In recent years our understanding of the Mass has been ‘somewhat obscured.’

There are three dimensions to the Eucharist (Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 1358). First, it is thanksgiving and praise to the Father. Second, it is the presence of Christ by the power of his word and his Spirit. Third, it is the sacrificial memorial of Christ and his body.

The Church has never wavered in its insistence on the sacrificial character of the Mass. When the Protestant reformers rejected the Mass as a true sacrifice, the Council of Trent in 1562 asserted that Christ left “to his beloved spouse the Church a visible sacrifice by which the blood sacrifice which he was to accomplish once for all on the cross would be re-presented, its memory perpetuated until the end of the world, and its salutary power be applied to the forgiveness of the sins we daily commit.”

The sacrifice of Christ on the cross and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice.

Listen again to the words of the fathers of Trent: “The victim is one and the same . . . only the manner of offering is different . . . the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross is contained and offered in an unbloody manner . . . this sacrifice is truly propitiatory” (emphasis added).

When we say that the Eucharist is the memorial of Christ’s Passover, we do not simply mean the remembrance of past events. Rather, “when the Church celebrates the Eucharist, she commemorates Christ’s Passover, and it is made present: the sacrifice of Christ offered once for all on the cross remains ever present” (CCC, No. 1364; emphasis added).

The sacrificial character of the Mass is expressed in the very words of institution: “This is my body which is given for you” and “This cup which is poured out for you is the New Covenant in my blood.”

It is also expressed in the priest’s invitation to the faithful to pray “that our sacrifice may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father.”

But in recent decades the Mass as a true sacrifice has been somewhat obscured. In his 2003 encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia (“The Church of the Eucharist”) Pope John Paul II wrote, “At times one encounters an extremely reductive understanding of the eucharistic mystery.

“Stripped of its sacrificial meaning, it is celebrated as if it were simply a fraternal banquet” (No. 10).

One of the strengths of the translation of Eucharistic Prayer III in the third edition of the Missal, which we will begin using on Nov. 27, 2011, is the renewed clarity of its sacrificial language. Let me give three examples.

In the current translation we pray “that from east to west a perfect offering may be made to the glory of your name.” In the new Missal we will pray “that from the rising of the sun to its setting a pure sacrifice [in Latin, oblatio munda] may be offered to your name” (emphasis added). As I noted in an earlier column, the biblical basis for this petition is Malachi 1:11.

In the Communion epiclesis the priest invokes the Holy Spirit upon the community to change them into the body of Christ (just as in the consecratory epiclesis he invokes the Holy Spirit upon the bread and wine to change them into the body and blood of Christ).

Presently the prayer is “look with favor on your Church’s offering.” In the new Missal this has been translated as “Look, we pray, upon the oblation of your Church [oblationem Ecclesiae tuae]” (emphasis added).

A third change also appears in the Communion epiclesis. Currently we ask God to “see the Victim whose death has reconciled us to yourself.” In the new Missal we ask God to recognize “the sacrificial Victim [agnoscens Hostiam] by whose death you willed to reconcile us to yourself” (emphasis added).

In his letter Dominicae Cenae (1980) Pope John Paul II wrote, “The Eucharist is above all else a sacrifice . . . Accordingly, precisely by making this single sacrifice of our salvation present, man and the world are restored to God through the paschal newness of redemption” (No. 9).

The new Missal will deepen our understanding of and our participation in this profound and luminous mystery, the source and summit of our Christian life.

Father Stice directs the diocesan Office of Worship and Liturgy. He can be reached at frrandy@dioknox.org.

Tags: The new missal