The Mass as Sacrifice

Any Catholic account of the atonement eventually has to address the Mass. Catholics call the Mass a sacrifice. Protestants often hear that language and reasonably ask whether Catholics believe that Christ is being sacrificed again. If Christ said, “It is finished” (John 19:30), and Hebrews says that he offered himself “once for all” (Hebrews 10:10), what could possibly remain to be offered?

The short answer is that the Mass is not another sacrifice added to Calvary. It is the sacramental presence of the one sacrifice of Calvary. Christ does not die again. The priest does not replace Christ. The Church does not supply something missing from his saving work. The once-for-all character of the Cross is not a difficulty that Catholic theology needs to evade; it is the very reason the Mass can be the sacrifice of Christ. Because his offering is perfect and eternally effective, it does not need to be repeated. It can be made present and participated in.

To understand that claim, we have to begin with the Last Supper. On the night before his death, Jesus takes bread and says, “This is my body which is given for you.” He takes the cup and says, “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:19-20). His body is given. His blood is poured out. The language is already sacrificial, even though the soldiers have not yet nailed him to the Cross.

Jesus is not performing a separate sacrifice in the upper room. He is sacramentally giving his disciples the sacrifice he will accomplish historically on Calvary. The Last Supper and the Cross interpret one another. Without the Cross, the words over the bread and wine would be empty. Without the Last Supper, the disciples might see the Cross only as an execution. At the table, Jesus reveals what his death will mean: this is his body given freely, his blood poured out for the forgiveness of sins, the blood of the new covenant.

He then commands, “Do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19; 1 Corinthians 11:24-25). The word “remembrance” can sound weak in modern English. We often remember by thinking about something that is absent. But the biblical idea of memorial is liturgical and covenantal. At Passover, Israel does not merely think about what God once did for a distant generation. The saving act of the Exodus becomes present to each generation as the foundation of its own covenant life. “It is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt” (Exodus 13:8). The worshipper is drawn into the event remembered.

The Eucharist is the memorial of Christ’s Passover. It does not send the congregation backward in a time machine, and it does not place the risen Christ back into a condition of suffering. Rather, through the power of the Holy Spirit, the one historical offering of Christ becomes sacramentally present to the Church. The event is not repeated. Its saving reality is made present under sacramental signs.

That is why “re-presentation” can be a useful word, provided it is understood correctly. The Mass does not merely present an image or dramatic reenactment of Calvary. Nor does it present Christ to the Father as though the Father had forgotten what the Son accomplished. It makes present again, sacramentally, the one self-offering that Christ completed once for all.

The Same Priest and the Same Victim

At Calvary, Christ is both priest and victim. He is the priest because he freely offers himself to the Father. He is the victim because the gift offered is his own body and blood. At Mass, the same Christ remains the true priest and the true victim. The ordained priest acts sacramentally in the person of Christ, but Christ is the one who acts through his minister. The Church does not crucify a new victim. The risen Christ makes his one offering present in an unbloody, sacramental manner.

The manner of offering is different. On Calvary, Christ’s sacrifice occurred historically through the bloody separation of his body and blood in death. In the Eucharist, his glorified body and blood are present sacramentally under the signs of bread and wine. Christ does not suffer, bleed, or die again. The separate consecration of the bread and wine signifies his sacrificial death, but the living and risen Christ is wholly present.

This distinction allows Catholics to affirm without qualification that the Cross is unrepeatable. There are not thousands of new sacrifices competing with the one sacrifice of Jesus. There is one sacrifice of Christ, present in thousands of celebrations throughout the world. The multiplication belongs to the sacramental celebrations, not to Christ’s death.

Hebrews does not undermine this understanding. It contrasts Christ with the Levitical priests who stood daily offering sacrifices that could never finally take away sins. Christ offers himself once, accomplishes what those sacrifices could not accomplish, and sits at the right hand of the Father (Hebrews 10:11-14). The Mass does not return Christ to the condition of those repeatedly sacrificing priests. It depends entirely upon the finality of his offering.

But Hebrews also says that Christ possesses a permanent priesthood and “always lives to make intercession” for us (Hebrews 7:24-25). His priesthood did not end when he died. The risen and ascended Christ remains eternally the High Priest who has offered himself. Revelation portrays him in heaven as “a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain” (Revelation 5:6). He is alive and victorious, yet he eternally bears the identity of the Lamb who gave himself. The sacrifice is completed in history, but it is never discarded as a past event with no present reality before the Father.

What Does the Church Offer?

The Eucharistic sacrifice is Christ’s offering, but it also becomes the offering of the Church because the Church is his body. This does not mean that the Church adds to the value of Calvary. It means that Christ draws his people into his own act of worship.

Paul tells Christians to “present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God” (Romans 12:1). Peter calls the Church “a holy priesthood” called “to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:5). Our worship is acceptable through Christ, not alongside him or independently of him.

