Myth Busters: Catholics Re-Sacrifice Christ

Is this...

...incompatible with this?

First, let me clear the air by saying that the Catholic Church has never, does not, nor will she ever teach that the Mass sacrifices Christ over again. Don't think that the Catholic Church's position has anything to do with Protestants "finding us out". Instead, Catholics claim that they do not re-sacrifice Christ because some Protestants believe that Catholic teaching must of necessity lead to the logical conclusion that we re-sacrifice Christ. As one example, over at the so called "Christian Apologetics Research and Ministry (CARM)" website, they claim:

We certainly do not want to misrepresent Roman Catholic theology (I bet they stay up at night worried about that), but we must ask how it is possible for the Mass to not be a re-sacrifice of Christ when the Mass is called a divine sacrifice (CCC, 1068) that is done over and over again.  We are told that "the sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice"; (CCC, 1367); that it is an unbloody offering that is propitiatory, (CCC, 1367); that it can make reparation of sins, (CCC, 1414); and is to be considered a true and proper sacrifice (The Catholic Encyclopedia, topic: "Sacrifice of the Mass").  We must conclude that it is a sacrifice that occurs over and over again and since it is said to be a true and proper sacrifice that is propitiatory, then logically it must be a re-sacrifice of Christ.  If it is not, then how can it be called a sacrifice of Christ?  Also, how could it be propitiatory if it is not a sacrifice of Christ since it is Christ's offering on the cross that is itself propitiatory?

The crux of the "logic" of the conclusion is in the question "how is it possible" (and when apparently to CARM it goes unanswered), then logically "it must" follow that Catholics "re-sacrifice Christ". The "logic" goes as follows:

1. Catholics call every Mass a sacrifice
2. There is "one single sacrifice"
3. Since I cannot figure out how #1 and #2 are compatible*
4. Therefore, the Mass because it happens more than once "pretends" (they would have to believe this) to re-sacrifice Christ

Using this same "logic", let's try another Biblical truth:

1. God says that he is not a man (Num 23:19; and it is fairly obvious that since God is outside of creation he is not a man), and Jesus calls himself a man.
2. Christians say that Jesus is God
3. Since I cannot figure out how #1 and #2 are compatible*
4. Therefore, Jesus is not God because God is not a man and Jesus is a man

Notice that the crux of the "logic" in both is #3. It is in our understanding not, per se, in the thing itself. In other words, in both cases, if one could understand how #1 and #2 are compatible, then #4 is not true.

How does any Christian appropriate the body and blood of Christ?

This is an important question because when examined closely, I think I can show that any Christian practice that implies salvation or the remission of sins that is done over and over again (excluding baptism which is done once), using the same "logic" wielded against Catholics, will prove that they either (1) re-sacrifice Christ or (2) do not participate with Christ's sacrifice or (3) are playing pretend. I will then try to show how the logic of the Mass as a sacrifice proves that it (1) does not re-sacrifice Christ, (2) is a real, sacramental and supernatural participation with the one sacrifice of Christ, and (3) is not a pretend show.

"Jesus, forgive me of my sins, come into my heart, be the Lord of my life. Amen"

"What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus"

"I have faith in Jesus as the only sacrifice for my sins, therefore I am saved"

How, I might ask, does this happen? In the O.T. passover meal, the lamb that was slaughtered, whose blood was put on the lintel, was cooked and the Israelites consumed it. They participated in the sacrifice through partaking of the lamb that was slain. Moreover, the passover was a memorial of the "One Passover", on the night that Israel came out of Egypt. The parallels are obvious, but the analogy is incomplete because the passover only prefigures and foreshadows what Christ truly is: the Lamb of God.

Christian non-Catholics believe that Christ's sacrifice is the only sacrifice that can save them. True. Yet, how do they appropriate this sacrifice, personally?

"By faith, of course," the ready Protestant quickly replies.

Okay, great. So what does your faith appropriate?

"The forgiveness of sins."

How are your sins forgiven?

"By the sacrifice of Christ."

So, let me ask you a question. If your faith appropriates forgiveness, do you receive that forgiveness in the present? In other words, when you ask for forgiveness or appropriate the mercy of God, do you experience today, and then when you appropriate it on another day, do you experience it then?

