good works with His, and have begged Him to let us take part in His works of sacrifice; if we could really have seen His blood flowing, and have been able to beseech Him upon our knees that He might offer one drop thereof to the heavenly Father as a propitiation for our sins and guilt, then we should have certainly been happy and contented.  Instead of this, it is nearly two thousand years since Christ Himself offered up this all-sufficing sacrifice.  Christ has returned to God the Father in heaven, and sits at His right hand.  Our participation in the sacrifice of Jesus is wanting.  The fruits of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ are the merits of Christ, the grace which justifies and sanctifies us.  We must take part in this grace of justification; the work of the redemption accomplished by Jesus Christ must be executed in every single person just as much as it was accomplished at that time.  This takes place in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, which, as we shall see, renews perpetually by a living and constant activity, the sacrifice of the cross in its entirely, divested only of its limits of time and space, in the Church founded by Christ.  In the Eucharistic Sacrifice of the Holy Mass, Christ has let Himself and His entire work, all the fruits and merits of His actions, as a sacred legacy to His Church, and through her to all mankind for their perpetual use.

In many parts of the Old Testament the treasure of grace which Christ has merited for us by His work of sacrifice, is represented to by the the symbol of flowing waters.  These waters of salvation are, by virtue of the sacrifice of Christ, coming to mankind as from a well dug at the foot of the cross on Calvary.  By the institution of the Sacrifice of the Mass, the Lord has formed these waters into a running, living stream, the well has become a stream of living waters, flowing abundantly in all directions.  Each celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, every offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, is a fresh bubbling-up, an outpouring of the source of salvation, whereby the water of salvation is brought near to us, and placed within our reach.  But even this does not quench our thirst.  We must approach this well of life, and drink of the same in reality.  The Sacraments are the channels through which this saving drink is brought to us.  The Holy Eucharist is the principal channel, for it supplies us with this water of salvation in abundance, without the source ever becoming exhausted.

We see, clearly beloved, that the historical fact of Christ's life and death of atonement is not sufficient for us.  Christ must live on in His person as well as in His sacrifice.  He must be present with us, as long as we stand in need of sanctification and reconciliation with God.  It is in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass that this need is realized.

                                                                II

Now we ask the question: Is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass a real, true sacrifice?  We shall find that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is really a true sacrifice, if we consider the institution of the same, and compare the attributes of a sacrifice with it.

In that solemn evening hour when Christ ate the Paschal lamb with His disciples, before He went to His death, He founded the Church of salvation.  He erected the altar upon which the true sacrifice of atonement of the New Law was then offered, and should be offered up daily for us to the heavenly Father.  This is the reason He desired so ardently for this hour, as He Himself declares: "With desire I have desired to eat this pasch with you before I suffer."  (Luke xxii. 15)  "And taking bread, He gave thanks, and brake, and gave them, saying: This is my body which is given for you."  (Matt. xxvi; Luke xxii.)  "Do this in commemoration of me."

This is the institution of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in a few brief words, and at the same time the first offering up of the same, as well as the manifestation of the will of Jesus that it should from now on be continually repeated in His Church.  Let us observe well: "The body which sall be given - the blood which shall be shed."  This can have no other meaning or significance than: This is my body which will be given for the atonement of the sins of men, and this is my blood which flows for the forgiveness of the sins of men.  His body is, therefore, a true body of sacrifice, His blood is really a blood of sacrifice.  Very important for the understanding of the Holy Eucharist as a sacrifice, is this expression of our Lord's - "This is the chalice, the new testament in my blood."  The new law is just as distinguishable by the blood which flows, as the old law, and the new law is just as fulfilled in blood as the old law, only not by the blood of goats and oxen, but by the blood of the Lord.  That blood is, therefore, here as well as there, a blood of sacrifice, here as there we have a sacrifice of the law.

This sacrifice, which Christ offered up for the first time, shall continue for ever: "Do this for a commemoration of me."  As Christ offered sacrifice, so were the Apostles obliged and authorized to offer the sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ.  With the sacrifice Christ, therefore, erected the temple of sacrifice, the Holy Church, on that memorable evening before He went to suffer, and He placed therein the priesthood, because where there is sacrifice, there must also be priests.  For this reason the Council of Trent affirms: "Whosoever supposes that by these words, do this for a commemoration of me, Christ did not institute or ordain the Apostles as priests, that they themselves, and the other priests should offer up His body and His blood, be he excommunicated."  Christ, therefore, at the Last Supper, instituted and offered up the sacrifice of the new law.  What He gave there was the food of sacrifice, and what He ordained was the command that this sacrifice should be celebrated perpetually.

