R
Richca
Guest
It’s hard to know where to begin here because the belief of your protestant friends can be refuted in so many ways. That they are not interested in what the Fathers of the Church have to say is simply unreasonable. The faith was handed down of course from the apostles to the apostolic fathers, from the apostolic fathers to later fathers, and from these fathers to still more later fathers down to our present day. In the writings of the apostolic fathers such as St Justin the Martyr and St Ignatius of Antioch, it is expressly stated that the Lord’s Supper is a sacrifice. It is also stated thus in the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles. Of course, the fathers and doctors of the Church such as St Augustine, St Basil, St Hilary, St Gregory of Nyssa, St John Crysostom, etc. all teach the mass as a sacrifice. So, basically, protestants have to say that all the fathers of the Church from whom our faith has been handed down from are all wrong, they were practicing and teaching a false faith. This is most unreasonable. It simply does not make any sense. This is why Sacred Tradition is so important in the Catholic Church which the protestants do not accept.
The catholic mass is the Lord’s Supper where Jesus commanded the apostles to “do this in memory of me.” If we really delve into what Jesus was doing at the Last Supper and how the apostles who were jewish would have understood it, Jesus in essence inaugurated the new Passover of the messianic kingdom (an excellent book on this is “Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist,” by Brant Pitre). He, Jesus, substituting himself as the sacrificial passover lamb in place of the Old Covenant passover lamb. The passover sacrifice though which the Israelites participated in every year in remembrance of their departure from Eygpt was a real sacrifice, they sacrificed many lambs on the very evening that Jesus instituted the mass which is a memorial of His sacrifice on the cross, “For our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed.” (1 Cor. 5:7). And Jesus transubstantiated the bread and wine at the Last Supper into his own body and blood with the sacrificial words “This is my body which shall be given up for you…” This is my blood, the blood of the new and eternal covenant which shall be shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this in remembrance of me." The earliest christians as I mentioned above, considered the Lord’s Supper as a sacrifice. They were taught this by the apostles and St Paul (cf. 1 Cor. 10: 14-22, the Lord’s Supper as a sacrifice).
"And on the Lord’s Day, after you have come together, break bread and offer the eucharist, having first confessed your offences, so that your sacrifice may be pure. But let no one who has a quarrel with his neighbor join you until he is reconciled, lest your sacrifice be defiled. For is was said by the Lord: ‘In every place and time let there by offered to me a clean sacrifice, because I am the great king’; and also: ‘and my name is wonderful among the Gentiles.’ (Didache, Teaching of the Twelve Apostles)
I haven’t mentioned anything concerning Hebrews which you mention and which your protestant friends try to use against the Holy Sacrifice of the catholic mass. But, the mass is really the memorial of the passion and death of the Lord which Jesus instituted at the Last Supper. It is the passover sacrifice of the new and eternal covenant. The passover in the Old Testament was the type or figure of the passover Jesus was to accomplish through his sacrificial passion and death for the redemption of the world. The protestants cannot just leave out the faith that was handed on down to the Fathers of the Church from the apostles.