The Holy Sacrifice

Before becoming Catholic, I remember one thing that seemed to strange about the mass. I remember thinking that the Catholic Church taught that the mass was somehow a re-crucifixion of Jesus. I thought that communion and the Eucharist happened because Jesus was slain again and again, every day. I remember thinking how this did not fit with my understanding of the teaching of Scripture. I had a conversation with a Protestant last night that reminded me just how many things I used to think about Catholic teaching that I have since learned were simply not true. This friend was talking about how he had recently read something that explained a Catholic teaching clearly and he was pleasantly surprised to find that his previous understanding was wrong.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve had this same experience. Time and time again I’ve found myself saying “I never knew this before!”

This is no more true than my understanding of the mass.

The mass is not a re-crucifixion of Jesus but rather is an unbloody re-presentation of Jesus’ once and for all sacrifice which He accomplished on Calvary on that dark and blessed day. The writer to the Hebrews says in his letter that the earthly temple with its Holy of Holies was a shadow of the reality which exists eternally in Heaven. The earthly temple was a picture of the real temple which has existed in Heaven for all eternity.

In the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, we get a glimpse into this eternal temple:

6:1 In the year that king Ozias died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and elevated: and his train filled the temple.

6:2 Upon it stood the seraphims: the one had six wings, and the other had six wings: with two they covered his face, and with two they covered his feet, and with two they flew.

6:3 And they cried one to another, and said: Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God of hosts, all the earth is full of his glory…

When the prophet saw this vision, his response, his reaction was what we would expect

6:5 And I said: Woe is me, because I have held my peace; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people that hath unclean lips, and I have seen with my eyes the King the Lord of hosts.

In seeing the reality that exists in the real and Heavenly temple, Isaiah saw himself in all his unworthiness and he came undone. As a prophet, he had the responsibility of carrying the message of G-d to humanity. And he recognized instantly how unworthy his words were. He encountered his reality. And then…

6:6 …one of the seraphims flew to me, and in his hand was a live coal, which he had taken with the tongs off the altar.

6:7 And he touched my mouth, and said:

Behold this hath touched thy lips, and thy iniquities shall be taken away, and thy sin shall be cleansed.

He had his mouth and his very words cleansed, sanctified, made holy.

This heavenly reality is more real than anything we have experienced. And this scene exists outside of time and space and therefore can be said to exist for all eternity.

The writer to the Hebrews explains how Christ’s sacrifice of Himself to the Father on our behalf is so much better, so perfect, that it only needed to be done once. And after Our Blessed L-rd was raised from the dead and ascended into that Heavenly reality, He took with Him His Blessed Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. He eternally stands offering this sacrifice which was accomplished at a certain point within our time, on behalf of sin and on behalf of us sinners. This is reality. The REALEST reality.

It needed happen only once, because THIS sacrifice (unlike the yearly sacrifices offered by the earthly high priests) is eternally being offered by THE High Priest. Perfectly. Eternally.

And when we go to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, we are not bringing our High Priest down from that Heavenly Reality but rather we earthly and mortal beings are being transported up to that Heavenly place. We are being absorbed into that reality that always exists in Heaven.

At the moment during the mass that this happens, the Priest says those lovely words and mere bread and wine, works of human hands, are borne by the hands of angels into that Heavenly Temple, into the actual Holy of Holies and by the Holy Spirit are mysteriously transformed into the real Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our L-rd.

He is not sacrificed anew for that is not necessary, as the writer to the Hebrews makes abundantly clear. But we are transported out of time and space into that very real presence. Into the midst of that solemn and joyous ever-present sacrifice of Jesus before the Father.

And like Isaiah, we encounter our unworthiness in that moment. And like Isaiah, we too have our mouths (and our entire selves) touched by Holiness and have our iniquities taken away and our sins cleansed.

And also like Isaiah, we join with those Serpahim and say those precious words:

Holy, holy, holy is the L-rd G-d of hosts. Heaven and earth are full of His glory.

Hosanna in the highest.

Blessed is He Who comes in the name of the L-rd.

Hosanna in the highest.

And as we go forward, we too receive Holy and purifying “coals” to our lips: that Bread of Life, the very real and very present Jesus Christ, into our very selves.

Just before doing so, we acknowledge this as we proclaim:

L-rd I am not worthy that You should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.

Because that is all it takes, is it not? A mere word from the Word, and I am made whole. Healed. Cleansed.

I am reminded of the story from the Gospel of St. Luke about the woman with the issue of blood:

8:43 And there was a certain woman having an issue of blood twelve years, who had bestowed all her substance on physicians and could not be healed by any.

8:44 She came behind him and touched the hem of his garment: and immediately the issue of her blood stopped.

8:45 And Jesus said: Who is it that touched me? And all denying, Peter and they that were with him said: Master, the multitudes throng and press thee; and dost thou say, who touched me?

8:46 And Jesus said: Somebody hath touched me; for I know that virtue is gone out from me.

8:47 And the woman seeing that she was not hid, came trembling and fell down before his feet and declared before all the people for what cause she had touched him, and how she was immediately healed.

8:48 But he said to her: Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole. Go thy way in peace.

I love this woman so much. She knew that if only she (an unclean woman who under Jewish law made anything she came in contact with unclean) could touch the mere edge of Our Dear L-rd’s most outer garment she would be healed. And she was. She did NOT make Him unclean but rather His holiness and wholeness instead transformed HER.

A mere touch of the edge of cloth He wore did that.

How much more, then, am I made clean and how much more am I made whole and how much more is MY soul healed when I receive the very Person of Jesus on my tongue and into my self?

I am undone.

So no. Jesus is most certainly not crucified anew at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. But I am most certainly taken up to that most real sacrifice that exists eternally in Heaven.

And like that beautiful woman, and like that prophet Isaiah, I too am forever changed. I too am made whole.

Cleansed.

And like that woman, Jesus says to me “go in peace.”