Posted on 01/27/2008 7:56:14 PM PST by Manfred the Wonder Dawg
I think this should answer some of your questions regarding thr Blessed Sacrament
The Eucharist as a Sacrifice, or the Mass
By Fulton Sheen
http://www.ewtn.com/library/DOCTRINE/SACRAMEN.TXT
The Mass has three important parts: the Offertory, the Consecration,
and the Communion. In the order of human love, these correspond to
engagement, the marriage ceremony, and the consummation of the mar-
riage. When a man becomes engaged to a woman, he generally brings her
the gift of a precious ring; it is not of tin or straw, because these
represent no sacrifice. Regardless of how much he might pay for the
ring, he would still tear off the price tag, in order that his beloved
might never establish any correspondence between the price of the gift
and his love. No matter how much he gave her, the gift to him would
seem inadequate. The ring is round in order to express the eternity of
his love which has neither beginning nor end; it is precious, because
it is a symbol of the total readiness to give his whole personality to
the beloved.
The Mass, too, has an engagement which corresponds to the Offertory of
the Mass, in which the faithful bring gifts of bread and wine, or its
equivalent, that which buys bread and wine. As the ring is a symbol of
the lover offering himself to the beloved, so too, the bread and wine
are the symbols of a person offering himself to Christ. This is
apparent in several ways: first, since bread and wine have
traditionally nourished man and given him life, in bringing that which
was the substance of his life, he is equivalently giving himself.
Second, the readiness to sacrifice himself for the beloved is revealed
in the bread and wine; no two substances have to undergo more to become
what they are than do wheat and grapes. One passes through the
Gethsemane of a mill, the other through the Calvary of the winepress
before they can be presented to the Beloved on the altar. In the
Offertory, therefore, under the appearance of bread and wine, the
faithful are offering themselves to Christ.
After the engagement comes the marriage ceremony in which the lover
sacrifices himself for the beloved, and the beloved surrenders
devotedly to the lover. The groom practically says, “My greatest
freedom is to be your slave. I give up my individuality in order to
serve you.” The joining of hands in the marriage ceremony is a symbol
of the transfer of self to another self: “I am yours and you are mine.
I want to die to myself, in order to live in you, my beloved. I cannot
live unto you, unless I give up myself. So I say to you, ‘This is My
Body; this is My Blood’.”
In the Mass, the faithful are already present on the altar under the
appearance of bread and wine. At the moment of the Consecration of the
Mass, when the priest as Christ pronounces the words “This is My Body”
and “This is My Blood,” the substance of the bread becomes the
substance of the body of Christ, and the substance of the wine becomes
the substance of the blood of Christ. At that moment, the faithful are
saying in a secondary sense with the priest: “This is my body; this is
my blood. Take it! I no longer want it for myself. The very substance
of my being, my intellect, and my will—change! Transubstantiate!—so
that my ego is lost in Thee, so that my intellect is one with Thy
Truth, and my will is one with Thy desires! I care not if the species
or appearances of my life remain; that is to say, my duties, my
avocation, my appointments in time and space. But what I am
substantially, I give to Thee.”
In the human order, after the engagement and the marriage is the
consummation of the marriage. All love craves unity. Correspondence by
letter, or by speech, cannot satisfy that instinctive yearning of two
hearts to be lost in one another. There must, therefore, come some
great ecstatic moment in which love becomes too deep for words; this is
the communion of body and blood with body and blood in the oneness
which lasts not long, but is a foretaste of Heaven.
The marital act is nothing but a fragile and shadowy image of Communion
in which, after having offered ourselves under the appearance of bread
and wine and having died to our lower self, we now begin to enjoy that
ecstatic union with Christ in Holy Communion—a oneness which is, in
the language of Thompson, “a passionless passion, a wild tranquility.”
This is the moment when the hungry heart communes with the Bread of
Life; this is the rapture in which is fulfilled that “love we fall just
short of in all love,” and that rapture that leaves all other raptures
pain.
The Sacrifice of the Mass may be presented under another analogy.
Picture a house which had two large windows on opposite sides. One
window looks down into a valley, the other to a towering mountain. The
owner could gaze on both and somehow see that they were related: the
valley is the mountain humbled; the mountain is the valley exalted.
The Sacrifice of the Mass is something like that. Every church, in a
way, looks down on a valley, but the valley of death and humiliation in
which we see a cross. But it also looks up to a mountain, an eternal
mountain, the mountain of heaven where Christ reigns gloriously. As the
valley and the mountain are related as humiliation and exaltation, so
the Sacrifice of the Mass is related to Calvary in the valley, and to
Christ in heaven and the eternal hills.
