:                      The Sacrifice of the Mass
:                           By Frank Sheed

:Upon Calvary Christ Our Lord offered himself in sacrifice for the
:redemption of the human race.  There had been sacrifices before Calvary,
:myriads of them -- foreshadowings, figures, distortions often enough,
:but reaching out strongly or feebly towards the perfection of Calvary's
:sacrifice.

:These represented an awareness in men, a sort of instinct, that they
:must from time to time take something out of that vast store of things God
:has given them and give it back to him.  Men might have used the thing
:for themselves but chose not to; they offered it to God, made it sacred
:(that is what the word <sacrifice> means). In itself, sacrifice is simply
:the admission that all things are God's; even in a sinless world this would
:be true, and men would want to utter the trust by sacrifice. With sin, there
:was a new element; sacrifice would include the destruction of the thing
:offered -- an animal, usually.

This limping introduction leaves out of sight the distinction between
propitiatory and thanksgiving sacrifices, on which I will not elaborate
here because if it doesn't strike you to have thus far been ignorant of it
then it's because your thinking is determined by the present RC doctrine
on the Mass, and you will sneer at any different exposition from that of
Sheed et al., and because your default understanding of the historical
evolution of sacrifice is restricted to a self-selected one necessarily
culminating in the Mass. Sheed's introduction, therefore, is a fitting
prelude to the well-known Roman Catholic custom of deeming the Eucharist
(literally: thanksgiving) first a sacrifice then an expiatory sacrifice,
but from a biblical perspective it it untenable even at the beginning.

:We can study these sacrifices, as they were before Calvary at once
:perfected and ended them, in the Temple sacrifices of the Jews, the
:Chosen People.  The whole air of the Old Testament is heavy with the
:odor of animals slain and offered to God. The slaying and the offering --
:immolation and oblation -- were both necessary elements.  But whereas
:the offering was always made by the priests, the slaying need not be done
:by them; often it was the work of the Temple servants. For it was not the
:slaying that made the object sacred, but the offering. The essential thing
:was that the priest offer a living thing slain.

Not at all. In EXPIATORY sacrifices the blood had to be shed, and either
sprinkled on the altar or poured on the ground or burnt altogether. Without
bloodshedding there is no remission, and as the blood was called the life,
so without slaughter there was no remission. How much more does it apply
to the NT where we were redeemed not by the mere offering, but also through
the CROSS of Christ, His BLOOD being the price!

And if you maintain obstinately that the Mass "re-presents" the sacrifice
on the cross, then why don't you raise objections to the RC usage that
the Mass is an "unbloody" sacrifice? "Unbloody", for your information,
was invented as a shield-word in hot debates where your denomination was
pressed for the proper formula which left untouched the primary heretical
assertion that "The Eucharist is a sacrifice", as well as the teaching of
the Bible, viz. that "Christ dies no more".

That is, your Mass is deemed unbloody, so it cannot "show forth" the
death of Christ, neither can it "offer" Him in the fullest sense to
the Father - indeed, the blood is missing. This is the result of the
initial heresy that the Eucharist is a sacrifice, and even the desperate
attempt to solve the difficulty by introducing a new phrase didn't
avail this doctrine.

True, in the likeness of "divine will-predestination-human will-free
will" dichotomy one can solve certain problems by admitting them to be
incomprehensible mysteries, but the case is not the same with the Mass.
The scarce exhaustive pieces of biblical reference to predestination
were given to underscore the importance of grace, so that we may not be
puffed up in our goodness, and it remains a background doctrine due to
its intrinsic complementarity. But the Mass is said to communicate Christ
to us and bring the sacrifice of the cross closer to us. After all, the
"re-presentation" of the sacrifice is alleged to be directed partly to
us, apart from being offered to God.

Thus any obscure and unbiblical speculation about the sacrificial nature,
which cunningly cloaks itself with the name "mystery" (while it can be
proven to be a result of historical evolution, or rather a base perversion)
necessarily obscures and dilutes the Supper which was primarily intended to
aid our weak faith and to nourish us with the flesh and blood of the Lord.

Instead of this, the Mass gives pretexts to the most horrid superstitions,
eg. that no "host" can be dropped without the peril of scandal, and conse-
quently, to the prohibition of the "lay" from the wine; further, it intro-
duces the abominable practice of private masses, in which the "priest"
excludes those very ones from the communion of the Lord's flesh for whose
sake the Eucharist was indeed instituted; further, it gave way to the most
puerile adoration of the species, which totally blocked the way of the
originally commanded eating and drinking.

