Explain "Once for all"

[hoser]

I am looking for the best explanation for the protestant claim of Christ’s “Once for all” sacrifice. We all know that they claim that Catholics re-sacrifice Jesus at every Mass, and we all know that they totally misunderstand the issue. They do not understand the concept of re-presenting the same Jesus’ “once for all sacrifice”. So what is the best way of explaining this?

 

[JimG]

Christ’s sacrifice was indeed “once for all.” Not only “once for all” but eternal. Christ eternally presents his sacrifice to his Father in heaven. And eternal does not mean “over and over again.” It means: persevering throughout time and space.

Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice is made present (“now” is the meaning of “eternal”) to us in every Mass. But it is not a different sacrifice; it is only the one sacrifice.

A better way to look at this might be to reverse the perspective.

You can imagine Christ’s one sacrifice on the cross breaking through space-time to become ever present everywhere and every-time by means of the Eucharist. (See Salvador Dali’s painting “Corpus Hypercubus” for an attempt at Christ on a 4-dimensional cross to illustrate this.)

Or you can imagine all of space and time–through every Eucharistic host, every drop of Eucharistic precious blood, collapsing and converging in on that one point in history at which the once-for-all sacrifice takes place. And by receiving the Eucharist, we also are there, and then.

In either case, it is Christ making his one sacrifice present to all of us throughout time–and eternity.

 

[Elzee]

I’d suggest reading ‘The Fourth Cup’ by Scott Hahn. You can google it and get a copy on-line. In it he addresses the once-and-for-all death of Jesus on the cross, but the on-going sacrifice.

 

[BibleReader]

When Jesus said, “Do this as a remembrance of me,” Luke 22:19, He did not restrict this command to that night or the next day or to the Apostle’s generation. The gospels were written for all future generations.

And not only did Jesus say, “This IS My Body,” 'This IS My Blood," but the Real Presence idea is repeatedly foreshadowed in the Bible: In the story of the Nativity, in Bethlehem, which is Hebrew meaning “The House of Bread,” when Jesus is wrapped in swaddling clothes and laying in a manger, a feeding trough for yoked animals, we are looking at a picture of dead Jesus wrapped in a shroud on a kind of “dinner plate.” So, in the “House of Bread,” what do we see? Instead of bread being served, we see * the body of dead Jesus * being served as food!

In Exodus 12, note that the Hebrews eat the actual Paschal Lamb!

In Judges 19, note that the “priest” from the tribe of Levi, the priestly tribe, offers the concubine (1) from Bethlehem like Jesus (2) who rode an *** into Jerusalem like Jesus, in sacrifice, by shoving her out the door to the mob, to save those in the house, *and then he distributes the concubine’s actual body to the twelve tribes of Israel! *Judges 19:29.

There really is no doubt whatsoever. Jesus was commissioning the Apostles and their successors to replicate His sacrificed body and blood, for the consumption of the people, again and again and again and again.

When our Protestant brothers and sisters cast aside the Eucharistic meal as a feeding of the actual Real Presence of Christ,

they missed the boat.

 

[John_Henry]

Jesus said:

“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.” (John 6:53)

Given that, the Catholic explanation of once-for-all is the only one that satisties Jesus’ requirement for having life in us.

St. John said:

“And I looked, and behold, in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as though it had been slain.” (Rev. 5:6)

Christ has ascended on high as both priest and victim. The victim is forever present at the heavenly altar. And made present at the liturgy.

St. Paul said:

“And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?” (1 Cor. 10:16)

If once-for-all excludes Christ’s real presence at the sacrifice of the Mass, then the Apostle to the Gentiles seems to have been a tad confused.