Of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass

WE have spoken of this Divine Sacrament and its admirable virtues and effects inasmuch as it is a sacrament; it remains now to speak of it as a sacrifice, a thing which the Holy Council of Trent commands preachers and pastors to explain to their flock, that all may understand the great treasure which Christ our Redeemer has left to His Church in giving us this sacrifice, and may know how to profit by it. From the beginning of the world, or at least after sin, even in the natural law, there always were sacrifices, and they were necessary to appease God, to pay Him reverence and honor, and recognize His infinite excellence and majesty. So in the Old Law God instituted priests and many sacrifices; but as the law was imperfect, so the sacrifices also were imperfect. They slew many animals in sacrifice, but that could not bring them to perfection. The priesthood of Aaron and its sacrifices were not enough to sanctify men and release them from their sins. Jt was impossible for sins to be taken away by the blood of bulls and goats, says the Apostle St. Paul (Heb. x. 4). It was needful that there should come another priest of the order of Melchisedech, that is, Jesus Christ, and that He should offer another sacrifice, that is, of Himself, which should be enough to appease God, sanctify men, and raise them to perfection. St. Augustine says that all the sacrifices of the Old Law signified and were a figure of this sacrifice; and that, as one and the same thing may be signified and conveyed to the understanding by divers words and in divers tongues, so this one true sacrifice was signified and prefigured long before by all that multitude of sacrifices, partly to commend it to us much and many times over, and partly by diversity and variety to take away the weariness that is caused by many repetitions of the same thing. God commanded that only clean animals should be offered Him in sacrifice, to the end that we might understand that, as those animals which they were to sacrifice should be free from flaws and defects of body and have no stain on them, so He Who was to come to offer Himself in sacrifice for us must have on Him no stain of sin. If those sacrifices were pleasing to God, as it is certain that for the time they were pleasing to Him, it was inasmuch as they were an acknowledgment and profession on the part of men that there was to come a Savior and Redeemer Who was to be the true sacrifice, and in virtue of that acknowledgment those sacrifices had their value for the time. But on the coming of the Savior and Redeemer into the world those sacrifices ceased to be pleasing to God, as the Apostle says: Entering into the world he says to his eternal Father: Sacrifice and oblation thou wouldst not, but a body thou hast prepared for me: holocausts for sin were not pleasing to thee, then said I, Behold I come. In the head of the book it is written of me that I should do thy will, O God (Psalm xxxix. 8; Heb. x. 5). God gave a body to His only-begotten Son that He might do the will of His Father by offering Himself for us on the Cross. So when He Who was prefigured came into the world, the shadow and figure ceased, and those ancient sacrifices ceased to be pleasing to God.

This, then, is the sacrifice which we have in the New Law, and which every day we offer in the Mass. Jesus Christ, true God and true man, is our sacrifice. He gave himself up for us an oblation and victim to God for an odor of sweetness (Eph. v. 2). These are no mere devout reflections, but facts taught us by faith. It is true that the Mass is a memorial and representation of the Passion and death of Christ, and so He said when He instituted this sovereign sacrifice: Do this in memory of me (Luke xxii. 19). But we must understand that it is not merely a memorial and representation of that sacrifice in which Christ offered Himself on the Cross to His eternal Father for our sins, but it is the same sacrifice which He then offered, and of the same value and efficacy. And, further, not only is it the same sacrifice, but also He Who offers now this Sacrifice of the Mass is the same Who offered that sacrifice on the Cross.

Thus as then at the time of His Passion Christ Himself was at once priest and sacrifice, so also now in the Mass Christ Himself is not only the sacrifice, but also the priest and pontiff who offers Himself every day in the Mass to the eternal Father by the ministry of His priests. And so the priest who says the Mass represents the person of Christ, and offers this sacrifice as His minister and instrument and in His name. This is well expressed by the words of consecration; for the priest does not say, This is the body of Christ, but, This is My body, as bearing the person of Christ, Who is the chief priest and pontiff who offers this sacrifice. And for this reason the Prophet David (Psalm cix. 4) and St. Paul (Heb. vii. 17, 21) call Him a priest forever according to the order of Melchisedech. And He would not well be called a priest forever if He offered sacrifice only once, but He is always offering sacrifice by means of His priests, and never ceases, nor will cease till the end of the world. Such was the priest and such the pontiff that we needed, says the Apostle (Heb. vii. 26; v. 7), one not like other priests, one under no necessity to beg God’s pardon first for his own sins, and then for those of his people, but one who should be heard for his dignity, and the reverence due to him—one who should appease God, not with the blood of others, but with his own.