All three, Calvary, the Mass, and the glorified Christ in heaven are
different levels of the great eternal act of love. The Christ Who
appeared in heaven as the lamb slain from the beginning of the world,
at a certain moment in time, came to this earth and offered His Life in
Redemption for the sins of men. Then He ascended into heaven where that
same eternal act of love continues, as He intercedes for humanity,
showing the scars of His Love to His heavenly Father. True, agony and
crucifixion are passing things, but the obedience and the love which
inspired them are not. In the Father’s eyes, the Son-made-Man loves
always unto death. The patriot who regretted that he had only one life
to give to his country, would have loved to have made his sacrifice
eternal. Being man, he could not do it. But Christ, being God and man,
could.
The Mass, therefore, looks backward and forward. Because we live in
time and can use only earthly symbols, we see successively that which
is but one eternal movement of love. If a motion picture reel were
endowed with consciousness, it would see and understand the story at
once; but we do not grasp it until we see it unfolded upon the screen.
So it is with the love by which Christ prepared for His coming in the
Old Testament, offered Himself on Calvary, and now re-presents it in
Sacrifice in the Mass. The Mass, therefore, is not another immolation
but a new presentation of the eternal Victim and its application to us.
To assist at Mass is the same as to assist at Calvary. But there are
differences.
On the Cross, Our Lord offered Himself for all mankind; in the Mass we
make application of that death to ourselves, and unite our sacrifice
with His. The disadvantage of not having lived at the time of Christ is
nullified by the Mass. On the Cross, He potentially redeemed all
humanity; in the Mass we actualize that Redemption. Calvary happened at
a definite moment in time and on a particular hill in space. The Mass
temporalizes and spatializes that eternal act of love.
The Sacrifice of Calvary was offered up in a bloody manner by the
separation of His blood from His body. In the Mass, this death is
mystically and sacramentally presented in an unbloody manner, by the
separate consecration of bread and wine. The two are not consecrated
together by such words as “This is My Body and My Blood”; rather,
following the words of Our Lord: “This is My Body” is said over the
bread; then, “This is My Blood” is said over the wine. The separate
consecration is a kind of mystical sword dividing body and blood, which
is the way Our Lord died on Calvary.
Suppose there was an eternal broadcasting station that sent out eternal
waves of wisdom and enlightenment. People who lived in different ages
would tune in to that wisdom, assimilate it, and apply it to
themselves. Christ’s eternal act of love is something to which we tune
in, as we appear in successive ages of history through the Mass. The
Mass, therefore, borrows its reality and its efficacy from Calvary and
has no meaning apart from it. He who assists at Mass lifts the Cross of
Christ out of the soil of Calvary and plants it in the center of his
own heart.
This is the only perfect act of love, sacrifice, thanksgiving, and
obedience which we can ever pay to God; namely, that which is offered
by His Divine Son Incarnate. Of and by ourselves, we cannot touch the
ceiling because we are not tall enough. Of and by ourselves, we cannot
touch God. We need a Mediator, someone who is both God and Man, Who is
Christ. No human prayer, no human act of self-denial, no human
sacrifice is sufficient to pierce Heaven. It is only the Sacrifice of
the Cross that can do so, and this is done in the Mass. As we offer it,
we hang, as it were, onto His robes, we tug at His feet at the
Ascension, we cling to His pierced hands in offering Himself to the
Heavenly Father. Being hidden in Him, our prayers and sacrifices have
His value. In the Mass we are once more at Calvary, rubbing shoulders
with Mary Magdalen and John, while mournfully looking over our
shoulders at executioners who still shake dice for the garments of the
Lord.
The priest who offers the Sacrifice merely lends to Christ his voice
and his fingers. It is Christ Who is the Priest; it is Christ Who is
the Victim. In all pagan sacrifices and in the Jewish sacrifices, the
victim was always separate from the priest. It might have been a goat,
a lamb, or a bullock. But when Christ came, He the Priest offered
Himself as the Victim. In the Mass, it is Christ Who still offers
Himself and Who is the Victim to Whom we become united. The altar,
therefore, is not related to the congregation as the stage to an
audience in the theatre. The communion rail is not the same as
footlights, which divide the drama from the onlooker. All the members
of the Church have a kind of priesthood, inasmuch as they offer up with
the Eternal Priest this eternal act of love. The laity participate in
the life and power of Christ, for “Thou hast made us a royal race of
priests to serve God” (Apoc. 5:10).