Thus the Mass makes the Lord's Supper ineffective in many ways, and as
it still boasts of being able to sustain the efficiency of the sacrifice
of the cross, it is proven to be not simply a bona fide heresy but a
monstrous diabolical delusion to which many Christians fell prey.

:With Christ, we have said, sacrifice came to its perfection. The priest
:was perfect, for Christ was the priest. The victim was perfect, for he
:was the victim too. He offered himself, slain. But not slain by himself.
:He was slain by others, slain indeed by his enemies.

I recognize the end towards which Sheed tries to edge. He wants to
substitute the Roman Catholic "priests" for the Christ-murdering
Roman soldiers. Otherwise what do the "priests" do with the Mass if
not to slaughter the bread, provided Christ is allegedly offering
Himself in it but He isn't at the same time committing suicide?

Sure, you say that the "priests" act "in persona Christi", but do
they offer >themselves< as >expiatory< sacrifice, as pure and precious
lambs? They don't. Are they "transsubstantiated" into Christ? No.
So they are mere agents, just as the temple servants under the OT.
Now, who were the agents of Christ's death on the cross? The soldiers.
Thus your "priests" turn out to be the counterparts of the soldiers.
They act in the person of the soldiers, not "in persona Christi".

Yes, you may betake yourself to the safe subterfuge that your "priests",
just as the soldiers and the Jewish multitude, may be pardoned, for
THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING. But I'd consider this solution
quite a weak result for revering the "clergy" as the successors of
the apostles who never boasted of their ability of "re-presenting"
the sacrifice of the cross, if not by preaching (Gal 3:1).

:What he did was complete, once for all, not to be repeated.  It
:accomplished three things principally -- atoned for the sin of the
:race, healed the breach between the race and God, opened heaven to man,
:opened it never to be closed.  His is "the propitiation for our sins,
:and not for ours only but for those of the whole world" (1 Jn 2:1).

Sure. It was FINISHED, or COMPLETED. (John 19:30)

:With such completion, what was still to be done?  For something
:<was> still to be done.

Burial, resurrection, ascension, enthronement, intercession, second
coming, judgment. But not "renewal" of the sacrifice, as it's FINISHED.

:Christ is still in action on men's behalf, as the Epistle to the Hebrews
:tells us. Jesus has entered "into heaven itself, that he may appear <now>,
:in the presence of God for us" (9:24).

And He, having obtained eternal redemption through the one and only
sacrifice on the cross, can finely do His intercession there without
any priestling on earth "re-presenting" His sacrifice. His intercession
is based on His sacrifice on the cross, and it by no means implies
that His sacrifice is lasting to eternities. Only its fruits last
for eternities; the sacrifice is once for all finished. If you insist
stubbornly that only by the "re-presentation" of the sacrifice to the
Father can the fruit be dispensed then you can't escape the conclusion:
the sacrifice of the cross as a historical event is weak to be an
eschatological event.

:He is "always living to make intercession for us" (7:25).  What still
:remains to be done is not an addition to what was done on Calvary, but
:its application to each man -- that each of us should receive for himself
:what Our Lord won for our race.

Then you have to decide whether the sacrifice of the Mass is

- Christ's offering himself to the Father
- Christ's intercession with the Father
- Our offering Christ to the Father as thanksgiving sacrifice
- Our offering Christ to the Father as expiatory sacrifice
- Our re-presentation of Christ's expiatory sacrifice to the Father

or something else. One just wonders how these ludicrous and frivolous
inventions could be derived from the words "take, eat". In my opinion,
fallible of course, these words want to mean that Christ's once for all
broken body and shed blood is nurturing us. But you are bound by the
Tridentine latrocinium ("council of robbers") to believe the opposite.

:The "intercession" just spoken of is not a new sacrifice but the showing
:to God of the sacrifice of Calvary. The Victim, once slain, now deathless,
:stands before God, with the marks of the slaying still upon him -- "a Lamb
:standing, <as it were> slain" (Rv 5:6).

It is the very reason why no blasphemous "re-presentations" are to be
made "to the Father". As Christ in Heaven still bears His wounds, it is
quite likely that the Father can see these wounds without our efforts.
God, indeed, prefers obedience to sacrifices, thus your "priests" act
in a very Sauline way (1Sam 13) when they venture to offer a sacrifice
for which they had never got a syllable of command from God.

:We are now in a better position to understand the Sacrifice of the Mass.
:In heaving [heaven? - FN] Christ is presenting himself, once slain upon
:Calvary, to his heavenly Father.

