Are Our Sacrifices Efficacious

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My Protestant friends say, “Christ is the ultimate and final sacrifice. Therefore, none of the sacrifices we offer will do anything.”

Is there anything wrong with this statement? I’m very used to thinking this way, and I believe it flies in the face of Catholic doctrine, but I’m not sure where. Any guidance would help. If the Catechism speaks about how our sacrifices can contribute to Christ’s sacrifice without diminishing it, that would be great.

Further, Our Lady of Fatima said, “pray much and make sacrifices for sinners, for many souls go to hell because there is no one to make sacrifices for them.” I realize Mary wasn’t simply speaking about Eucharistic sacrifices because she later commended one of the girls tieing a rope around her waist as a sacrifice for sinners. So it is clear to me that Catholicism in practice teaches that personal sacrifices are efficacious in helping sinners.
 
Is your Protestant friend a calvinist, per chance?
 
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Amen Adam! Plus, imagine a world without sacrifice. What a dismal and selfish place.
No thanks.
 
Thanks for the resource.

I’d really like my question answered though. For example, a Calvinist might argue that making sacrifices is still good, but they would probably saw they are not efficaous. I’m more interested in understanding how our personal sacrifices contribute to Christ’s. I mean, God sacrificing His own son is a pretty big sacrifice. How can I add to it?
 
I’m not an expert in Calvinism, that’s why I gave you the link. And you can actually call this guy on EWTN if you want.
 
It boils down to having no history or current experience of redemptive suffering. Having nothing to hang their hat on. Christ hasn’t united Himself to their suffering and made to share in His Redemptive Sacrifice. When Christ does this the changes that occur to souls is not hidden. Like the kinds of things you read about when martyres die. The redemptive value is not lost to the senses.
For Catholics this isnt a problem because of our history and tradition of knowing it by experience.
 
Yes, you’re right that having that tradition helps. I’m looking for a more formalize articulation of this doctrine though.
 
Maybe ask your friend what he’d say to a Christian who says, “Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.”

Ask him if that sounds like redemptive suffering that flies in the face of what Christ did, OR is it redemptive suffering that Christ allows us to do for the benefit of others who can benefit from our sacrifice.
The author of that statement, by the way, was Paul, and is recorded in Col 1:24, where he’s talking about how hard he works for the benefit of the Colossians so they can come to know Christ all the more…despite the fact that they are already saved Christians (Col 1:2), AND to preach the Word to the all the Gentiles.
 
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I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
Romans 12:1

The only way we can present our bodies as a living sacrifice that is holy and acceptable to God is to suffer with Him and offer our sufferings with Him, through Him, and in Him.
 
Calvin and that hyperpredestination theology is a big obstruction to accepting redemptive suffering.
 
CampionTheChampion said:
My Protestant friends say, “Christ is the ultimate and final sacrifice. Therefore, none of the sacrifices we offer will do anything.”

Is there anything wrong with this statement?
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Yeah, tons wrong with it.

Personal sacrifices are suffering, which we can offer to join ourselves with Christ and to help sinners, as well as to make reparation to God for our sins (and, according to the Fatima kids, we can offer it for the Holy Father as well).

In addition to whatever help they may provide to sinners/ the Poor Souls in Purgatory, our sacrifices also help us grow in grace and closeness to God.

I can’t believe somebody going through life not bothering to ever make a sacrifice or offer up their suffering because they figure Jesus already took care of all that. It sounds incredibly arrogant and misguided. We are called to be like Jesus, not just sit back and enjoy ourselves because he already did all the suffering for us. I seriously wonder where Protestants get such odd ideas.
 
Benadam said:
Calvin and that hyperpredestination theology is a big obstruction to accepting redemptive suffering.
Click to expand...
Well, according to some other Protestant who posts here, the Calvinist churches apparently are no longer Calvinist and don’t believe all that predestination hooha any more, so they must have found another excuse why we don’t have to bother suffering.
 
The CCC addresses this pretty clearly below. During the Liturgy of the Eucharist, we are united with heaven and earth as a communion of saints, offering up our sacrifice of praise. As Christ is the head and we are the body, which cannot be separated, we are enjoined with the Lord in His eternal Eucharistic Sacrifice. Take a look at Scott Hahn’s book Lamb of God.

The CCC: 1689 The Eucharistic Sacrifice. When the celebration takes place in church the Eucharist is the heart of the Paschal reality of Christian death. In the Eucharist, the Church expresses her efficacious communion with the departed: offering to the Father in the Holy Spirit the sacrifice of the death and resurrection of Christ, she asks to purify his child of his sins and their consequences, and to admit him to the Paschal fullness of the table of the Kingdom. It is by the Eucharist thus celebrated that the community of the faithful, especially the family of the deceased, learn to live in communion with the one who “has fallen asleep in the Lord,” by communicating in the Body of Christ of which he is a living member and, then, by praying for him and with him.
 
Changed their doctrine, just like that ? Just when ya think ya know a guy.
 
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