The Sacrifice of the Mass
I remember once a dear Protestant friend of mine (actually, I used to be his pastor) invited me to his house along with his uncle who was very knowledgeable of the Bible. I just convert to Catholicism, and they were going to set me straight! I jumped at the chance to talk about the Lord, so I went, although I knew I would be ambushed – two against one. When we sat down, my friend’s uncle pulled out this verse.
The death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God
Romans 6:10
Then my friend's uncle raised his index finger up and said “Jesus died ONCE! See! The Bible said He died ONCE FOR ALL!”
I knew what He was getting at. This is a very common myth among Protestant Evangelicals – that we Catholics believe that Jesus dies all over again at every Mass. But this is absolutely not true! There is not a single Church document, ever, that taught that Christ dies at each
- There was the killing of victim
- There was the offering of the death of the victim to God
When we have the sacrifice of the Mass, we are not doing #1. That cannot be done again. Christ died once for all. That can never be repeated. The Catholic Church teaches that Christ died once for all. But what we are doing is #2, re-offering this one-time sacrifice of Christ on the Cross to God.
The Bible and the Early Church has taught that we are still to make offerings to God. That is what I would to now discuss.
The teaching of Bible
11 My name will be great among the nations, from the rising to the setting of the sun. In every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to my name, because my name will be great among the nations," says the LORD Almighty
Malachi 1:11
When I was a Protestant, I never heard any preacher give a sermon on this verse. I went through a Protestant seminary without ever this verse being dealt with. No wonder! From a Protestant perspective, this passage is a total embarrassment.
In this verse, God is saying that in the future from this Old Testament writing there will be a time when all nations will make a pure offering to God. But when was this fulfilled?
It could not have been fulfilled in the Old Testament. The Old Testament constricted all sacrifices to be done only by the Israelites at the Jewish Temple.
It cannot be done at the time of Christ’s second coming. Both Catholics and agree that no sacrifices are needed anymore after that.
So it must be now under the new covenant – the time between Christ’s first coming and Christ’s second coming. This passage is saying that all nations, at every place, there will still be sacrifices offered to God. This is only being done in Catholic churches throughout the world. All over the world, Jesus' one-time sacrifice is being re-offered to God.
18 And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was priest of God Most High.
19 And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth
Geneisis 14:18, 19
4 Jehovah hath sworn, and will not repent: Thou art a priest for ever After the order of Melchizedek
Psalm 110:4
20 whither as a forerunner Jesus entered for us, having become a high priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek
Hebrews 6:20
This was something that I could never understand as a Protestant – what does it mean that Jesus was a high priest in the order of Melchizedek? Was there some kind a club that Jesus and Melchizedek belonged to?
Not exactly! To understand this, we need to look at the first passage. It says that the Melchizedek took out bread and wine. Protestant scholars argue that this could have been just a meal. So not only was Melchizedek a king and a priest, he was also a chef??? I doubt this was the case. The Bible follows this immediately with him being a priest, as an explanation of the bread and wine. In the Old Testament, not only were animal sacrifices offered to God, but bread and wine offerings were offered as well (for bread offering, see Lev 7:13, Lev 21:6, Lev 24:7, 1 Chron 23:9. for wine offering see Exodus 29:40, Numbers 15:5, Deut 32:38, Hosea 9:4).
There were two kinds of sacrifices done in the Old Testament – an animal sacrifice and a bread-wine sacrifice. One was a bloody sacrifice, the other was an un-bloody sacrifice. The Protestants are right that the bloody sacrifices of bulls, goats, and lambs ceased with Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, being the ultimate bloody sacrifice for our sin. So the sacrifices of animals are no longer needed. But that does not mean that the un-bloody sacrifices are still not needed.
This is how Jesus is a high priest in the order of Melchizedek. Just as Melchizedek offered bread and wine to God, so does the Catholic Church teach that Christ within the human priest offers up the bread and wine, which is actually Himself, to God.
