There is a lot of confusion from Protestants about what the Eucharistic Sacrifice is all about from a Catholic theology of offering Jesus in the Mass. That I have learned throughout my research and have come to believe with all my heart what the Catholic Church teaches about the Eucharistic offering is indeed the truth about what we do at Mass. But, what is it that we do and why do we believe this is the heart of the liturgy? Of course, I am an Anglican writing who, like Andrewes, believes there is no difference at all with regards to Eucharistic Sacrifice between historical Anglican theology and Catholic theology. This is to get too much into the theological and historical debate of this post.I write more so this morning from a practical point of view as a way of life that flows from the Sacrifice of the Mass and this entry is closely connected to the 'heart-on-the-sleeve' entry from yesterday. When Pope Benedict was head of the CDF he wrote and published A God Who is Near which is a book about God's condescending love towards us particularly in the Mass. When we enter deeply into the risk that faith is we come to understand more fully how much of a mystery the Mass is but also how close it brings us to God. The story is from Zenit but the Pope's theology of sacrifice is clearly explained and practical for the people of God no matter where we are in our understanding or mis-understanding about the Eucharistic Sacrifice.
"The Eucharist is sacrifice," memorial of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross, the cardinal explains.
"When we hear this phrase, we resist within," he states. "The question arises: When we speak of sacrifice, are we not before an unworthy, or at least ingenuous, image of God? Do we not end up by thinking that we men could and should give something to God?"
Cardinal Ratzinger adds: "The Eucharist responds precisely to these questions. The first thing it tells us is that God gives himself to us so that we, in turn, can give ourselves. The initiative in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ comes from God. In the beginning, it was he himself who lowered himself."
"Christ is not a gift that we men present to an irritated God; on the contrary, the fact that he is here, lives, suffers and loves, is already the work of the love of God," the cardinal writes. "It is the merciful love of God, who stoops down to us; the Lord who makes himself a servant for us.
"Although we are the ones who caused the conflict, and although God was not the culprit, but us, it is he who comes to meet us and who, in Christ, begs for reconciliation."
"The more we walk with him the more conscious we are that the God who seems to torment us is the one who really loves us and is the one to whom we can abandon ourselves without resistance or fear," Cardinal Ratzinger states.
He adds: "The more we enter into the night of the misunderstood mystery the more we trust him, the more we find him, the more we discover the love and freedom that sustain us through all the nights. God gives so that we can give. This is the essence of the eucharistic sacrifice, of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ."
6 comments:
Thanks for the post, Father, as well as yesterday's.
The fact that Christ's sacrifice is not "something we present to an irritated God" is good for me to remember, as I was reared and trained in a protestant seminary on strictly penal substitutionary lines of thinking about sacrifice and atonement.
I was reflecting, on the basis of this morning's lesson from St. Athanasius in the office of Readings, that the "for us" language and fact of the incarnation is substitutionary, though not penal of strict necessity. I'm stuck on the question, What debt was paid? I'm thinking and more that Jesus pays our debt of love and obedience, as "the Lord who makes himself a servant for us." And by him, with him, and in him, we can too by participation in his sacrifice.
This seems to be one of the things that the Holy Father speaks of when saying that we "enter into the night of the misunderstood mystery" and therefore trust the Father more. That would make Christ's sacrifice the event of God loving man and man loving God (and simultaneously defeating the powers of sin and death).
And, in reference to your previous post, there's not much more risky faith than believing that.
This is what St Cyril of Alexandria said against Nestorius at the Council of Ehesus:
"Proclaiming the death, according to the flesh, of the Only-begotten Son of God, that is Jesus Christ, confessing his resurrection from the dead, and his ascension into heaven, we offer the Unbloody Sacrifice in the churches, and so go on to the mystical thanksgivings, and are sanctified, having received his Holy Flesh and the Precious Blood of Christ the Saviour of us all. And not as common flesh do we receive it; God forbid: nor as of a man sanctified and associated with the Word according to the unity of worth, or as having a divine indwelling, but as truly the Life-giving and very flesh of the Word himself. For he is the Life according to his nature as God, and when he became united to his Flesh, he made it also to be Life-giving, as also he said to us: Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood."
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf214.x.viii.html
Look at what is affirmed here:
1) The Mass is a Sacrifice.
2) Jesus is substantially present.
3) John 6 was seen as the Eucharist.
This is the Third Ecumenical Council, this squashes the Protestant position. From a Protestant point of view, what was said here is unBiblical and very blasphemous and not part of true Christianity.
Oh the boredom of this blog.
Oh the cowardice of the anonymous world!
Oh the Joy of the Catholic Faith!
Alas for Anglicanism the Past is Dead
- there is no Catholicity of Time
Yes, the Catholic view has always been atonement, never propitiation or appeasement of an angry God. "It is the merciful love of God, who stoops down to us; the Lord who makes himself a servant for us." What great mercy!
This is where the Christian priesthood stands apart from shamanism. The shaman appeases the spirits. The priest offers up with the people's thanksgiving what God has already done in Jesus Christ.
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