"Sure"

Here's my problem. To appropriate the sacrifice of Christ daily, necessarily requires that somehow there is a real participation in Christ's sacrifice. However, according to the Protestant "logic", it cannot be known how that is possible. Therefore, every Protestant must be re-sacrificing Christ.

I can literally hear the objections screaming in my ear. So keep reading before you leave a comment. The escape goat for the Protestant is that they do not say that their act of faith is a "sacrifice", therefore and unlike the Catholic, they do not re-sacrifice Christ again. What I say is that if it is a real-participation then it must, in essence, share in nature with what it is participating.

When have you ever participated in something and not been doing what you participated in?

According to the Protestant "logic" they must be re-sacrificing Christ if they are truly participating in His sacrifice. If the "logic" is bad, then they are not truly participating in the sacrifice of Christ. If they are not truly participating in the sacrifice of Christ, then they are just pretending to participate in the sacrifice of Christ.

In order to get this all worked out, we have to demonstrate how these two propositions are compatible (bearing in mind that the Protestant does not believe they are, does not call their participation a sacrifice, and thus the resolution only bears on the necessary conclusion regarding the Mass):

1. Catholics call every Mass a sacrifice
2. There is "one single sacrifice"

Let us return to the Last Supper. I have seen it argued that it is not possible that our Lord was asking them to partake of his body and blood. This, according to the argument, would have been against the "Bible", a pagan practice, and our Lord could have simply cut off a piece of his flesh and given it to them instead. Again, one could make a similar argument against the Incarnation. God becoming man is "against the Bible", more in line with the pagan view of deities, and God could have simply saved us another way. Both arguments fail to understand who Christ is, and instead of submitting to the revelation of God in the person of Christ, both arguments affirm only what makes sense to our natural intuition.

Who is Christ? He is truly God. The God who prefigured His Son's coming through a passover meal that was eaten, over and over again, for 1,300 of years. Yet, the blood of lambs and goats could not bring us salvation. Salvation comes through the Lord. His sacrifice on the cross is the definitive, once and for all sacrifice that brings remission of sins. How do we participate in this? Pope Benedict XVI in God is Near Us, says that the Last Supper and Calvary have an inextricable link to each other. At the Last Supper, the cup is the cup of his blood, the blood of the covenant. The bread is his body, which is broken for us. Without Calvary, the Last Supper was simply a meal. Without the Last Supper, Calvary appears for us only an execution.

What was prefigured in shadows in the Passover, is made real in the Last Supper. Christ institutes the new meal, and in that meal we are again asked to eat. However, unlike the lamb in our first exile whose flesh merely pointed forward to the coming King, the new Lamb is given to us in the Eucharistic feast during our exile from earth to heaven, and unlike the Passover's dramatic effect, the Eucharist is a real, supernatural participation with our crucified and risen Lord with a real effect correlative to its eternal and supernatural cause.

When John is taken up to heaven in the book of Revelation, he sees our Lord "looking as if [he] had been slain" (Rev 5:6). Christ was not "slain again", but rather his once and for all sacrifice perpetually and eternally acts, securing his perpetual and eternal victory over death, hell and the grave (Rev 1:18). 

As a supernatural participation in that sacrifice, the Eucharist must be a sacrifice. Qua supernatural, Christ's sacrifice is not subjected to the limits of time, but transcends time. Yet when we speak of the Eucharist we use language that is natural and supernatural. We act in time and space, but Christ's action transcends time and space. We speak of it as a singular sacrifice, yet we do it again and again, and therefore we can say there are millions of Eucharistic sacrifices offered throughout the world every year, the cause of which is the One Sacrifice.

The Mass is a sacrifice precisely because it shares essentially in the unique, once-and-for-all Sacrifice of calvary. The "how" is supernatural, and the "why" is explained in our Lord's words at the Last Supper. The cup he held was truly "the blood of the new and everlasting covenant", and the words he gave the Apostles--"it is poured out" (present participle-ἐκχυννόμενον)--existentially links the Eucharistic miracle with the eternal "present" of the sacrifice of Calvary.