Let us, then, now consider the contrivances of God and the art and wisdom of His counsels that He took for the salvation of men, and what He did to make this sacrifice in every way acceptable, agreeable, and efficacious. There being four things in a sacrifice—first, to whom it is offered; second, who offers it; third, what it is that is offered; fourth, why it is offered—the wisdom of God ordered this sacrifice in such manner and with such art that He Who offers this sacrifice, to reconcile us with God, is one with Him to Whom it is offered, and has made Himself one with those for whom it is offered, and Himself is that which is offered, as St. Augustine explains. So it came to be of such value and efficacy as to suffice to satisfy and appease God, not only for our sins, but for those of the whole world, and of a hundred thousand worlds, if such there were. He is the victim of propitiation for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for those of the whole world, says the Apostle and Evangelist St. John (I John ii. 2). And so theologians and saints say that this sacrifice is not only sufficient satisfaction and atonement for our debts and sins, but an altogether superabundant atonement; for that which is given and offered here is much more than the debt that we had contracted; and this sacrifice is much more agreeable to the eternal Father than the offense committed had been offensive. Hence also, though the priest be a wicked man and a sinner, not on that account does this sacrifice cease to profit and avail those for whom it is offered, nor is aught of its value and efficacy diminished; for Christ is not only the sacrifice, but also the priest and pontiff who offers it; as the alms that you give loses nothing of its virtue and merit, though you send it by the hands of a servant who is a wicked and sinful man.

The Council of Trent says (Sess. 22): “It is one and the same victim, and the same offerer, now offering by the ministry of priests, Who then offered Himself on the Cross; only the manner of offering is different.” The difference is, as the council goes on to explain, that what was offered on the Cross was a sacrifice in blood, by the shedding of blood, because Christ was then passible and mortal; but the Sacrifice of the Mass is an unbloody sacrifice, without the shedding of blood, because Christ rising from the dead dieth now no more; death shall no more have dominion over him (Rom. vi. 9).

The council goes on to say, as say also the evangelists, that Christ the Redeemer of the world, coming to be sacrificed and die on the Cross to redeem us, would not have His sacrifice end there, being as He was a priest forever (Heb. v. 5, 10), but would have His Church possess it, and the sacrifice to be permanent. And inasmuch as He was a priest according to the order of Melchisedech, who offered a sacrifice of bread and wine, it was proper that this sacrifice should remain to us under the species of bread and wine; and so at the Last Supper, the night in which He was to be traitorously given over, He took bread and gave thanks, divided it and gave it to His disciples (Matt. xxvi. 26; Mark xiv. 22; Luke xxii. 19; I Cor. xi. 23). In the very hour when men were contriving to put Him to death, He was contriving to give them life. He wished to leave to His spouse, the visible Church, a visible sacrifice, such as the nature of men required—a sacrifice which should not only represent and bring to memory the sacrifice offered in blood on the Cross, but should have the same virtue and efficacy as that had to forgive sins and appease God and reconcile us to Him, and which should be in fact the same sacrifice. So He consecrated His most holy body and blood under the appearances of bread and wine, converting the bread into His body and the wine into His blood, and under those appearances He offered Himself to the eternal Father. This the doctors say was the first Mass celebrated in the world. At the same time He ordained His disciples priests of the New Testament, and bade them and their successors in the priesthood to offer this sacrifice, saying: This do ye in memory of me (Luke xxii. 19).

For this reason some say that the Feast of the Most Holy Sacrament is the greatest of all the feasts of Christ our Redeemer that the Church celebrates; because the others are only a memory and representation, as the Incarnation, Nativity, Resurrection, and Ascension. The Son of God does not then become man, or be born, or rise again, or ascend into heaven; but this feast is not only a memory and representation, but Christ comes anew and is under the sacramental species every time the priest says the words of consecration; and every day there is offered in the Mass the same sacrifice that was offered when Christ our Redeemer died for us upon the Cross.

Let us here consider the great love of Christ for men, and the great debt that we owe Him, in that, not content with offering Himself once on the Cross for our sins, He would remain here in sacrifice, that we might have not once only, but many times, and every day till the end of the world, a well-pleasing sacrifice to offer to the eternal Father —a present so great and precious to present to Him to appease Him for our sins—a gift so precious and well-pleasing that greater there could not be. What would have become of the Christian people if we had not this sacrifice wherewith to appease God? We should have been like another Sodom and Gomorrah (Isaias i. 9); God would have leveled us to the ground and destroyed us, as our sins deserved. This, says St. Thomas, is the proper effect of sacrifice, to appease God thereby, according to the words of St. Paul: He offered himself for us to God as an oblation and victim unto an odor of sweetness (Eph. v. 2). As when on earth a man is appeased and pardons an injury done him in consideration of some offering or present that they make him, so this sacrifice and present that we make is so acceptable and agreeable to God as to be enough to appease Him, and warrant us to appear in His presence, and make Him regard us with loving eyes.

