The Mass - a Sacrifice

From time immemorial, we know that the most primitive peoples have felt a knowledge - faint perhaps - of good and evil, derived from their nature and referred to as the Natural Law.

Transgressions of this Law have led to varying feelings of guilt before the gods.

Whenever catastrophies or disasters occurred they were usually ascribed to punishment by the gods for these transgressions, requiring expiation or sacrifice to propitiate their anger.

The sacrifices involved offering up to the gods something precious to the people. In some cases, they were animals, in some cases crops. In some of the most primitive and satanic societies, human sacrifice was offered - e.g. by the Phoenicians, the Canaanites, Egyptians, pre-Christian Mexico’s Aztec 'civilization' and pre-Christian Britain.

Other cultures worshipping false gods were the ancient Greeks, the Romans and in our own day, Hindus and Buddhists.

In 1900 B.C. approx, God promised Abraham, if he would believe in Him as the One God, a posterity to match the stars in the sky and the grains of sand in the desert.

Abraham covenanted with God for himself and his posterity, to serve God and worship Him alone and to mark themselves externally as His Chosen People by being circumscribed.

When Abraham was going to sacrifice Isaac at God's command, Isaac, unknowing, asked where was the lamb of sacrifice. God, of course cancelled the order that was made to test Abraham’s obedience and commitment.

In the days of Abraham, a lamb was a common object of sacrifice.

Around 1800 B.C. Melchisedek, a priest of the Old Law, blessed Abraham in the name of God Most High to whom he offered bread and wine -

a forerunner - of the use of bread and wine in the Mass.

In 1300 B.C. approx, God revealed Himself to Moses as 'I am who Am' and instructed him to lead the Israelites out of Egypt.

Then during the Exodus to Palestine, He further elaborated His doctrine to man by giving the Jews the Ten Commandments and the Mosaic Law.

In Solomon's Temple, a lamb was sacrificed in the Holy of Holies with loaves of pure white bread, one for each of the Twelve Tribes of Israel.

On the Feast of Passover, lambs were killed in the Temple and with unleavened bread, were eaten in the Pascal Meal.

The Feast of Passover commemorates the time when the ‘Angel of Death passed over’ the homes of the Jews in Egypt who had signified their Jewish-ness by painting the blood of a lamb over their doors. They were spared while all the first-born of Egypt died from plague.

Over time, we see that God communicated with the Israelites through His Prophets until, finally, He sent His Son Jesus on earth as man in the Incarnation, to replace the old Jewish Law with the new Christian Law.

We see from the use of the Passover lamb and of unleavened bread as objects of sacrifice under the Mosaic Law, why Jesus used unleavened bread in the Sacrifice of the New Law and why the Church uses the term Lamb of God in the Mass as a synonym for Jesus.

In the New Law, no less than in the Old, Justice demands sorrow and expiation for transgressions of God's Law and this expiation is to be by sacrifice - by acts of self-denial and personal sacrifices but above all, through the Sacrifice which Christ instituted and made the Sacrament of the Eucharist which we know as the Mass.

This Sacrament was instituted at the Last Supper when Jesus took unleavened bread, gave thanks, broke it and gave it to them saying

'This is my Body which is given up for you. Do this in remembrance of me' and likewise the cup, after supper saying 'This cup which is poured out for you is the New Covenant in my blood' and when He had given thanks He gave the cup to them saying ' Drink of it all of you for this is my Blood of the Covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.'

The Old Covenant was that between God and Abraham, the New Covenant is the Eucharist representing the Redemption on Calvary.

This is the sacrifice referred to many times by Jesus during His public life. In John 6th, He said 'I am the living bread that came down from heaven: if anyone eats this bread he shall live forever and the bread that I shall give you is my flesh for the life of the world.

'Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood you shall have no life in you.'

' He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up on the Last Day, for My flesh is food indeed and My blood is drink indeed '.

‘This is the bread which came down from heaven, not (manna) such as your fathers ate and died. He who eats this bread shall live forever'

When some of His disciples murmured at these words, He said 'but there are some of you that do not believe'

Many people have trouble understanding the Principle of Transubstantiation.

St Thomas Aquinas in his Summa explains it thus:

Things are divided into Substance and Accident.

Substance is immaterial: it is by virtue of which a thing is or exists.

Accident is that by virtue of which a thing can be changed.

There is no visible change in the bread and wine in Mass because it is their substance that is changed from that of bread and wine into the substance of the Body and Blood of Christ - a transfer of being, though the outward attributes remain the same.

Obviously a miracle, beyond reason and therefore requiring faith.

