How is the Eucharist also the Crucifixion?

[Kronk]

Hey all, so I’ve had a lot of issue putting this into words so hopefully I can do it in a way both respectful and to-the-point. I know that the Eucharist is indeed Christ’s Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, however I have heard people say that during the mass we are participating in the Last Supper and Crucifixion too. I wonder at this, what this exactly means, because of course it is the same as it is now as it was then, its still Christ’s Body and Blood, but it seems that it is suggested that we are present at the Crucifixion at mass, and partaking of the Body that was on the Cross, not just the same as in Jesus but the same one right on the cross, that the same Body and Blood is the same for all time, and that the one we receive at mass is literally particle for particle the flesh that was pierced and the Body that was given.

I’m doing such an awful job at explaining this but it seems that they are suggesting that the Body is not created and just Jesus’s Body as it is in Heaven right now, but that the Body at the point of the Crucifixion is transcendent through time and is here in the Mass right now.

Now, I have no problem with that being the case, but I dont understand how it could be, is it? and if it is how so?

Additionally, if it is, what about the Last Supper? did they have Christ’s Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity on the Cross before He was crucified?

Many thanks and God Bless

 

[CRV]

we are participating in the Last Supper and Crucifixion too.

We are - when Jesus said at the Last Supper “This is my body … This is my blood…do this in memory of me”. Which happens at every Mass. And we are back at the crucifixion because that is when Christ offered himself to God our Father for the forgiveness of sins. He didn’t make this offering after He had ascended into heaven. It is Calvary made present again, but in an unbloody manner as He is veiled under the species of bread and wine.

the Body at the point of the Crucifixion is transcendent through time and is here in the Mass right now.

It is. This was the body when Jesus offered everything He had - on the cross - His body, His blood, His soul and His Divinity and all His suffering, the pouring out of His blood and water from His pierced side. Calvary is where He sacrificed Himself for us.

The Mass Explained. - search using the term ‘sacrifice’ .

Calvary and the Mass by Venerable Fulton J. Sheen

Eucharist as Sacrifice " The key to seeing the relation between Calvary and the Mass is the fact that the same identical Jesus Christ now glorified is present on the altar at Mass as He was present in His mortal humanity on the Cross.

Since it is the same Jesus, we must say He continues in the Mass what He did on Calvary except that now in the Mass, He is no longer mortal or capable of suffering in His physical person. On Calvary He was, by His own choice, capable of suffering and dying. What He did then was to gain the blessings of our redemption. What He does now in the Mass is apply these blessings to the constant spiritual needs of a sinful, suffering humanity. "
continued below

 

[CRV]

ETA -
CCC #1366, 1367
" The Eucharist is thus a sacrifice because it re-presents (makes present) the sacrifice of the cross, because it is its memorial and because it applies its fruit:

[Christ], our Lord and God, was once and for all to offer himself to God the Father by his death on the altar of the cross, to accomplish there an everlasting redemption. But because his priesthood was not to end with his death, at the Last Supper “on the night when he was betrayed,” [he wanted] to leave to his beloved spouse the Church a visible sacrifice (as the nature of man demands) by which the bloody sacrifice which he was to accomplish once for all on the cross would be re-presented, its memory perpetuated until the end of the world, and its salutary power be applied to the forgiveness of the sins we daily commit.189
[ 189 Council of Trent (1562): DS 1740; cf. 1 Cor 11:23; Heb 7:24, 27.]

1367 The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice : “The victim is one and the same: the same now offers through the ministry of priests, who then offered himself on the cross; only the manner of offering is different.” "And since in this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the Mass, the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross is contained and is offered in an unbloody manner. . . this sacrifice is truly propitiatory.“190”
[ 190 Council of Trent (1562) Doctrina de ss. Missae sacrificio, c. 2: DS 1743; cf. Heb 9:14,27.]

Unfortunately I have to log off for now, but hope these will help you.

 

[De_Maria]

Hey all, so I’ve had a lot of issue putting this into words so hopefully I can do it in a way both respectful and to-the-point. I know that the Eucharist is indeed Christ’s Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, however I have heard people say that during the mass we are participating in the Last Supper and Crucifixion too. I wonder at this, what this exactly means, because of course it is the same as it is now as it was then, its still Christ’s Body and Blood, but it seems that it is suggested that we are present at the Crucifixion at mass, and partaking of the Body that was on the Cross, not just the same as in Jesus but the same one right on the cross, that the same Body and Blood is the same for all time, and that the one we receive at mass is literally particle for particle the flesh that was pierced and the Body that was given.

