The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass

      On Sunday two weeks ago, a young woman approached me after a baptism I administered and began to challenge the Catholic belief concerning this Sacrament.  She claimed to be a “biblical Christian.”  Strange, though, that in our short and polite debate, it was I who was quoting Scripture and she simply reasserting her belief.  I imagine, then, that this woman was also the one who left a note on the choir lectern that read, “What sacrifice of ours is God supposed to accept?  God already accepted Christ's sacrifice about 2000 yrs. ago.  It's disgusting & perverted to ask...."

      Well, at least she paid enough attention to the Liturgy of the Mass to notice its sacrificial intention; but one could only hope that such people would learn to pay more attention to the Bible, which they claim as their sole religious authority.  As in the case of baptism, I can guarantee that this young woman would be ill-prepared to deal with the biblical evidence for what we Catholics do at Mass.  In fact, as I have noted before, most of these people eager to attack Catholic belief are not at all very well grounded in the Scriptures; on the contrary, they have been taught a simplistic view of the Bible, which entails the memorization of a view choice passages that they force-fit into their pre-conceived view.  They are surprised, and at a loss, when they are confronted with a Catholic who really does know the Scriptures, and they are reduced to a stubborn stance of simply reasserting carefully memorized lines that, they say, represent the real Christian view. 

      The point about Catholic baptism that dismays this young woman is the Church’s two-thousand year old insistence, following the teaching of the New Testament, that baptism is necessary for salvation (even as the Church also teaches that the full effects of the Sacrament of Baptism may be received in rare circumstances apart from having gone through the rite itself:  as in the case, for example, of a catechumen – one intending to come into the Church and preparing for that day – who dies before baptism; the bestowal of God’s grace, after all, is not limited to the Sacraments, but is made certain by them).  There are any number of scripture passages that could be cited as the basis for Catholic practice, but perhaps the strongest is Peter’s words at the end of his Pentecost sermon, when his hearers asked him and the other Apostles, “Brethren, what shall we do?”  And the Apostle answered, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins” (Acts 2:37, 38). 

      But the Mass, as always, is the real bone of contention.  This young woman found it “disgusting” and “perverted.”  Strong words from someone who most likely has not a clue about what Catholics really believe.  No matter:  she forges ahead anyway, without the slightest inkling that in a real sense Catholics wholeheartedly agree with her insistence that Christ’s is the only acceptable sacrifice to God the Father, but who also insist that the Mass, in accordance with constant Catholic teaching and practice, is precisely that sacrifice! 

      This brings us back to those recently read passages, at Mass, from St. John’s Gospel, chapter 6, where our Lord made some astonishing and mysterious statements, where He entitled Himself as “the Bread of Life,” and went on to claim that “if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.”  Clearly, here we are dealing with sacrifice.  But many of Jesus’ hearers murmured at this, and our Lord only intensified His claim:  “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.  For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.  He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him.” 

      At this many of Christ’s would-be followers deserted Him, claiming disbelief in the possibility of such eating and drinking of flesh and blood.  Jesus’ closest followers, however, remained with Him, even if they, at this point and time, could not really grasp the intent of such shocking words, the full meaning of which would only become clear to them in the Upper Room, the night before Christ’s arrest and crucifixion.  And what were Jesus and His disciples doing in that Upper Room the night before He offered Himself on the Cross?  They were celebrating the Passover, the holy remembrance of the Jewish people of that night in Egypt before their Exodus, when they sacrificed a lamb, marked their doorways with its blood, and together, standing at table in preparation of their flight to freedom, they ate of its flesh.  In the very midst of this memorial, sacrificial meal, Jesus all of sudden makes what He proclaimed in John 6 startlingly clear:  He answers all the questions about how He could give us His flesh to eat and His blood to drink with the simple gesture of lifting up a piece of bread and saying, “This is my body which is given for you.  Do this in remembrance of me.”  And he did likewise with the cup. 

      That’s the Mass – our doing what He commanded in remembrance of Him – and it is, obviously, sacrificial.  We eat of His body and drink of His blood by means of the Sacrament of the Eucharist, which is a Sacrifice because it is Christ Himself.  The Holy Mass, then, is the sacrifice of Christ on Calvary re-presented every time we gather in the “Upper Room” to remember Him, to celebrate His Eucharistic Presence with us, and to imbibe His very life as He Himself described in John 6.  The Mass makes present what was accomplished for us on Calvary, His giving that Bread which is His flesh for the life of the world.  And not only makes present, but also is the means of our sharing in His life, offered for the world and raised up for our redemption and salvation.  There is only one sacrifice effective for us:  Christ’s, and the Mass is the occasion of the never-ending, in this world, lavishing upon us of all that our Lord accomplished for us.

      It’s a pity that this young woman finds this “disgusting” and “perverted,” but that’s because she does not understand what she is dismissing.  It would, no doubt, really surprise her – and all those of her persuasion – that this has been the constant belief and practice of the Christian Church ever since Christ established her as the visible means of carrying on His work of redemption; it would surprise her, I believe, if she were to discover the sad fact that what she believes is an early modern innovation and a rejection of the perennial belief of Christians for two thousand years:  that is, that what the Catholic Church teaches and practices nowadays concerning the Mass and Eucharist is what Jesus Himself taught, what the Apostles received from Him and handed on to their successors, and what Catholics have held to ever since.

      This young woman’s protest – as impolite and offensive as it is – reminds us all of our need as Catholics to be ready to give an answer for what we believe.  It is one thing to have to suffer the dishonest insults and attacks of the secular media, which is so knee-jerkedly anti-Catholic, attacks I have often dealt with in the bulletin article; but it is quite another thing, a golden opportunity, to have a ready answer for someone such as this young woman, who I cannot help but believe was acting in good faith according to what she knows and has been taught.  Pray for her.