Let us consider now, how this sacrifice as all the qualities of a true sacrifice.  The oblation must be the property of the sacrificer.  Christ gives Himself as the oblation, His own flesh, His own blood.  Who can contest His right of possession!

The oblation must be something exterior, something visible.  Christ explains what He is giving: "This," says He, "that I hold in my hands, which appears to you to be bread, is my flesh; this, that is in the chalice, which appears to you like wine, is my blood."  Under the visible forms of bread and wine, Christ offers up His flesh and blood as a sacrifice.

The sacrifice must be offered to God.  Before the Lord offered the oblation, "He raised His eyes to heaven and gave thanks"; that is to say, He prayed and blest the bread.  There is no doubt that in what He does He is in the most intimate communication with His Father in heaven; what He now does is being done for the glory of His Father in heaven, who sent Him; His flesh and His blood which He gives for the reconciliation of man with God' this He can only offer up to the One who is to be propitiated; the offended and angered God in heaven.

The oblation must be offered up by a mediator; there must be a sacrificing priest.  First of all, Christ is Himself the sacrificing priest, because He offers up Himself, His flesh and His blood, and for all time to come He appoints and ordains His Apostles, and those who succeed them in their priestly office, as sacrificing priests, who alone shall have the ability and power to be able to offer up this exalted sacrifice of the new law to the heavenly Father.  The oblation must be transformed, it must be destroyed.  When the Savior took bread and wine into His hands, the Apostles only saw bread and wine.  No sooner had He spoken that word of command, "This is my flesh, this is my blood," than the bread was changed into His flesh, and the wine was changed into His blood.  That which took place at the sacrifice, the separation by force of the blood from the body of the animal sacrificed, we see here represented by the separation of the form of the bread and wine. As in the old law the knife of the priest, in the sacrifice of the cross, the nails and the spear were the instruments for the destruction of the sacrifice, so here the instruments of transubstantiation are the words: This is my body, this is my blood.  Finally, the sacrifice must be offered up with the intention of acknowledging God as the might Lord of al things.  We have already said that the Savior could have had no other intention at the Last Supper than that of offering Himself as a sacrifice of propitiation, so that the majesty of God which had been offended and grieved by man, might be reconciled again, and the right relations between God and man re-established.  We have, then, in the law of perfection, a true and everlasting sacrifice, and this oblation is worthy of God, as clearly appears from the words, "Shed for the remission of sins."  Worthy of God is this oblation: the true body and the rue blood of Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ Himself.  As the Apostle says, "Christ, our Pasch, is sacrificed." (I. Cor. v.7.)

Has there ever been a holier, a purer, or more worthy sacrifice to God?

Worthy of God is the sacrificing priest of this oblation, even Jesus Christ Himself, who is, as the Apostle says, "holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; who needeth not daily (as the other priests) to offer sacrifices first for his own sins, and then for the people's."  (Heb. vii. 26.)  Those whom the Lord ordains to be in the future the priests of this sacrifice, are only His appointed custodians, His servants, and His representatives.

Worthy of God is the manner of offering this sacrifice, a wonder to men, and a spectacle and wonder to the angels!

O unhappy people who were imprisoned in the darkness of unbelief and paganism, what would have become of you without this one and only sacrifice worthy of God?  How could you have made satisfaction for your sins?  O fellow men, so greatly to be pitied, who have lost this sacrifice worthy of God, where will you find a substitute to propitiate an offended God, to wipe away your tears, and to receive your sighs?

O how happy are we faithful, believing Catholic Christians to possess upon our altars the only sacrifice worthy of God, which we can every day offer up anew to the offended God as a sacrifice of propitiation, a worthy sacrifice of worship to the Almighty, and as a sacrifice of supplication in all our necessities and calamities!

Let us rejoice at this prerogative and happiness, and let us not cease to venerate it with gratitude!  Amen.