Yes, and that's why Christ never instituted a sacerdotal priesthood in
the New Testament. That's why the Eucharist is nowhere called a sacrifice:
to prevent the ignorant from thinking that Christ's blood and flesh are
the whole Christ, God and Man. It's because Christ is our high priest,
and whoever presumes to be a sacerdotal priest robs Him of His office and
calls Him forever dead, as it is written: "Others were made priests many
because on account of death they couldn't remain; but this One, being
immortal, has an unchangeable (or intransmissible) priesthood" (Heb 7:24).

:On earth the priest -- by Christ's command, in Christ's name, by Christ's
:power -- is offering to God the Victim once slain upon Calvary.

Show me the place where Christ said to "priests" that they should "offer"
the Eucharist. Although I am not a native speaker, I happen to have been
studying English with more or less success for already 15 years, and thanks
to God, I have reached a level on which I'll no longer confuse "take, eat"
with "take, offer" or "take, worship". If you have problems with this simple
logic, please provide some additional stuff in your posts - about English
grammar and vocabulary. No doubt, I will keenly accept education from a
native speaker. But if such an elucidation should delay, I will cling to
my former opinion: that Sheed has a pair of magic glasses on, and his
whole arguments fly only with people who have this thing themselves.
But not with me.

:Nor does this mean a new sacrifice, but Calvary's sacrifice presented anew

To us? Then why should it be offered to the Father? Or to the Father?
Then why is Christ at His right hand? In order to observe myriads of
Masses torpidly? What is meant by His "intercession" if not an active
turning to the Father in our matters? And you dispose of it willingly
in order to establish a man-made priesthood. First you make ill use of
the fact that Christ intercedes with the Father: based on it you climb
your way beside him into the office of High Priest, and then ungratefully
deprive Him of the wounds, bind up His mouth, murder Him cruelly for ever,
and finally throw Him out of heaven. Quite a strange logic, but it is
easily ascribable to a wilful evil spiritual power which leads many astray.

By the way, Sheed's sophism is confuted by itself. First he said that
Christ was >slain< by others, consequently, He only had to >offer< Himself.
And now he asserts that Christ >offers< Himself in Heaven to the Father.
But if Christ has undertaken the task of >offering< Himself then what is
left for the Roman Catholic "priests" but to perform the duty of the
Roman soldiers, viz. >murdering< Christ? Again from his very mouth is
Sheed judged a pertinacious advocate of nefarious heresies.

:-- in order that the redemption won for our race should produce
:its fruit in us individually.

I still don't understand one thing. Why is the "sacrifice" needed to be
offered to the >Father< if it is >us< who need the fruits? Is Christ dumb?
Is the Father oblivious of the fact that the Son who is sitting at His
right hand sits there exactly for the reason that He was slain?!
Your missal masters have a strange Christology.

:In the Mass the priest consecrates bread and wine, so that they become
:Christ's body and blood. Thus the Christ he offers is truly there really
:there.

Pardon. Are Christ's body and blood "really" Christ? Then why?

:The Church sees the separate consecration as belonging to the very essence
:of the Mass.  It is a remainder of Christ's death -- and he had told his
:first priests

They are called "priests" only by you, not by Christ.

:at the Last Supper that, in doing what he had just done, "they should
:show forth the death of the Lord, until he come (1 Cor 11:26).

My dear friend, it is drinking and eating by which we show forth
Christ's death, not a mysterious immolation in breaking and pouring.

:They should <show forth> Christ's death, remind us of his death, not,
:of course, kill him, any more than he had killed himself on Calvary.

False logic. Your missal theologians, indeed, had dwelt long on the
"mystica mactatio", mystical killing, which allegedly takes place in
the Mass. Others proposed "real killing". Later the accusations of
the Protestants led RC theologians to make their voice milder with
regard to killing at all, that's why Sheed utterly denies killing.

But in saying this, he digresses from the authentic (Tridentine) RC
theology and gives it over to oblivion. Next time I'll make some
quotations from Prof. Jungmann's "The Mass. An historical, theological
and pastoral survey", but it may delay because I have to translate
it from Hungarian. Note: it is a RC book of a respected theologian,
not a Fundamentalist pamphlet. If you have it or you can get it
from a library, please let me know; and further I'll content myself
on quoting from it by chapter and part.

:(Theology for Beginners (c) 1981 by F.J. Sheed)

Thank you, I am sort of past a "Refutation of Roman Catholic Assertions,
for Beginners" course (of course not really, but I can call my two-year
internet experience in various debates this way, can't I?), so to dispose
of Frank Sheed's pretensions took me no serious effort. Let me forbear
to flog this poor, dying horse (ie. Sheed's dwindling defense) further.