‘The Eucharist,’ in the writings of Pope St. John Paul II, ‘is a sacrifice in the strict sense’
By Father Randy Stice
At the Last Supper, Jesus spoke of His impending death as a sacrifice. He offered His disciples His body “which is given for you” and His blood “which is poured out for you” (Luke 22:19-20)—He is offering them the sacrifice of His body “given” and of His blood “poured out.” In this column, I want to explore the Mass as a sacrifice, beginning with the biblical understanding of sacrifice.
Sacrifice was “the central act of Israelite worship”1 and consisted of three essential aspects: gift, expiation, and communion.2 Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross definitively fulfilled these three aspects of sacrifice, for “it completes and surpasses all other sacrifices.”3 First, Christ did not offer His Father a gift of an animal or vegetable sacrifice, he offered the Father Himself. He Himself was the gift: Christ “through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God” (Hebrews 9:14). Second, Christ’s sacrifice healed our broken relationship. Christ “gave Himself for our sins” (Galatians 1:4) as “the sacrifice of the New Covenant,” restoring us “to communion with God by reconciling [us]…through the ‘blood of the covenant, which was poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.’”4 Third, Christ’s sacrifice fulfilled the Old Testament sacrifice of communion. In the eucharistic banquet we receive Christ’s body and blood that “brings about in a sublime way the mutual ‘abiding’ of Christ and each of His followers: ‘Abide in me and I in you’ (John 15:4).”5
How is the sacrifice of the Mass related to the sacrifice on Calvary? Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary and His sacrifice in the Mass “are one single sacrifice: ‘The victim is one and the same…the same Christ who offered Himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross is contained and offered in an unbloody manner’” in the Mass.6 Christ is both the one who offers and the one who is offered. On Calvary and in the Mass, Christ is the one who offers: “It is Christ Himself, the eternal high priest of the New Covenant who, acting through the ministry of the priests, offers the Eucharistic sacrifice.”7 At the same time, Christ is the one who is offered—“it is the same Christ, really present under the species of bread and wine, who is the offering of the Eucharistic sacrifice.”8 Furthermore, the body of Christ offered on the cross and the body offered in the Eucharist are not different bodies. “In the Eucharist, Christ gives us the very body which He gave up for us on the cross, the very blood which He ‘poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins’ [Matthew 26:28].”9
The Mass as a true sacrifice has sometimes been a source of confusion and controversy. It can appear to contradict, for example, the teaching in Hebrews that Christ “offered one sacrifice for sins and took His seat forever at the right hand of God” (10:12), doing this “once for all” (7:27) and so “has perfected for all time those who are sanctified” (10:14). To say that the Mass is a true sacrifice seems to suggest that every celebration of the Mass repeats Christ’s one sacrifice offered once for all. However, to understand the teaching of the Catholic Church, it is necessary to understand the distinctive nature of Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection, known as the Paschal mystery.
The Paschal mystery of Christ is a unique historical event. “All other historical events happen once, and then they pass away, swallowed up in the past. The Paschal mystery of Christ, by contrast, cannot remain only in the past, because by His death He destroyed death, and all that Christ is—all that He did and suffered for all men—participates in the divine eternity, and so transcends all times while being made present in them all.”10 “The Eucharist is a sacrifice because it re-presents (makes present) the sacrifice of the cross.”11 At every celebration of the Mass the once for all sacrifice of Christ is made present, “celebrated, not repeated. It is the celebrations that are repeated.”12
The culmination of the eucharistic sacrifice is “the sacred banquet of communion with the Lord’s Body and Blood…the celebration of the Eucharistic sacrifice is wholly directed toward the intimate union of the faithful with Christ through communion.”13
Sacramental communion is inseparable from the re-presentation of Christ’s sacrifice. This is most clearly signified when all receive hosts consecrated at the same Mass. Priests must receive hosts and blood consecrated at the same Mass, but it is also “most desirable that the faithful…receive the Lord’s Body from hosts consecrated at the same Mass and that, in the cases where this is foreseen, they partake of the chalice, so that even by means of the signs Communion may stand out more clearly as a participation in the sacrifice actually being celebrated.”14
“The Eucharist,” wrote St. John Paul II, “is a sacrifice in the strict sense.” Christ’s sacrifice is “the gift of His love and obedience to the point of giving His life…for our sake, and indeed that of all humanity, yet it is first and foremost a gift to the Father, a sacrifice that the Father accepted, giving, in return…the grant of new immortal life in the resurrection.”15 When we receive this immense gift we make our own the words of St. Thomas Aquinas: “Godhead here in hiding, whom I do adore…Lost, all lost in wonder at the God thou art.”16
1 Raymond E. Brown, Joseph A. Fitzmyer, and Roland E. Murphy, eds., New Jerome Biblical Commentary (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1990), p. 1268.
2 NJBC, p. 1272.
3 Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 614.
4 CCC, no. 613.
5 Pope St. John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, no. 22.
6 CCC, no. 1367.
7 CCC, no. 1410.
8 CCC, no. 1410.
9 CCC, no. 1365.
10 CCC, no. 1085.
11 CCC, no. 1366.
12 CCC, no. 1104.
13 CCC, no. 1382.
14 General Instruction of the Roman Missal, no. 85.
15 Ecclesia de Eucharistia, no. 13.
16 CCC, no. 1381.
Father Randy Stice is director of the diocesan Office of Worship and Liturgy. He can be reached at frrandy@dioknox.org.