At Mass, the Church offers bread and wine, gifts of creation and human labor. Through the Eucharistic prayer and the power of the Holy Spirit, they become the sacramental presence of Christ’s body and blood. But the Church also places herself upon the altar in a spiritual sense. Our prayer, work, suffering, repentance, gratitude, and love are joined to the perfect offering of Jesus.

This is not a pious extra added after the consecration. It belongs to the purpose of the atonement. Christ does not save us so that we can remain permanently passive and external to his obedience. He unites us to himself so that his self-offering can take shape in us. We cannot redeem ourselves, but in the Redeemer we can offer ourselves. His sacrifice makes ours possible and gives it value.

This is why the Eucharistic prayer is addressed to the Father. The basic movement of the Mass is the movement of Christ’s own life: through the Son, in the Spirit, to the Father. The Church does not offer Christ as though he were an object over which she possesses control. Christ gives himself to the Church and takes the Church into his own offering.

Participation in the Altar

Paul’s language in First Corinthians is especially important. He asks, “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” (1 Corinthians 10:16). He then compares the Eucharist with Israel’s sacrifices: “Are not those who eat the sacrifices partners in the altar?” (1 Corinthians 10:18). He makes the same comparison with pagan sacrificial meals, which Christians must avoid.

Paul’s point depends upon the Eucharist being more than an ordinary communal meal. To eat from a sacrificial altar is to enter into communion with the sacrifice. In the Eucharist, we do not merely remember that Christ once offered himself for us. We participate in his body and blood and are drawn into the communion established by his sacrifice.

That participation is also why receiving the Eucharist cannot be separated from discipleship. Paul warns the Corinthians that one can receive the body and blood of the Lord unworthily (1 Corinthians 11:27-29). The Eucharist is not magic, and participation is not merely physical reception. The sacrament calls for faith, repentance, communion with the Church, and a life being conformed to the gift we receive. We receive the self-giving Christ so that we may become capable, by grace, of self-giving love.

The Mass and the Fruits of the Atonement

The Cross objectively accomplishes humanity’s redemption once for all. Yet the fruits of that redemption must be communicated to particular persons in particular times and places. Christ died and rose in first-century Judea, but his grace must reach people who live centuries later and on the other side of the world. The sacraments do not add to the Cross. They are among the means by which the Holy Spirit joins us to it.

This is the sense in which the Mass applies the fruits of Christ’s sacrifice. It does not generate additional merit because Calvary was insufficient. It brings the Church and those for whom she prays into contact with the inexhaustible grace of the one sacrifice. The same Christ who offered himself for all intercedes for particular persons, and his body, the Church, joins that intercession.

For that reason, the Mass may be offered for the living and the dead. This does not mean that the Church purchases salvation from God or bypasses personal freedom, repentance, and faith. It means that the Church entrusts particular persons to the mercy made present in Christ’s sacrifice. Because Christians are members of one body, we can pray for one another and offer our participation in Christ’s worship for one another.

The Mass is therefore called propitiatory, but the word must be understood through everything already said about the atonement. The Mass does not appease a Father who would otherwise refuse to love us. It makes present the sacrifice by which the loving Father has reconciled the world to himself in the Son. Its propitiatory power is wholly Christ’s. The Church asks that the forgiveness, healing, purification, and reconciliation won by him be received by those for whom she prays.

Nor does participation in Mass eliminate the need for conversion. Someone cannot knowingly cling to grave sin and treat the Eucharist as a mechanical replacement for repentance or sacramental confession. The sacrifice that reconciles us to God also calls us to be reconciled to him. Grace is offered as gift, but a gift of communion must be received as communion.

One Sacrifice, Sacramentally Present

The relationship between the Mass and the atonement can therefore be summarized carefully.

At the Last Supper, Christ sacramentally anticipates and interprets his sacrifice. On Calvary, he offers himself historically and bloodily once for all. In the Resurrection and Ascension, he enters glory as the victorious Lamb and eternal High Priest. In the Mass, the risen Christ makes that same sacrifice sacramentally present, gives himself to his people, joins their offering to his own, and applies the fruits of his Paschal mystery to the Church and the world.

These are not several sacrifices loosely connected by symbolism. They are distinct moments and modes of participation in the one self-offering of Jesus Christ.

The Mass is a sacrifice because the Cross is present within it. It is a meal because the sacrifice establishes communion and gives us Christ himself as food. It is a memorial because Christ commanded the Church to celebrate his Passover until he comes. It is thanksgiving because the Son’s perfect thanksgiving to the Father becomes the worship of his body. And it is the source of Christian self-offering because those who receive the sacrificed and risen Lord are called to become what they receive.

The Mass does not suggest that Calvary was unfinished. It shows how the finished work of Christ remains living and active. The sacrifice happened once. Its power is eternal. And through the Eucharist, the Church does not merely look back at the Cross from a distance. She stands within the communion opened by it and is drawn, through the Son and in the Spirit, into his perfect offering to the Father.