As the Catechism teaches:

The Holy Sacrifice makes present the one sacrifice of Christ the Savior and includes the Church's offering. The terms holy sacrifice of the Mass, "sacrifice of praise," spiritual sacrifice, pure and holy sacrifice are also used, since it completes and surpasses all the sacrifices of the Old Covenant. CCC 1330

And regarding the Catholic priest, acting in the person of Christ (in persona Christi):

"In the sacrifice of the Mass they make present again and apply, until the coming of the Lord, the unique sacrifice of the New Testament, that namely of Christ offering himself once for all a spotless victim to the Father." From this unique sacrifice their whole priestly ministry draws its strength. CCC 1566

Calvary is not a spectator event. We must truly come to the foot of the cross. In the natural, time travel is impossible. Christ, as our lover, is not content with just sending us love notes nor was he interested in instituting another ineffective ritual. He wants to give himself to us, and he does this through his Sacrifice at calvary in the supernatural unbloody sacrament of the Holy Eucharist.  

Mass is not theater. It is reality. We come to calvary to drink from his side, and eat from the Tree of Life. The Mass is a true participation in his sacrifice, and therefore must be described as a true sacrifice. Through the Catholic priesthood, Christ enjoins us to himself, allows us to offer--through his Sacrifice--our bodies as a living sacrifice, which is our acceptable act of worship (Rom 12:1). As Catholics, we do not re-sacrifice Christ. Instead, we truly participate in that sacrifice, and proclaim his death until he comes in glory.

"For from the rising of the sun even to the going down, my name is great among the Gentiles, and in every place there is sacrifice, and there is offered to my name a clean oblation: for my name is great among the Gentiles, saith the Lord of hosts."-Malachi 1:11

good articles on the Mass as a Sacrifice:
NewTheologicalMovement
CalledtoCommunion
Catholic Answers

Divine Liturgy as the Protoevangelium

Like a growing number of Christians in the modern world, I grew up without liturgy. By liturgy, I do not mean a vague outline of a worship service--maybe written down or maybe not--whereby the service can get from point A to point B. That can be liturgy, if by liturgy we mean merely order of worship.

If I meant merely an order of worship, no Christian would contend (with exception of the Quakers). Even in raise your eye-brow, shout until your throat hurts, camp-meeting revival-thons there is some type of order. I preached a revival or two in my day, and the method was always very similar yet it always reached the most awkward moment where everyone kind of did this:

"Watcha gonna say?"

Eerie.

What I am getting at is something very different.

Throughout my journey, I came to these moments where something I didn't notice before emerged on my radar in such a way that I couldn't ignore it. Like a German panzer, Truth can be a clear and present danger especially when it threatens to terminate what you held previously as a sacred cow. The sacred cow for me was the vestments of the low-church. I was one part John Wesley and two parts Billy Sunday and Hillsong United. Then the thought occurred to me:

How is it that every Christian community that claims antiquity for its origins worships the same way? not like me! 

By the same way I mean, of course, in a manner unfitting for the times, un-fad like, timeless, always beckoning to a time gone past yet radically contradicting the fleetingness of the present. More specifically, all of them possess an internal logic and rythme that bespeaks of a common origin.

Quiz: Which of these doesn't fit?

Maronite Liturgy-Syria

Eastern Liturgy-Greece

Coptic Liturgy-Egypt

Latin Liturgy-Rome

???-USA

My dear undergraduate mentor, Dr. Daniel Thimell, had in a conversation mentioned that liturgy was a way that we showed deference to our forebears. They died for the faith we enjoy. That seemed reasonable, and at that time gave me a nostalgic affection for liturgy in the same way one might have affection for an old photograph.

Yet this new sense had stirred something in me much more than any antique could. It caused me to ask some tough questions, most obviously...

Was the presence of Divine Liturgy on the earth: in Egypt, the Middle East, Russia, Jerusalem, and so on evidence that before there was the written word, worship existed--not just any kind of worship, but worship taught by our Lord? Was the liturgy the protoevangelium (first gospel)?

This portended so much, but I had to retain some modicum of skepticism. If the Divine Liturgy preceded the written word, and was in someway contradictory to it, wouldn't it be reasonable and consonant with the Scriptural witness to either (a) find a place in Scripture that contradicts or undermines it as a false practice or (b) upon the Church receiving Scripture, these novel innovations of worship (or at best local adaptations of man's effort to worship "Christian-style") would become obsolete?

Yet we possess Scripture and neither Scripture denounces it nor the emergence of Scripture made it extinct. Startling.

