The Eucharist and Its Sacrificial Nature

Recently, I gave a lecture on Eucharistic Adoration and its history and place in the spiritual life.  During the question-and-answer period, a person asked what I thought the greatest “mystery of faith” was.  I explained that during the Mass, it was not just the changing of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, but that the greatest mystery was that Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary was made present to us again.  As a result, we are able to consume the very flesh which died for us on Calvary in a way similar to but greater than the way the Israelites consumed the flesh of the Lamb which died for them at Passover because consuming Christ, our Paschal Lamb, brings spiritual life and not merely physical life.  This was news to some people in the audience who had never heard that the church teaches that Calvary, as well as the Last Supper and the Resurrection, is made present to us again on the altar.

A recent Pew Research Poll indicated that 70% of Catholics believe that the Eucharist is only a symbol of Christ.  The crisis is so severe that the Bishops of the U.S. have decided to have the first Eucharistic Congress in the U.S. in 80 years to be held this summer in Indianapolis.  As a result, this is the first in a series of articles that I will write on understanding the Eucharist.  So, it is necessary to first understand the object and goal of sacrifice.

            One question can help illustrate the nature of the Mass.  What makes the Catholic Mass different from Protestant worship services?  There are many similarities in our worship.  Both Catholics and Protestants sing.  Catholics and Protestants both pray.  Catholics read from the Scriptures as do the Protestants.  Catholic priests preach and Protestant ministers preach as well.  And herein lies the clue of how they are different.  A priest versus a minister.  What is the primary role of a priest?  What did the priests of the Old Testament do that no other lay person could do?  The answer to both of these questions is to offer sacrifice.  This is how the Catholic Mass differs from Protestant worship services.  The priest offers a sacrifice at Mass, while no sacrifice takes place in Protestant churches.  I will write about this more in the future, but our starting point for understanding the Eucharist is to understand sacrifice in its proper sense.

            We offer many kinds of worship to God, our adoration, thanksgiving, petitions, and contrition.  But all these find their deepest meaning and greatest value when united with sacrifice.  Sacrifice is a special kind of worship.  By sacrifice we mean the offering to God of a visible object, effected through any change, (i.e. its transformation or destruction), that acknowledges God's absolute sovereignty and our total dependence upon and obedience to God.

            So, the first point in understanding the Eucharist as sacrifice is that a sacrifice in its proper sense is a visible object offered to God that is either transformed or destroyed.  If our offering to God is not changed or destroyed, it is not a sacrifice, but a religious gift called an oblation.  At Mass the visible objects of bread and wine are offered and their change is brought about by the power of the Holy Spirit through the priest as he says, "may your Spirit come upon these gifts to make them holy, that they may become for us the Body and Blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ."

In the Old Testament sacrifices consisted of lambs, goats, heifers, doves, bread, wine, oil, salt and incense.  But these gifts were offered in place of what was the most noble of all visible creation – that which was created in the image and likeness of God – human life.  It is clear from the story of Abraham, whose hand was prevented from sacrificing his son Isaac, that human sacrifice was unacceptable – at least until the perfect human sacrifice, the unblemished Lamb of God, could be offered.  Until Christ could offer himself in sacrifice, humans could only sacrifice those objects which sustained their life.  Objects without defect, offered with the proper interior disposition, contributed to a more acceptable sacrifice to God than those sacrifices of lesser quality.

            The goal of a sacrifice was fourfold.  There were sacrifices of adoration, thanksgiving, petition, and atonement for sins.  While a person offering the sacrifice may have had one of these four goals in view, he did so without excluding the other goals.  So, every sacrifice, for whatever reason, brought about all four ends, (i.e. glorifying God, giving thanks for gifts received, petitioning for new gifts and satisfaction for sins).

            Is this not what happens at Mass?  In the one sacrificial act of Christ, who is without defect (sin) and properly disposed (true love), made present on our altar, we glorify God, give thanks, offer petitions and make atonement for our sins.  Now if the entire Old Testament both prepares for and foreshadows the promise of the Messiah, does it not make sense that its most important act of worship, that of sacrifice, should find its fulfillment in Christ as well?  As the author of the book of Hebrews taught, the Old Law with its sacrifices was "only a shadow of the good things to come" (10:1).  Those good things are nothing less than the graces that Christ acquired for us through his sacrificial death.  For this reason, the ancient sacrifices were only shadows of the great atoning sacrifice of Redemption Christ won on the cross and in which we participate at Mass.