Eucharist and Sacrifice: Denial Resulting from Misunderstanding

Over at the New Theological Movement, there is a recent post on the Mass as Sacrifice and why so many deny that theological truth. I welcome this article as it is something dear to my own theological pursuits in the PhD work over the past several years. The denial is often due to a severe misunderstanding of what the Church teaches and understands that the Eucharist is the Sacrifice of the Church. For those who argue that the Church could not view the Eucharistic sacrifice as a sacrifice in natura lest she be guilty of offering another sacrifice in the place of the cross of Christ, have misunderstood the tradition of the Church's teaching here. Though the sacrifice in natura was only once offered, the sacramental sacrifice offered is united in figure to the one offering so that the sacrifice of the Eucharist and that of the cross remain one. While this offering is made in many places, it remains only one offering. That which is offered in the sacrifice of the Eucharist is the sacrifice which was once offered. This is the eternal sacrifice of Christ made present to God in memorial.

What is very important for us here is to see that in the debate at Trent in 1551/52 there was a tremendous amount of emphasis put on the unity of the sacrifice of the cross and the sacrifice of the Mass. McHugh concluded in his essay that what Trent required from a Catholic was they hold fast to the doctrine that in the Mass a sacrifice is offered. This sacrifice is more than ‘praise and thanksgiving’ and includes an expiation of sins and an abundant source of grace that profited not only the living but the dead. Therefore, this Eucharistic sacrifice is offered primarily by Christ himself and secondarily by the Church in union with him; it is Christ’s one offering of Calvary memorialised by the Church. Christ offers this in his intercessory role as eternal priest. The priest acts in union with Christ who brings the offering to the Father by the instrumental agency of the office. These sacrifices are not two separate offerings but one and the same, which is eternally before the Father in heaven. Where Trent and hence the tradition of the Church are of one spirit is in the sacrifice of the Mass consisting of the formal liturgical offering given to God (immolatio) as gift and accepted by him for the forgiveness of sins actually committed.

For Trent, the offering of Christ was not a sacrifice of a bloody manner or a suffering again of the glorified and risen Christ since he is now impassibile. Rather the union of the cross, where Jesus was passibile, and the sacrifice of the Mass contain the very same redemptive quality. The Eucharistic offering, in union with the cross, fulfils every shadow of the cross within the Law under the Old Covenant. The view that the Eucharist is not a ‘proper’ sacrifice since there was no death or any sort of change in Christ as he now exists in his glorified state misses the point. That ‘proper’ sacrifice could only once ‘naturally’ be offered but the effects could be commemorated in the Eucharistic offering. Powers and McHugh both concluded that what Trent meant by a ‘proper’ sacrifice was that it must have ‘propitiatory’ value. That is, an offering presented before God to appease him for sins committed.

Du Perron, in his work Repliqe a la Response Du Roy, writes,

A Church which believed that the Eucharist was a true, full and complete sacrifice, the only successor to all the sacrifices of the law: the new oblation of the new testament, the external worship of the Christians: and not only Eucharistic sacrifice but also propitiatory sacrifice by applying that [sacrifice] of the Cross: and in this capacity offered it as much for those who were absent as for those present, as much for the living as for the dead.

A proper understanding of the Mass as the memorial sacrifice of the Church helps us to understand that we do not come to the presence of God empty handed but the very one and same offering of Christ on Calvary 2,000 years ago made present and effectual on our altars through the instrumentality of the priests for the forgiveness of sins. Therefore, can the Mass be said to be like that fiery coal from heaven that Isaiah spoke of when he came into the presence of the Almighty whose lips were cleansed from the coal from heaven touching his lips. That is the Mass and without that offering made present and offered in propitiation we remain in our sins.