I'm waiting for an answer to that, too. It is the most important question about the Eucharist in the Catholic Church beliefs.
"By the which will we are SANCTIFIED through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ ONCE FOR ALL...But this man, after he had offered ONE SACRIFICE FOR SINS FOREVER, sat down on the right hand of God...for by ONE OFFERING he hath perfected FOREVER them that are sanctified'. (Heb. 10:10,12,14).
If every time a Catholic sins, he fears separation from God, he is saying the death of Jesus Christ was not sufficient, and it becomes necessary for Him to die over and over again each and every time there is sin.
Hence the hideous nature of the Eucharist, whereby the body and blood of Christ becomes actual, every time the Eucharist is performed. Think about that. He only had to die ONCE for sin, FOREVER. The Catholic Church evidently thinks it's necessary for Him to die over and over. It's a perversion and a slap in the face of the FINISHED WORK OF CHRIST.
oops. Post 596 was for metmom, Quix, Pyro also.
INDEED.
THX.
While you wait for a Catholic answer I will ask your understanding of I Corinthians 11:28 in the section where Paul is instructing about the Lord's Table.
"But let a man examine himself...." If one has been born again and can never be separated from God, what is the point of this self examination? What good is it?
Here's the deal. You won't like it.
You get that "eternal" is not the same as "for ever and ever?" The old joke is "Time is God's way of keeping everything from happening all at once."
But, Whitehead to the contrary notwithstanding, God is eternal. Outside of time. Unchanging. He does not "foresee". He merely sees.
The sacrifices of the old, ahem, dispensation, were time bound. They "ran out." Men, creatures of time, sacrificed bullocks, sheep, goats, turtledoves, all creatures of time.
We should have compassion. As someone who has killed animals and watched humans die I say with all the authority I need, death is a mystery - a point of contact with that which is essentially greater than the whole order of creation. We can see, not only in Leviticus (for instance) but in our own hearts how somehow shedding blood, "spending" life (for the blood -dam, is the life - hay), would be hoped to be a way of contacting the Eternal. And we could see how that dispensation could of its essence not possibly be for ever.
But when He brings the first born into the world He says ... "But thou art the same, and thy years shall never end."
Jesus, the babe of Bethlehem, the young man of Nazareth, the corpse of Jerusalem ... is also the eternal God.
The sacrifice of Calvary is not just a point in time. It is the Epiphany of what God IS.
Even the currently and deservedly popular Scott Hahn gets this a little wrong when he talks about the "continual" sacrifice. It is NOT "continual". It simply is. Beyond time, where there is only now, God is pouring out what He is, for love. It is not forever. It is not continual. It just is.
Jesus is God and Man. What He "did" is not just "done" "then." It just is.
And so the, let's use the most scandalous language, "sacrifice of the Mass" is not a repetition, not a continuation.
The best way to say it MAY be this:
What simply IS
and therefore what is, in some sense, "everywhere and always"
was "there and then" in the Upper Room, on Calvary, and at the empty tomb, about 1,973 years ago
AND is "here and now" for us in this little piece of what looks like goldfish food in my hand.
Now you may not believe that. But you also may not say that we teach that we are adding to or repeating or anything like that to What God is and What God DID.
It is fun to live in the age of Science fiction and really cool stuff in movies, because we can imagine all sorts of weird stuff about time warps and unspeakable energies. But all that stuff is just the movies.
I like to think about Mary and Joseph bringing Jesus to the temple at his presentation and I imagine that, just below the threshold of hearing, the pillars and the walls were humming with incredible energy, as the Temple greeted Him whom it was built to honor.
But all that is to cheapen God. He is not only like the thunderstorm or the volcano. He is the still small voice, like the water which gently trickles in were we didn't even know there was a space for water.
So gently, humbly, He feeds us with the "accidents" of bread, and delights us with the accidents of wine, as He draws us most intimately into the life which rejoices in loving sacrifice.
When I eat THIS "bread"; when I drink this cup, He proclaims His Life in me, until he comes in Glory.
So that's kind of how we think of it.
I am weary of typing out my stories of how Catholics, Protestants, and others have fallen into the proclamation of a, what, LOUSYspel of law and guilt. What can I say?
TO someone who wants to know what is the least he can do to inherit eternal life, the Gospel seems like a burden. To me, confession, prayers, sacraments ... they're all wonderful gifts, like energy pods for pacman!
I can't help it if someone who thinks God is a jerk says stupid stuff about what it's like to be a Catholic. But it's not reasonable to expect me to be bound by the murmuring of such Israelites. I remember the bondage in Egypt. I remember the Red Sea when God fought for me and I had only to be still. I see in these things not burdens, but gifts.