Even Luther declared "I would like to find a man able to prove that there is only bread and wine in the Eucharist. I feel bound. The Gospel text is very clear. I challenge them to find me a Bible where we find the words 'This is the sign of My Body '

The Protestant Edershin also admits the meaning is clearly 'is' in

'this is my Body ' - not just signified .

The repetition of the rite was unquestionably commanded by Christ when He said 'Do this in remembrance of Me'

As only the eleven Apostles were present at the Last Supper, only they received the power - a power they passed on to their successors through the Sacrament of Holy Orders down through the ages.

The most vital parts of the Mass are the Consecration and the Offertory.

In the Consecration, the Holy Spirit transforms the bread and wine on the altar into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ when the priest says ‘This is My body ’ and ‘This is my blood’

The bread and wine show no visible change and we believe in the change only by the force of faith in the gospel words above presented.

In the Offertory, Jesus himself, through the medium of the priest, offers His Body and Blood - made available by the Holy Spirit - to the Father as a sacrifice repeating the offering of the sacrifice of Calvary and allowing us to associate ourselves with Him in the offering.

Why did Christ choose to assume the forms of bread and wine in the Mass?

Clearly God used the sacrifice of bread and wine of Melchisadeq as a forerunner of the Eucharistic use of bread and wine and it is equally clear that Christ chose bread and wine at the last Supper and in all Masses, because only in these forms was it possible for us to eat His flesh and drink His blood, as He had called upon us to do if we were to possess Eternal Life.

At the Last Supper, Christ was present in two forms. He was present as the human visible person, Christ, but also as Christ under the form of bread and wine. In Mass, he is present only in the latter form.

If it is the Holy Spirit who transforms the bread and wine into Christ’s Body and Blood, what role does the priest play?

Apparently, since Christ in the forms of bread and wine would not be able to offer Himself to the Father in a manner visible to the congregation, he acts through the priest, he uses the priest as an extension of Himself, to visibly make the offering.

Some people today, claim, as did many of the Protestant revolutionaries, that the Mass is merely a communal meal commemorating the Last Supper and they deny any element of Christ’s Real Presence or of sacrifice taking place.

The scriptures say “ From the rising of the sun to the going-down thereof, My name is great among the Gentiles and there is offered in My name a clean oblation ”

Because of the time-zone differences, a Mass is being said almost around the clock somewhere in the world.

A Green Island

There is a green island in lone Gougane Barra,
Where allua of songs rushes forth as an arrow:
In deep valleyed Desmond a thousand wild fountains
Come down to that lake from their home in the mountains.
There grows the wild ash, and a time-stricken willow
Looks chidingly down on the mirth of the billow:
As, like some gay child, that sad monitor scorning,
It lightly laughs back to the laugh of the morning

And its zone of dark hills-O! to see them all bright'ning,
When the tempest flings out its red banner of lightning,
And the waters rush down,'mid the thunder's deep rattle
Like clans from their hills at the voice of the battle:
And brightly the fire-crested billows are gleaming,
And wildly from Mullagh the eagles are screaming.
O! where is the dwelling in valley or highland,
So meet for a bard as this lone little island?

How oft when the summer sun rested on Clara,
And lit the dark heath on the hills of Ivera,
Have I sought, sweet spot, from my home by the ocean,
And trod all thy wilds with a minstrel's devotion,
And thought of thy bards, when assembling together,
In the clefts of thy rocks or the depth of thy heather:
They fled from the Saxon's dark bondage and slaughter,
And waked their last song by the rush of thy water.

High sons of the lyre,O! how proud was the feeling,
To think while alone through that solitude stealing,
Though loftier Minstrels green Erin can number,
I only awoke your wild harp from its slumber,
And mingled once more with the voice of those fountains
The songs even Echo forgot on her mountains:
And gleaned each grey legend, that darkly was sleeping
Where the mist and the rain o'er their beauty were creeping.

Least bard of the hills! were it mind to inherit
the fire of thy harp, and the wing of thy spirit,
With the wrongs which like thee to our country have bound me,
Did your mantle of song fling its radiance around me,
Still, still in these wilds might young liberty rally,
And send her strong shout over mountain and valley,
The star of the west might yet rise in its glory,
And the land that was darkest be brighest in story.

I too shall be gone :-but my name shall be spoken
When Erin awakes, and her fetters are broken:
Some minstrel will come, in the summer eve's gleaming,
When Freedom's young light on his spirit is beaming,
And bend o'er my grave with a tear of emotion,
Where calm Avonbwee seeks the kisses of ocean,
Or plant a wild wreath from the banks of that river
O'er the heart and the harp that are sleeping forever.