Topic: An Unbloody Sacrifice
Question: There seem to be a lot of theories about the Eucharistic sacrifice. I always wondered what "unbloody sacrifice" means at Mass.
Answer:
You are right. There are numerous theories about the Eucharistic sacrifice. THE BEST BOOK is "Eucharistic Sacrifice and the Reformation" by Francis Clark S.J. He was a very learned British Jesuit. He surveyed most of the major theories and showed which ones worked and which ones didn't. They ought to have this book at Catholic University. If you read nothing else, read this book! A bloody sacrifice is where you kill something, pour out its blood, and offer that to God. Obviously, this does not happen at the Mass. The priest in persona Christi says the same words that Christ said at the Last Supper but does so while speaking in the third person. (i.e., "When supper was ended HE took bread..."). In essence the priest is not the one who makes the offering. Christ does. The priest merely makes this offering really present to us here and now by his mediation. And it is the SAME offering literally that Jesus made in the Upper Room, the same offering He made on Calvary, the same offering He made after His Ascension into Heaven, and the same offering that He now makes eternally before the Father. We are being abstracted out of our time and being brought into the eternal. (For an interesting modern but ORTHODOX presentation of this, see the book "Eucharistic Presence : A Study in the Theology of Disclosure" by Fr. Robert Sokolowski.) The separation of blood from flesh was an essential element of the OT sacrificial system. The body was seen by the Hebrews as mere matter. Blood and breath (ruach - spirit) were seen as the two animating principles which made the body alive. Blood was a material principle of life whereas breath was mysterious and spiritual. The breath of life always returned to God. (Ecclesiastes 12:7 Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.)
The Blood was then the element of life that could be collected by man and thereby offered to God as symbol of giving life to Him. It was the only active principle of life which man could manipulate. It did not represent spiritual life but biological life. The offering of blood was reserved only to God as a sign of His sovereignty over us. Now it is important to remember that the true sacrifice of Christ was NOT on Calvary per se. Jesus never offers his body an blood for sin on Calvary. He only does this explicitly at the Last Supper. As such, Jesus' own priestly action is essentially and irreducibly tied to the Last Supper. Without the last Supper, Jesus was merely a martyr, not a sacrifice for sin. Another sacrificial elements of the redemption are Jesus's Ascension into Heaven as an "o'lah" or "Whole burnt offering" (Ascension offering is a better translation from the Hebrew) which was necessary before the Holy Spirit could be sent to the Church.
Finally, we have Christ eternally offering Himself to the Father so that St. John can say:
1 John 2: 1 My little children, I am writing this to you so that you may not sin; but if any one does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; 2 and he is the expiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.
It is this eternal sacrifice that we tap into in the here and now. It is nothing less than the SAME sacrifice which Christ made at the Last Supper, the Crucifixion, and the Ascension because as Scripture tells us there is only ONE sacrifice for sin:
Hebrews 10: 1 For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices which are continually offered year after year, make perfect those who draw near. 2 Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered? If the worshipers had once been cleansed, they would no longer have any consciousness of sin. 3 But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sin year after year. 4 For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. 5 Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, "Sacrifices and offerings thou hast not desired, but a body hast thou prepared for me; 6 in burnt offerings and sin offerings thou hast taken no pleasure. 7 Then I said, `Lo, I have come to do thy will, O God,' as it is written of me in the roll of the book." 8 When he said above, "Thou hast neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings" (these are offered according to the law), 9 then he added, "Lo, I have come to do thy will." He abolishes the first in order to establish the second. 10 And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. 11 And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12 But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, 13 then to wait until his enemies should be made a stool for his feet. 14 For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.
My point is that while there is (was) only one true sacrifice, there were (are) several historic events which are linked to it as essential for its full meaning to be revealed. The prots make a big deal out of Calvary but in reality that is only one small part of a much greater sacrificial symbol. There is also the entire Passover theology of the Rabbis which stands behind the Last Supper and explicates its meaning. Check out my articles on the Mass and the Passover on Frank Jerry's webpage for the details and references to the Bible and the Jewish literature. Click on this hot link:
Was the sacrifice of Calvary bloody or unbloody? Actually, it was BOTH! The Last Supper was the real sacrificial offering of Christ for sin and it certainly was unbloody. Without the Last Supper I defy you to find any reference to the Body and Blood of Christ being offered as a sacrifice for sin in the entire of the Passion Narratives. Christ did not offer his body and blood to God during the passion. (At the conclusion of it, He commended His spirit to the Father which is something completely different.) Let us also remember that when we receive communion, we do not literally eat flesh and drink blood in a cannibalistic rite. We APPEAR to eat bread and drink wine. The "eating" at Holy Communion is as much an appearance as the "breadness" and "wineness" of the Eucharistic species. In reality we are receiving Christ whole and entire - body, blood soul, and divinity -- under the appearance of eating bread and drinking wine. Literally what happens is that "we are what we eat": the Body of Christ. We don't digest the eucharistic elements: they digest us. The act of eating is a sacramental symbol for reception. The reason why Jesus used the more graphic terminology in John 6 was to emphasize his Real Substantial Presence in the Eucharist. It was also in line with the Passover symbolism of the afikommen matzoh and the Kiddush cup of wine. Respectively they symbolically represented the flesh and blood of the paschal lamb in the Seder liturgy. The problem with Pseudopodeo (aka James White) is that he doesn't understand the Passover imagery in the Eucharist and he keeps thinking in block headed newtonian materialistic terms, and not biblically. He is not spiritual enough to contemplate a mystery and the symbols which represent it. He forgets that even the scriptures acknowledged that wine represents blood:
Genesis 49: 11 Binding his foal to the vine and his ass's colt to the choice vine, he washes his garments in wine and his vesture in the blood of grapes; 12 his eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk.