What we do have is the Divine Liturgy--East and West--proclaiming the Gospel in sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste. Sensuous creatures that we are, equipped with reason whose faculty accesses only those things which are first in the sense, receive in the Divine Liturgy incarnational worship--Christ's worship. Thus, it will not acquiesce to any movement to supplant it because it's origin is Divine.

The Divine institution of the liturgy makes it, like the Gospel, indestructible. To war against it, to seek to subdue it, will be the cause of one's own inevitable destruction. If the Gospel is the good news of salvation to humankind, and the Divine Liturgy is the protoevangelium, then in the words of Father Z:

"Save the Liturgy, Save the World."

Liturgical No-No #2: Guitars in The Mass

Ibanez S-Series, Floyd Rose tremolo with
double humbuckers (custom)

I am not the official Mass police nor is there such a thing. This post is a follow up to "Liturgical No-No: Applause in The Mass" where I considered whether or not it is appropriate to laude praise upon Mass participants during the occasion when the Creator of the Universe gives Himself to us--Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity--under the humble species of bread and wine.

I think it is providential that God would call Protestants of all stripes home to His Church. I am constantly overwhelmed by the feeling of being a poor beggar who by a graceful chance stumbled upon an invitation to a Wedding Feast. Yet on another level, God always acts not just for our own good but in His inestimable wisdom and power orders our actions toward a kind of cosmic good. This was a profound insight that was influential in the conversion of Edith Stein (who became St. Theresa Benedicta of the Cross--see Finite and Eternal Being). Our past, both good and bad, is not a dull tool in the hands of the Master. Instead, former Protestants are witnesses to those who have always known Mother Church as their own of the road too broadly traveled. So to speak, we have been there and done that.

Taylor 410-CE:
 Another one
of my beauties

The picture above is of one of my guitars. I've been a musician for 22 years. I've played in front of thousands of people, had a demo CD and recorded in studios. I've put on massive productions for Easter and Christmas. I even played in a black-gospel group that covered songs from musicians like John P. Kee and Fred Hammond. During one of my pit stops in Protestantism, I was the lead guitarist at a huge mega-church. You can see their stuff here. I mention this so as to eliminate the possibility in one's mind that I have no idea what I'm talking about or that I cannot relate in the least to what it means to play the guitar in a Christian worship setting. 

Clue: If it becomes a
popular console game
it probably wasn't ever
suitable for Holy Mass

Let me lay to rest a myth. The guitar is not as popular as it is today because Michael the Archangel appeared to Elvis Presley tapping out a previously unknown arpeggio. No. The guitar as we know it today provides us with entertainment because Jimmy Hendrix had inordinately large hands and Kurt Cobain made the grotesque grotesquely popular. It is a part of what our Holy Father calls the "cult of the banal"--the industrialized world of ever churning and burning fads.

I realized this 12 years ago.

Why?

You are some kind of prude, aren't you?

Not at all. I've just been there and done that.

Pay attention. Next time you hear music, especially next time you are in the presence of live instruments watch for the guitar. You can't miss it. It wasn't made nor has it evolved to its place within the family of instruments to be ignored. I'll never forget when I had a gentlemen come up to me after a "praise and worship" service. He was "blown away" with how awesome the worship was. Yet what had been evoked wasn't worship of God but rather the "elemental passions" of self-affirmation: he had boots on and I played a country rift in the bridge of a Delirious? song.

Navel gazing. Catholics, we don't want to go there.

The Holy Mass is God's descent upon us. It replays salvation history and then, unlike it's impotent Old Testament forebear, brings salvation to us--the sacrifice of Calvary via the Eucharistic sacrifice. The bloody tree is now our bloodless gift. 

Bottom line, if you wouldn't do it at the foot of the Cross, don't do it in Holy Mass.

*For more on Pope Benedict XVI and liturgy go here or you could buy his book The Spirit of the Liturgy. 

UPDATE: Due to a comment made, I want to be clear that this is a reflection and not my canonical decree. Since I am incapable of the later, I want you to know that I'm not flying solo on the former. Cardinal Arinze made a similar observation here.

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Liturgical No-No: Applause in The Mass

Let me first say that I am not a raddie traddie, don't know latin, like it some but have never actually been to a have only been to two Extraordinary Form Masses, and you won't catch me going around saying, "Quid agis, canis?"