I’m doing such an awful job at explaining this but it seems that they are suggesting that the Body is not created and just Jesus’s Body as it is in Heaven right now, but that the Body at the point of the Crucifixion is transcendent through time and is here in the Mass right now.

Now, I have no problem with that being the case, but I dont understand how it could be,

Does anybody? Any human being, I mean.

is it? and if it is how so?

It is and we step by faith. If anyone here can explain it, then you need to bow down and worship that person.

Additionally, if it is, what about the Last Supper? did they have Christ’s Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity on the Cross before He was crucified?

Yes. Time and place are not obstacles to the person who created the world with a word.

Many thanks and God Bless

And to you.

 

[Gorgias]

I’m doing such an awful job at explaining this but it seems that they are suggesting that the Body is not created and just Jesus’s Body as it is in Heaven right now, but that the Body at the point of the Crucifixion is transcendent through time and is here in the Mass right now.

Now, I have no problem with that being the case, but I dont understand how it could be

You’re asking a pretty subtle theological question. So, to answer it, we’re going to have to remember what the Eucharist is. It’s not the physical body of Christ in physical mode, so we shouldn’t expect that it ‘acts’ in the way our physical bodies do.

Rather, it’s the substance of Christ present in sacramental mode. So, yeah – Jesus, since He’s God, could certainly make the substance of his body present sacramentally in the Last Supper!

But… what about the crucifixion? Are we ‘there’ at the foot of the cross? In a poetic and metaphorical way… yeah, kinda. But not literally. What we’re doing with the Eucharist is re-presenting to God the sacrifice that Christ made (once and for all, according to Paul!). So, we don’t return to the cross and sacrifice Christ again (and again and again). What we do is to point to that sacrifice of Christ’s body, through the presence of Christ’s body on the altar at Mass, and re-present that one sacrifice to God. In essence, we’re celebrating Christ’s sacrifice, every time we celebrate the Mass!

 

[Vico]

…

Mysterium fidei encyclical of St. Pope Paul VI:

46. … As a result of transubstantiation, the species of bread and wine undoubtedly take on a new signification and a new finality, for they are no longer ordinary bread and wine but instead a sign of something sacred and a sign of spiritual food; but they take on this new signification, this new finality, precisely because they contain a new “reality” which we can rightly call ontological. For what now lies beneath the aforementioned species is not what was there before, but something completely different; and not just in the estimation of Church belief but in reality, since once the substance or nature of the bread and wine has been changed into the body and blood of Christ, nothing remains of the bread and the wine except for the species—beneath which Christ is present whole and entire in His physical “reality,” corporeally present, although not in the manner in which bodies are in a place.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

You’ve gotten some good answers already above, but just to add on, here’s Pope Francis writing about the Mass as a memorial.

Library : The Mass is a Memorial | Catholic Culture

 

[Thom18]

Each Mass is its own Holy Week. During the Entrance, we welcome Christ into the Church (Jerusalem). During the readings and sermon, we listen to Him teach. During the words of consecration, it is Jesus’ turn to welcome us to His Last Supper, in which He presents His crucified Self to us.

 

[1Lord1Faith]

but it seems that it is suggested that we are present at the Crucifixion at mass, and partaking of the Body that was on the Cross,

I’m no theologian, but I’ll throw my two cents into the thread.

I think rather than crucifying Christ at the Mass, we are being given an invitation to join him on the cross, to join the “body” of Christ by participating in the Eucharist. Receiving the body of Christ is (among other things) an outward sign that we have decided to die with Christ on the cross, to die to self, to carry our cross, to join the community of saints in becoming part of the body of Christ. I’m not sure how much of what I said can be taken to the bank, but that is my understanding.

 

[runningdude]

that the same Body and Blood is the same for all time, and that the one we receive at mass is literally particle for particle the flesh that was pierced and the Body that was given

Let us take a look at what a “body” is. Every time we eat, we take new “particles” into our bodies. These are digested and turned in new cells within our bodies. Some are also digested, and burned, and we breath out the expended “particles”. So, the “body” is not a static collection of “particles”, but rather a living and constantly changing set.

What is constant, however, is the immortal soul that holds all these “particles” together.

When we receive the Eucharist, we are receiving not the “particles” that were merely present 2000 years ago at Calvary, but “particles” present now before us of the living resurrected body of Christ, together with immoral human soul of Jesus, and the Divine nature of God the Son.

 

[SeraficLeo]

“For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered to my name, and a pure offering. For my name will be great among the nations, says the LORD of hosts.”

• Malachi 1:11