The expression, sometimes used by Catholics “to hear Mass,” is an
indication of how little is understood of their active participation,
not only with Christ, but also with all of the saints and members of
the Church until the end of time. This corporate action of the Church
is indicated in certain prayers of the Mass. For example, immediately
before the Consecration, God is asked to receive the offering which “we
Thy servants and Thy whole household make unto Thee”; and after the
Consecration the faithful again say, “We Thy servants, as also Thy holy
people, do offer unto Thy most excellent majesty of Thine own gifts
bestowed on us.” All participate, but the closer we are to the mystery,
the more we become one with Christ.
No man can ever come to the real fullness of his personality by
reflection or contemplation; he has to act it out. That is why through
all ages man laid his hand on the best of the herd and destroyed it in
order to indicate the offering and surrender of himself. By laying his
hands on the animal, he identified himself with it. Then he consumed
it, in order to gain some identification with the one to whom it was
offered. In the Mass, all the ancient dim foreshadowings of the supreme
sacrifice are fulfilled. Man immolates himself with Christ, bidding Him
to take his body and his blood. Through this destruction of the ego,
there is a void and an emptiness created, which makes it possible for
Divinity to fill up the vacuum and to make the offerer holy. Man dies
to the past, in order that he may live in the future. He chooses to be
united with his Divine King in some form of death, that he may share in
His Resurrection and glory. Thus dying he lives; chastened he is not
killed; sorrowful he always rejoices; giving up time, he finds
eternity. Nothingness is exchanged for everything. Poverty turns into
riches, and having nothing, he begins to possess all things.
Here is another good one by Father John Hardon
http://www.therealpresence.org/eucharst/link/sacrifice.htm
Thank you for posting this essay. I must still find, though, that whether the sacrifice offered is of Jesus Himself again, OR, of the parishioners themselves, it still means that Christ's original sacrifice was insufficient. I just don't see any way around that. Christ either "did it all" or He did not.
And one of the analogies was a bit ...... uncomfortable. :)
[From the essay:] The Christ Who appeared in heaven as the lamb slain from the beginning of the world, at a certain moment in time, came to this earth and offered His Life in Redemption for the sins of men. Then He ascended into heaven where that same eternal act of love continues, as He intercedes for humanity, showing the scars of His Love to His heavenly Father.
If it continues, then it is NOT FINISHED. Jesus said it is finished.
I think this might help you to understand further?
The Fourth Cup by Scott Hahn(follow along with your Bible)
http://zuserver2.star.ucl.ac.uk/~vgg/rc/aplgtc/hahn/m4/4cp.html
Excerpt:
There's no mistaking the fact that St. John, the beloved disciple, understood our Lord's sacrifice as the culmination, the fulfillment of the Old Testament Passover. For instance, why is that Jesus happened to be wearing a seamless linen garment at the cross, when just coincidently that's what the priest was legislated to wear when he sacrificed the Passover? Here is the true priest, as well as the true victim. And when he was crucified, unlike the two thieves whose legs had to be broken to expedite death, his bones were not broken. Why? To fulfill the scripture where it says, “None of his bones shall be broken.” What's that talking about where it says, “None of his bones shall be broken”? One of the things is that if you took a lamb to sacrifice for the Passover and you discovered that it had a broken bone, you had to throw him out and get another one. The only fit sacrifice was a lamb without broken bones. John sees in this so much more than we can get into, but one thing in particular. Verse 28, “After this”_at the very end of his cruel sufferings_”Jesus, knowing that all was now finished said, in order to fulfill the scriptures, ‘I thirst.’” Now, he's been on the cross for hours. Is this the first moment of thirst. No, he'd been wracked with pain and dying of thirst for hours. But he says, in order to fulfill the scripture, “I thirst.” Why? To fulfill the scripture.
“A bowl of sour wine stood there. They put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch_the same kind of branch the Israelites had to use to sprinkle the lamb's blood on the doorpost, coincidently enough_and held it to his mouth. Before when they offered him wine, what did he do? He refused it: “I will not taste of the fruit of the vine I am coming into the kingdom.” He skipped the fourth cup and then he went to pray, ‘Remove this cup, not as I will will, but as thou wilt,’ And now he has gone and fulfilled that will to the uttermost, in perfect suffering obedience to the Father, in an act of unspeakable love.
“They put a sponge full of the sour wine on hyssop and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine he said the words that are spoken of in the fourth cup consummation, “It is finished.” What is the it referring to? That grammatical question began really bothering me at some point. I asked several people and their response was usually, “Well, it means the work of redemption that Christ was working on.” All right, that's true, I agree it does refer to that, but in context. An exegete, a trained interpreter of the word is supposed to find the contextual meaning, not just import a meaning from a theology textbook. What is Jesus speaking of when he says, “It is finished?” I mean, our redemption is not completed once he - he's not yet raised. Paul says, “He was raised for our justification.”