19 And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and gave to them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me
Luke 22:19
This verse puzzled me as a Protestant. I took it to mean the Lord’s Supper was instituted so that I would remember what Christ did for me on Cross. But as a memory tool, I found it wanting. I found a good sermon on the Cross to be far more helpful in stirring my memory to the Passion of Christ then eating a piece of bread and drinking some grape juice. I just didn’t get it. But then as a Catholic, I realized that Lord Supper was not intended for my remembrance, but for God’s remembrance.
In the Old Testament, God commanded the Israelites to make memorial sacrificial offerings to God, in the form of meals, where the element was made with “fine flour”.
2 and he shall bring it to Aaron's sons the priests; and he shall take thereout his handful of the fine flour thereof, and of the oil thereof, with all the frankincense thereof; and the priest shall burn it as the memorial thereof upon the altar, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savor unto Jehovah… 9 And the priest shall take up from the meal-offering the memorial thereof, and shall burn it upon the altar, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savor unto Jehovah
Lev 2:2,9
The same root word in Greek for a memorial , mnhsin, was used in these Old Testament passages as in the saying of Jesus. In the Old Testament, the Israelites were commanded to offer a meal to God, being a “sweet savor to God”, using bread of “fine flour”. At the Lord’s Supper, Jesus held up a piece of bread, tells them this is His blood as a memorial offering of Him (“remembrance, anamnhsin of me”). So what Jesus was saying was “Do this as a memorial offering of me”. It is not a memorial for us, but a memorial to God.
When we Catholics make a Eucharistic memorial offering to the Lord, we are in effect saying this:
Eternal Father, we offer to you the body and blood of Your precious Son, Jesus Christ, as an atonement for our sins, the sins of our family and friends, the wins of our country, and even the whole world. Forgive us all and have mercy on us. Do not look on our sins, but remember the new covenant you have made with us by Your Son’s death on the Cross.
Throughout the world, every hour, there is some Catholic Church that is performing Mass, calling on God to remember His promises of mercy instead of wrath. Without this, our world could not last. God has destroyed Sodom and Gomorah for far less sins that our society has now committed. Our own country has killed millions of unborn children, many in the 8th and 9th month of pregnancy. Atheism is on the rise. Without the sacrifice of the Mass, calling God to remember His new covenant with us, we would have been destroyed long ago.
This is serious stuff! But because Protestants and even many ignorant Catholics reject the Sacrifice of the Mass, the church service has devolved from being God-centered to man-centered. What matters is not that God’s wrath for sin has been satisfied, but whether we are satisfied. The church is just there to meet our needs. We sit in the pews and expect to be entertained. A person stops going to church because “I was just not being fed”. Many churches try to draw people in by having worship service with rock bands or liturgical bands. Or they try to attract people by having flamboyant preachers, or preachers who tell them that if they faithfully come to church (and give to the church) God will heal them, make them rich, or at least give them the “abundant life”. It all centers on us, rather than God.
But Jesus commands me to deny myself and the follow Him. I go to church because I must make the Eucharistic offering to God. It matters not whether I am getting fed or whether the sermon was boring. I am not going to get my needs met. I am going to continue to be right with God. But even more than that, I go so that my family, friends, and my country can be right with God. Every Mass is a perfect
Some may say “How can the Lord’s Supper be a reminder to God? Since God is God, how is it possible for God to forget?” That is true. God is all-knowing. So God could not ever forget anything. But this is a mystery. The Bible sometimes describes God in anthropomorphic language, figurative language. God’s ways are not our ways. We could not comprehend God as He is. The only way we can talk about God is in terms that we can relate. This is why the Old Testament talks about God remembering someone or something.