Revelation 14: 18 Then another angel came out from the altar, the angel who has power over fire, and he called with a loud voice to him who had the sharp sickle, "Put in your sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth, for its grapes are ripe." 19 So the angel swung his sickle on the earth and gathered the vintage of the earth, and threw it into the great wine press of the wrath of God; 20 and the wine press was trodden outside the city, and blood flowed from the wine press, as high as a horse's bridle, for one thousand six hundred stadia.
My only concern is that it seems you want to draw away from the cross as THE sacrifice and transfer this to the Last Supper.
Sacrifice is not the act of killing the victim but of offering it to God. That is the big mistake of the Protestant over emphasis on the cross to the detriment of other aspects of Christ's work. Look at the OT material on sacrifice. There were no prescribed rituals for killing the victim, but there were for making the offering. Indeed, Jesus was sacrificed on the cross, but it was only one aspect of the larger context of sacrificial offering which puts everything into context. The sacrifice at the Last Supper was the same one as at Calvary but like the original Passover, it was done in anticipation of death of the First Born the next day. The Last Supper would have no efficacy at all if Christ did not die the next day. In that sense, the cross is central to the sacrifice of Christ but not its totality. There are elements of the sacrificial in the Incarnation itself. The sacrificial elements of the Ascension and the eternal offering of Christ in heaven complete the picture. All of these things are facets of the same event seen from eternity. They are inseparable. We cannot claim that the Mass is the same sacrifice as that at Calvary unless the Last Supper is too. Quid pro quo. The Last Supper revealed EXPLICITLY some things which the Cross revealed IMPLICITLY. It is important to note that we were told to repeat the Last Supper as an anamnesis or memorial of Christ's work, NOT the Cross. Done in the context of Passover, the memorial of the Mass makes us radically present in eternity before the finished work of Christ.
There seems to be one dimension where you join the Cross and the Last Supper, and another where you disjoin them. I realize we all have to do this to some extent, but the trick is finding the right balance.
This is what has caused so many problems for theologians over the centuries. We are confronting a Mystery almost as deep as the Trinity. Our pitiful attempts at understanding the redemption of Mankind from sin are all "just so" stories. We should not be too surprised if -- taken to their logical conclusion -- these scenarios begin to fray at the edges. It is the montage of the whole of Christ's life taken in context which helps give us the true perspective on what He did for us.
By the way, I have already started to read Francis' book on the Eucharist -- the best one I've found yet. He had a chapter on Luther and Nominalism that was outstanding. It gave me a whole different perspective on Nominalism (a better one) than I had before. And he also showed that Gabriel Biel was a very orthodox theologian, especially on the Eucharist.
It is one of my all time favorites. His book "Anglican Orders and the Defect of Intention" is equally marvelous and I consider it the final word on that topic. I'm glad to be of help. Keep in touch!
Pseudopodeo (James White) had claimed in a debate with Fr. Pacwa that the sacrifice on Calvary was bloody but the Mass was unbloody so they cannot be the same sacrifice. That is because he is only seeing the death of Christ as a sacrifice. That is totally incorrect. The death of the victim was not a sacrificial act. Sometimes, the priest might kill the victim but most times the killing was done by the lay offered. The really sacrificial part was the ritual offering of the victim to God. In the case of Christ, the Bible only shows this explicitly at the Last Supper. The offering of Christ as victim was also revealed implicitly with his Ascension and his eternal offering of Himself to the Father. All of these elements were essential to the notion of Christ's sacrifice. You cannot reduce it to Calvary. Consequently White's reduction of the sacrifice of Christ merely to his death is grossly unbiblical.
Art Sippo
The Catholic Legate
June 24, 2004