So what is the it talking about? He said, ‘It is finished’, and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit, his breath. The it, of course you realize by now, is the Passover sacrifice. Because who is Jesus Christ? He is the sacrifice of Egypt, the firstborn son. Remember, the Egyptians involuntarily had to offer up their firstborn sons as atonement for their own sins and wickedness. Christ dies for Egypt and the world. Plus, he is the Passover lamb, the unblemished lamb, without broken bones who offers himself up for the life of the world. This fits with John's gospel, because as soon as Jesus was introduced in chapter 1 of the fourth gospel by John the Baptist, what did John say? He said, “Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” And here is the lamb, headed for the altar of the cross, dying as a righteous firstborn and as an unblemished lamb. I believe that it's best to say in light of scripture that the sacrifice of Christ did not begin with the first spike, it didn't begin when the cross was sunk into the ground. I began in the upper room. That's where the sacrifice began. And I would also suggest that the Passover meal by which Jesus initiated the new Covenant in his own blood did not end in the upper room, but at calvary. It's all of one piece. The sacrifice begins in the upper room with the institution of the Eucharist and it ends at calvary. Calvary begins with the Eucharist. The Eucharist ends at Calvary. But in another way of thinking, it ain't over yet! Cause it ain't over till it's over. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 5:7-8, “Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed, therefore”_what?_we don't need to have any more sacrifice? Therefore we don't need to have any more ritual, therefore all we have to do is have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and invite him into our hearts and everything else is taken care of? No, he's too knowledgeable about the Old Testament to say any of that. He says, “Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed; let us therefore celebrate the feast.” What feast? The whole Passover feast. It's not complete yet. What do you mean?
Thanks. I agree with the analysis about why Jesus' bones were not broken.
[from the essay:] What is Jesus speaking of when he says, “It is finished?” I mean, our redemption is not completed once he - he's not yet raised. Paul says, “He was raised for our justification.”
I think that's an extremely poor pull quote by the author and is totally out of context. Here is the actual verse:
Rom 4:25 : He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.
It wasn't the raising that accomplished our redemption, it was the dying. The raising was PROOF. Paul simply puts the two together in his statement, so there is no justification for saying that "It is finished" means anything other than the completion of redemption.
[Id.] So what is the it talking about? He said, ‘It is finished’, and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit, his breath. The it, of course you realize by now, is the Passover sacrifice.
IMHO, this is the false completion of a false set up. I knew I smelled something coming when the author only quoted half of Paul. :) The Passover sacrifice was not eternal, but temporary. Jesus' sacrifice was eternal and final.
[Id.] The Eucharist ends at Calvary. But in another way of thinking, it ain't over yet! Cause it ain't over till it's over. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 5:7-8, “Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed, therefore”_what?_we don't need to have any more sacrifice?
For salvation, YES, that is correct. Certainly, Christ is "the lamb" and comparisons can be fairly made. However, I think it's error to compare the sacrifice of Christ to any sacrifice a human might make. Those are two different ballparks. Christ's sacrifice was PERFECT, and had no need to be repeated, unlike the general OT sacrifices. Paul does not say otherwise.
[Id.] Therefore we don't need to have any more ritual, therefore all we have to do is have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and invite him into our hearts and everything else is taken care of?
For salvation, YES. Christ took care of everything. The alternative is that Christ did not take care of everything and in fact did a half- ............. baked job. :) The author's view has humans needing to clean up after Christ's unfinished business.
The author is wrong in thinking that Christ is merely an ongoing continuation of the paschal lamb sacrifice. (Christians did not partake of that sacrifice after Christ.) Christ is a final, once and for all REPLACEMENT for it. That's what Paul was saying. Leaven should be put away then, and sin should be put away now.
So,you are correct in saying redemption is finished (so does the Catholic Church) but the souls who have yet to be born are not yet “saved.” They are redeemed but must exercise faith to be saved.
God works outside of time,FK, and the Sacrifice can be presented to him at any time.
The Early Christian's who were smarter and holier than you or I knew this clearly and DID NOT limit Our Blessed Lord.
You use your personal modern interpretations of the Bible that have no consistency through the ages
I wish you well in your search for the Truth!
I just see very selective use of that concept in Catholicism. In some cases Christ didn't accomplish anything because He's "outside of time" so men must clean up the mess by repeating what He did. In others Christ DID accomplish something, as in the raising of Lazarus. Or, is Lazarus still being raised every day? There is no consistency to the Catholic use of the concept except expediency for desired extra-scriptural theology.