24 And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob Exodus 2:24
28 And Samson called unto Jehovah, and said, O Lord Jehovah, remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me Judges 16:28
50 Remember, Lord, the reproach of thy servants; How I do bear in my bosom the reproach of all the mighty people
Psalm 89:50
21 Do not abhor us, for thy name's sake; do not disgrace the throne of thy glory: remember, break not thy covenant with us... Jeremiah 14:21
In these passages, people called upon the Lord to remember them, or that God would remember His covenant with them. This does not mean at all that God is forget-full. The word “remember” in Hebrew thought does mean a calling to mind something you previously forgot. It means actively doing something based on a past event. When it says that God remembered His covenant, it means that God is actively doing something now because of something that happened in the past. In the same way, we Catholics at Mass are asking God to treat us now based on a past action – the one-time death of Christ on the Cross.
2 and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world 1 John 2:2
Both Catholics and Evangelical Protestants agree about Christ being the propitiation for our sins. We agree propitiation means the appeasement of God’s wrath. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We are all by nature children of wrath. Without God the Son coming down in the flesh, we had no hope of salvation. God said that the soul that sins shall die. But Christ the Son of God died for us in order to appease God’s wrath.
But our differences is that while Evangelical Protestants see the appeasement of God’s wrath as a past event, we Catholics see it as ongoing, and this is shown in the above verse – Christ IS the propitiation for sins. It is in present tense. In New Testament Greek, the present tense denotes a present, continual action (for discussions of this, go to http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=greek+present+tense&aq=0&oq=greek+present+&aqi=g5). The Greek word for “is” in this verse is "estin", which is the present tense of the word.
It does not say that Christ was the propitiation, or that Christ has been the propitiation, which would have denoted that God’s appeasement is in the past and a completed event. Instead, John writes that Jesus IS the propitiation. God satisfaction for our sins is not finished. Sin is too offensive to God for Him to be completely appeased as long as there is sin in us and in the world.
Evangelical Protestants will point to John 19:30, where Jesus said “It is finished” to show that God satisfaction of His justice has been completed on the Cross. But even they do not really believe that. Even they believe that we must individually accept Christ as our Savior. So how can they say that it is finished when each sinner must still do something? They probably would respond that our salvation was completely purchased for us on the Cross, but we must still individually apply that salvation to ourselves. That seems to me a little bit of splitting hairs, but if that is the way that they want to see it, that still fits in with the Catholic teaching of the
But I do not think that Jesus meant to say this when he said it is finished. The word “finished “ is telos, which means "end" or "fulfillment". The same Greek word is used in verse 28:
The Greek word “finished” is used twice – “all was finished” and “to fulfill (finish) scripture. Jesus’ mission of why He came to earth is accomplished. All the Old Testament verses about the suffering Messiah is accomplished. It does not mean our salvation is completed on the Cross. If salvation was completed on the Cross, there would be no need to turn to Christ or to preach the gospel at all. Everyone would be saved already.
Teachings of the Early Church Fathers
The Didache
"Assemble on the Lord’s day, and break bread and offer the Eucharist; but first make confession of your faults, so that your sacrifice may be a pure one. Anyone who has a difference with his fellow is not to take part with you until he has been reconciled, so as to avoid any profanation of your sacrifice [Matt. 5:23–24]. For this is the offering of which the Lord has said, ‘Everywhere and always bring me a sacrifice that is undefiled, for I am a great king, says the Lord, and my name is the wonder of nations’ [Mal. 1:11, 14]" (Didache 14 [A.D. 70]).
Notice how early this document was – AD 70! Many of the apostles would have been still alive at the time of this writing! Here, in the earliest non-Biblical document we have, we know two things about the church in the first century:
- They believed that the Eucharist was a sacrifice
- They saw the prophesy in Malachi (which I previously discussed) was fulfilled in the Eucharist
Clement I
"Our sin will not be small if we eject from the episcopate those who blamelessly and holily have offered its sacrifices. Blessed are those presbyters who have already finished their course, and who have obtained a fruitful and perfect release" (Letter to the Corinthians 44:4–5 [A.D. 80]).