If on Good Friday, when the Redeemer of the world was crucified, you had found your way to the foot of the Cross, and some drops of His Precious Blood had fallen upon you, what consolation your soul would have felt! What strength you would have gathered! What hope so certain of your salvation you would have conceived! The thief, who all his life long had known no other trade but stealing, conceived such a great hope that of robber he turned saint, and of the cross he made paradise. Now the same Son of God, Who then offered Himself on the Cross, the same offers Himself now in the Mass for you, and this sacrifice is of the same value and efficacy as that; and so the Church says: “Every time this commemorative sacrifice is celebrated, the work of our redemption is enacted.” The great fruits of that sacrifice offered in blood are poured out and communicated to us by this bloodless offering.

So high and sovereign is this sacrifice that it can be offered to God alone. And the Council of Trent observes that, though the Church is accustomed to say Mass in reverence and memory of the saints, yet this Sacrifice of the Mass is not offered to the saints. And so the Church does not say, “I offer to thee, St. Peter, or St. Paul,” but it is offered to God alone, giving Him thanks for the victories and crowns which He has granted to His saints, and imploring their patronage, that they may intercede for us in heaven, since we honor and reverence them on earth.

Thus this divine mystery is not only a sacrament, like the other sacraments, but is at the same time a sacrifice. There is a great difference between these two concepts of sacrament and sacrifice. Its being a sacrifice consists in its being offered by means of the priest in the Mass. It is the received opinion of theologians that the essence of this sacrifice consists in the consecration of both species, and that it is then offered when the consecration is complete. As that sacrifice in blood was complete in the instant in which He offered Himself to the eternal Father for us on the Cross, so in the Mass, which is a true representation of that sacrifice and is identical with it, the sacrifice is essentially completed and offered in the instant in which the priest has done saying the words of consecration over the bread and over the wine. There and then, by force and virtue of those words, the body is in the host and the blood in the chalice. This consecration of the blood, which is done after the consecration of the body, represents to the life the shedding of the blood of Christ, and consequently the separation of His soul from His body, which ensued upon the shedding and separation of the blood from the body. Thus by the words of consecration there is effected the sacrifice that is offered, and by those same words the offering is done. But its being a sacrament is something permanent, after the consecration, so long as the species last, when it is kept in the tabernacle, when it is taken to the sick, when it is given in Communion, and it has not then the essence and virtue of a sacrifice.

There is another difference, that, as it is a sacrament, it profits the recipient like the other sacraments, giving grace and producing its proper effects; but as it is a sacrifice, it profits not only him who receives it, but also others for whom it is offered. So the Council of Trent observes that it was for these two objects and these two reasons that Christ instituted this Divine Mystery; the one that, as a sacrament, it might be sustenance to the soul, enabling her to preserve, restore, and renew her spiritual life; the other that the Church might have a perpetual sacrifice to offer to God for pardon and expiation of our sins, for a remedy in our needs, for a return and a thanksgiving for benefits received, and to win and obtain new graces and favors of the Lord. And it is not only a remedy and relief for the living, but also for the dead who die in grace and are in purgatory; all benefit by this sacrifice.

It is also a very consoling fact that the priest, when he says Mass, offers the sacrifice for himself and others, and at the same time all who are there hearing it offer along with him this sacrifice for themselves and others. As when a township makes a present to its lord, there come three or four men, and one alone speaks to him, but all bring the present and all offer it; so here the priest alone speaks and with his hands offers this sacrifice, but all offer it by the hands of the priest. It is true that there is a difference, inasmuch as in the example given, though they choose one spokesman, yet any one of them might have discharged that function; whereas it is not so in the Mass, for the priest alone, who is chosen by God for that purpose, can consecrate and do what is done in the Mass, but all the rest, who serve or assist at it, likewise offer this sacrifice. And so the priest himself says in the Mass: “Pray, brethren, to God that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable and agreeable to Almighty God.” And in the canon he says, pro quibus tibi offerimus vel qui tibi offerunt—“for whom we offer to Thee, or who themselves offer.” This should inspire much solicitude in all to hear or help at Mass, on which point we will enlarge in the following chapter.