So,you are correct in saying redemption is finished (so does the Catholic Church) but the souls who have yet to be born are not yet “saved.” They are redeemed but must exercise faith to be saved.
We disagree strongly on what "finished" means. I say it means that redemption is done and complete for all time for all the elect, past, present, and future. God has already ordained that the elect who do not yet have faith, born or unborn, WILL have faith. Since God is outside of time, it is "already done". What does "finished" mean to you? I suspect it means nothing like the English word suggests, OR, that the Catholic idea of what Christ accomplished is very small. For example, if I cut my grass up to halfway through the yard, I would expect a Catholic to say "It is finished". I would say I still have the other half of the yard left to mow before it is finished. The Catholic concept just doesn't work in the English. :)
We now can sacrifice ourselves in time by Christ allowing us participation in His Cross Death and Resurrection in the Mass.
We are literally there with Him in this Blessed Sacrament of love.
Christ did NOT institute a book covenant (the Bible) with various modern interpretations from you.
I'm not interested in your response and heresies ,so please don't post one to me.
Your attack on our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament “is finished” with posting me.
But the dying would be pointless without the resurrection; it would mean that death had a hold on Him. By resurrection, death was defeated and His divinity was established (although the Synaptic Gospels suggest otherwise).
The author is wrong in thinking that Christ is merely an ongoing continuation of the paschal lamb sacrifice
Nevertheless, the earliest Church documents show that's how it was understood and practiced, and they were a lot closer to the original faith than your side, FK.
Yes, and I did not mean to pour any cold water on the resurrection. :) I was saying that the author only quoted HALF of what Paul said and used it to mis-define what justification is.
By resurrection, death was defeated and His divinity was established (although the Synaptic Gospels suggest otherwise).
How are you using "established"? His divinity has never been "not established".
FK: The author is wrong in thinking that Christ is merely an ongoing continuation of the paschal lamb sacrifice.
Nevertheless, the earliest Church documents show that's how it was understood and practiced, and they were a lot closer to the original faith than your side, FK.
Then they were wrong just like the author was wrong. :) The Bible doesn't support them, it supports us. And the Apostles obviously followed their own writings, regardless of whether those who soon followed did not on this issue.
Who would believe anything you say is wrong anyway after the following type of posts by you...
Thursday, May 15, 2008 4:20:27 AM · 1,218 of 1,394
Forest Keeper to Mad Dawg; Dr. Eckleburg; swmobuffalo
Mad Dawg- quoting the Catechism-1859 Mortal sin requires full knowledge and complete consent. It presupposes knowledge of the sinful character of the act, of its opposition to God's law. It also implies a consent sufficiently deliberate to be a personal choice. Feigned ignorance and hardness of heart133 do not diminish, but rather increase, the voluntary character of a sin.
FK-Now, have you EVER known of a person to go 10 years passing this test? :) I wouldn't even pretend to put myself on such a scale in terms of years, or even months, even weeks. And I'm a pretty decent guy! LOL! So, if even looking at a beautiful woman and just THINKING an unclean thought is adultery, then imagine what must count for bearing false witness. :) IOW, according to the Bible and the Catechism I don't see how anyone can go for this kind of time without what the Church calls grave sin.
Here you're preaching that thinking unclean thoughts are unattainable,thus promoting sin.
From
Why Evangelicals are Returning to Rome [Open]
Thursday, May 15, 2008 12:51:51 PM · 1,222 of 1,394
FK-””Obviously, if we die while carrying a grudge against someone, that isn't going to cost us our salvation.””
Here you have decided that God will not take away your salvation for for certain sins approved by you.
Saturday, May 17, 2008 6:13:48 AM · 1,244 of 1,394
Forest Keeper to stfassisi; Mad Dawg; Dr. Eckleburg; swmobuffalo
FK: “IOW, according to the Bible and the Catechism I don't see how anyone can go for this kind of time without what the Church calls grave sin.”
Here you convict everyone of committing a grave sin because it's not possible to live a life without committing a grave sin according to you.
It does not surprise me that you deny the power of Christ to be literally present in the Eucharist
I have learned to not pay attention to what people write or say ,but to rather pay attention to why they write or say certain things because it usually means they are hiding or trying to run away from something that is sinful.
Even worse, their pride has enveloped them to think they are always right!.
I will keep you in my prayers.
This is my last post on this thread.
You can freepmail me if you want a response to this if you wish.
No one should. :) Those were all solid posts based on Scripture and common sense.
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