Again, notice how early this letter was. It was written in the first century. We know that at least the Apostle John was still alive at the time of this writing. If Clement was writing heresy, why did John not correct it? Clement saw that the episcopate offered sacrifices. Protestants argued that all sacrifices ended because of the Cross of Christ. But both in the Didache and Clement’s letter stated that some kind of sacrificial offerings continued in the Church. And these were written when the apostles were still alive! If the apostles taught that all sacrificial offerigs were terminated at the Cross, how is it possible that their disciples so quickly abandoned their teachings?
Ignatius of Antioch
"Make certain, therefore, that you all observe one common Eucharist; for there is but one Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, and but one cup of union with his Blood, and one single altar of sacrifice—even as there is also but one bishop, with his clergy and my own fellow servitors, the deacons. This will ensure that all your doings are in full accord with the will of God" (Letter to the Philadelphians 4 [A.D. 110]).
Justin Martyr
"God speaks by the mouth of Malachi, one of the twelve [minor prophets], as I said before, about the sacrifices at that time presented by you: ‘I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord, and I will not accept your sacrifices at your hands; for from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same, my name has been glorified among the Gentiles, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure offering, for my name is great among the Gentiles . . . [Mal. 1:10–11]. He then speaks of those Gentiles, namely us [Christians] who in every place offer sacrifices to him, that is, the bread of the Eucharist and also the cup of the Eucharist" (Dialogue with Trypho the Jew 41 [A.D. 155]).
Irenaeus
"He took from among creation that which is bread, and gave thanks, saying, ‘This is my body.’ The cup likewise, which is from among the creation to which we belong, he confessed to be his blood. He taught the new sacrifice of the new covenant, of which Malachi, one of the twelve [minor] prophets, had signified beforehand: ‘You do not do my will, says the Lord Almighty, and I will not accept a sacrifice at your hands. For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is glorified among the Gentiles, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure sacrifice; for great is my name among the Gentiles, says the Lord Almighty’ [Mal. 1:10–11]. By these words he makes it plain that the former people will cease to make offerings to God; but that in every place sacrifice will be offered to him, and indeed, a pure one, for his name is glorified among the Gentiles" (Against Heresies 4:17:5 [A.D. 189]).
As I mentioned elsewhere, Irenaeus, was personally discipled by Polycarp, and Polycarp was discipled by the Apostle John himself. How is it possible that Irenaeus could have departed so quickly from John’s teachings?
Augustine
"In the sacrament he is immolated for the people not only on every Easter Solemnity but on every day; and a man would not be lying if, when asked, he were to reply that Christ is being immolated. For if sacraments had not a likeness to those things of which they are sacraments, they would not be sacraments at all; and they generally take the names of those same things by reason of this likeness" (Letters 98:9 [A.D. 412]).
"For when he says in another book, which is called Ecclesiastes, ‘There is no good for a man except that he should eat and drink’ [Eccles. 2:24], what can he be more credibly understood to say [prophetically] than what belongs to the participation of this table which the Mediator of the New Testament himself, the priest after the order of Melchizedek, furnishes with his own body and blood? For that sacrifice has succeeded all the sacrifices of the Old Testament, which were slain as a shadow of what was to come. . . . Because, instead of all these sacrifices and oblations, his body is offered and is served up to the partakers of it" (The City of God 17:20 [A.D. 419]).
Augustine is a bit later, but I included Augustine because many Protestant deeply respect him.
See http://www.catholic.com/library/Sacrifice_of_the_Mass.asp
So we see from both the Bible and the teaching of the Early Church that the Eucharist was a sacrificial offering to God. That does not mean that Christ is dying at every
This makes going to church so important to me. It is not just about what I get out of it, but what God gets out of it. This is why going to church is even more of matter than life and death. If I do not go to Mass, souls will go to hell, possibly even my own. This is why the Catholic Church teaches that it is a grave sin for the Catholic not to go to Mass at least every Sunday and on Holy Days of Obligation. Without the Mass, the benefits of the Cross are thwarted, God is no longer appeased. Jesus called us the salt of the earth. Salt is a great preservative - it prevents decay. If nobody went to Mass, this world would decay in its sins.
