Daily Retreat 01/27/09
2009 Jan 27 Tue: Ordinary Weekday/ Angela Merici, v, rf
Heb 10: 1-10/ Ps 39(40): 2 and 4ab. 7-8a. 10. 11/ Mk 3: 31-35
From today’s readings: “We have been consecrated through the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all.... Here am I Lord; I come to do your will.... Whoever does the will of God is My brother and sister and mother.... ”
Once for all
The Epistle to the Hebrews stresses the definitive nature of the Lord’s redemptive sacrifice, emphatically classified, according to Hebrews 10:10, as “once for all.” Protestants have appealed to this clear biblical insistence as an objection to the Catholic teaching on the sacrificial nature of the Holy Mass, asking “Do you believe that Christ is re-sacrificed, or that the Mass adds something the unique, definitive sacrifice of Christ?”
The answer to both questions is “No” - no, Catholics do not believe Christ is sacrificed again at every Mass, nor do we believe that the Mass adds something lacking in the unique, definitive sacrifice of Christ. What the Church does teach, however, is that Holy Mass is the re-presentation of Christ’s sacrifice - not just a symbolic re-enactment, but a divinely dynamic, “making present,” a miraculous transcendence of time and space, a profoundly personal participation, precisely because Christ’s sacrifice is indeed “once and for all,” a historically anchored event that nevertheless has an everlasting immediacy and efficacy unconstrained by time.
At the Last Supper, Christ commanded His apostles to “Do this in memory of Me.” What was the “this” Christ commanded? Christ had taken bread and wine, and, in anticipation of His definitive sacrifice on the Cross, He changed the bread and wine into His Body and His Blood, offered up so that His followers could share personally and intimately in the communion of His once and for all sacrifice. The Mass is the consummation of Christ’s command, when the Church ever new fulfills the divine directive to “Do this in memory of Me.”
Heb 10: 1-10/ Ps 39(40): 2 and 4ab. 7-8a. 10. 11/ Mk 3: 31-35
From today’s readings: “We have been consecrated through the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all.... Here am I Lord; I come to do your will.... Whoever does the will of God is My brother and sister and mother.... ”
Once for all
The Epistle to the Hebrews stresses the definitive nature of the Lord’s redemptive sacrifice, emphatically classified, according to Hebrews 10:10, as “once for all.” Protestants have appealed to this clear biblical insistence as an objection to the Catholic teaching on the sacrificial nature of the Holy Mass, asking “Do you believe that Christ is re-sacrificed, or that the Mass adds something the unique, definitive sacrifice of Christ?”
The answer to both questions is “No” - no, Catholics do not believe Christ is sacrificed again at every Mass, nor do we believe that the Mass adds something lacking in the unique, definitive sacrifice of Christ. What the Church does teach, however, is that Holy Mass is the re-presentation of Christ’s sacrifice - not just a symbolic re-enactment, but a divinely dynamic, “making present,” a miraculous transcendence of time and space, a profoundly personal participation, precisely because Christ’s sacrifice is indeed “once and for all,” a historically anchored event that nevertheless has an everlasting immediacy and efficacy unconstrained by time.
At the Last Supper, Christ commanded His apostles to “Do this in memory of Me.” What was the “this” Christ commanded? Christ had taken bread and wine, and, in anticipation of His definitive sacrifice on the Cross, He changed the bread and wine into His Body and His Blood, offered up so that His followers could share personally and intimately in the communion of His once and for all sacrifice. The Mass is the consummation of Christ’s command, when the Church ever new fulfills the divine directive to “Do this in memory of Me.”
posted by FrPitstick | 1/26/2009
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