Yeah. It’s not exactly that the sacrifice is some sort of time travel.
It is the essentially SAME sacrifice, but not in terms of Time, because time is an accident. We aren’t “going back in time to Calvary”…
Rather, the same sacrifice is presented to us because the High Priest is the same, the Victim is the same, and the intent is the same…but the MANNER is different. Then it was bloody, now it is unbloody.
But Christ’s body and blood are formally seperated through the double consecration…but they just don’t actually substantially seperate anymore because since the Ressurection they are inseperable.
The sacrifice of the Mass is not
only a relative sacrifice, because to be a relative sacrifice, to relate itself to the sacrifice of the Cross from which it draws all it’s power, it must be an absolute sacrifice in itself, if only in order to draw the relation.
The Catholic Encyclopedia,
refers the absolute moment of the sacrifice to the (active) “sacramental mystical slaying”, and the relative to the (passive) “separation of Body and Blood”, it has indeed made the “two-edged sword” of the double consecration the cause from which the double character of the Mass as an absolute (real in itself) and relative sacrifice proceeds. We have an absolute sacrifice, for the Victim is – not indeed in specie propria, but in specie aliena – sacramentally slain, we have also a relative sacrifice, since the sacramental separation of Body and Blood represents perceptibly the former shedding of Blood on the Cross.
So it is through the absolute real sacrifice in the sacramental seperation of Body and Blood, that the sacrifice re-calls relatively the one Sacrifice of the Cross from which it draws it’s power.
The Encyclopedia also goes on to say:
While this view meets every requirement of the metaphysical nature of the Sacrifice of the Mass, we do not think it right to reject offhand the somewhat more elaborate theory of Lessius instead of utilizing it in the spirit of the traditional view for the extension of the idea of a “mystical slaying”. Lessius (De perfect. moribusque div. XII, xiii) goes beyond the old explanation by adding the not untrue observation that the intrinsic force of the double consecration would have as result an actual and true shedding of blood on the altar, if this were not per accidens impossible in consequence of the impassibility of the transfigured Body of Christ. Since ex vi verborum the consecration of the bread makes really present only the Body, and the consecration of the Chalice only the Blood, the tendency or the double consecration is towards a formal exclusion of the Blood from the Body. The mystical slaying thus approaches nearer to a real destruction and the absolute sacrificial moment of the Mass receives an important confirmation. In the light of this view, the celebrated statement of St. Gregory of Nazianzus becomes of special importance (“Ep. clxxi, ad Amphil.” in P. G., XXXVII, 282): “Hesitate not to pray for me . . . when with bloodless stroke [anaimakto tome] thou separatest [temnes] the Body and Blood of the Lord; having speech as a sword [phonen echon to Xiphos].”
So it is not merely a relative representation that recalls the former sacrifice relatively…but is a real and absolute sacrifice in itself, and through THAT fact is related to and recalls the former sacrifice from which it draws it’s power.
It is compared in the encyclopedia to the Sun and the planets. The planets only take reflect light from the Sun…but they are still real objects, real globes, and must be to even do the reflecting. They aren’t just instantiations of the Sun, but exist in themselves as real heavenly bodies, if only in order to reflect the Sun’s light.
The eucharistic sacrifice preformed on the altars around the world each day indeed only draws it’s merit and light from re-presenting that of the Cross. But they have to be asbsolute sacrifices in themselves to be able to do that reflecting. They aren’t merely some sort of direct inserting of the Cross into a new time and place, but indirect, through their own absolute sacrifice. Even as the planets reflecting the sun’s light are not merely instances of the sun…but are real objects reflecting the selfsame LIGHT of the sun.
. But I do have poor argumentation/apologetic skills, and I also think it’s good to leave open the possibility of being wrong incase I have to eat my poorly written words.