Yet I have a real problem with clapping at the end of the Mass. Thinking about this for some time, I finally figured out an analogy that works:

Clapping in The Mass is like clapping in a wedding.

Imagine at the end of a wedding there was applause, but the applause was not for the bride and groom. Instead, the priest asked the solo violinist who did a great job during the wedding to come up to the front and everyone applauds him, followed by applause for the ring bearer, flower girl and a rousing round of high-fives for the groomsmen who did such a good job standing still. By this time the new bride and groom are slouching their heads but the priest, in dramatic fashion, pronounces a blessing, the music starts and they all process out--unsure as to what they are now celebrating or even celebrated (two groomsman are still doing a fist bump for the extraordinary job they did).

At the end of the Mass, take some time to give thanks to the Groom who just gave Himself miraculously to you and celebrate the success of the bake sale another time.

Or in the words of our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI:

"Wherever applause breaks out in the liturgy because of some human achievement, it is a sure sign that the essence of liturgy has totally disappeared and been replaced by a kind of religious entertainment."

(Update: Due to a comment on this post, I want to be clear that I am not talking about clapping for God but rather clapping for man. Further, one can confuse the two and I've talked about that here.)

You can check out a follow up post here.

Mass 201: It's Not About You and It's Really that Simple

As a follow up to my post "Mass 101: It's Jesus and It's Really that Simple", and in response to a thread over at the blog Called to Communion about ecclesial consumerism, I feel compelled to talk about worship. As Catholics, we call this "The Mass" or we often refer to it as the Eucharistic "Celebration".

Maybe the term "celebration" got us confused. It's not The Mass's fault, but rather the poor devolution of the term celebration in our society. If you look at the etymology of the word celebration, you can plainly see the religious connotation. However, today the word celebration typically implies something we are doing for ourselves. We celebrate birthdays, super bowls, or a graduation. We mail out cards, plan games, buy drinks, etc. These are really fun times, times when we feel close to the people around us, times of real community.

Then there is The Mass. Some say The Mass can be kind of boring, or that people don't feel connected, or that priests can be too focused on what they are doing or that in general it could use some updating.

I'm thinking balloons and a good DJ.

Let the worship begin!

So, what is worship anyway? The Hebrew word for worship is transliterated avodah. It literally means work or service. Doesn't sound like a backyard barbecue does it?

Let me point this out, The Mass is a lot of things, for starters it's about Jesus and it's really that simple, but secondly it's not about you and it's really that simple.

It is a celebration, but not for you or I. We do celebrate but not with us in mind. The veil has been torn, the throne of grace is available to us, and in the Mass we celebrate that salvation has come to men. Or rather, we celebrate that God became man, dwelt among men, and we can now behold the face of God. That's why we do all those "boring" readings. It gives us an opportunity to enter into the historical and existential reality of God coming to us--his movement and condescension.

Then there is this turning. Where nothing we can do could make it truly come to pass. Only by the gift of Christ, the power of the Holy Spirit and through the authority vested in the Church can we receive the gift. I am, of course, speaking of the Holy Eucharist. It is there that we enter into the mystery of Calvary, that we partake of the divine nature as St. Cyril of Jerusalem instructs, it is the Body and Blood of God. He becomes our paschal lamb and we partake of him not as in a type or shadow of salvation but for our salvation (John 6:53). We are not a part of a cosmic foreshadowing like the Israelites in Egypt as the death angel passes over, but rather we experience what that was anticipating. The Creator of the universe stoops so low as to allow us: creature, fool, sinner, beggar, finite, pathetic partake of uncreated, wisdom, sinless, omnipotent, and infinite. And so we begin this work with "Kryie Eleison!"

If you don't get anything out of that, if you find the local pub, party, or picnic more spiritually nurturing than The Mass, if you can't help but nod off during the readings, roll your eyes at the incensing, or check an email during the homily, I suggest you re-read the above paragraph, pray, and ask the Lord to help you experience His descent, His condescension to us and resist that age old tendency to want to ascend, like at the Tower of Babel, brick by brick in our own way to God. Let us not be confused that we will only meet ourselves at the summit of that journey. He has given us the way in the Holy Liturgy, let us simply work at allowing it to envelope us with His infinite mercy.