No, the Lutheran pastor does not by virtue of his own self confect the Eucharist. Instead, he stands in persona Christi to announce that God has made the Body and Blood present.
Must have missed my post earlier. Oh well, I will again post the relevant points.
1.) Catholics have always believed the it is God who makes the Sacrament present, from the
very first Mass ever celebrated.
2.) One priest, alone or with a congregation, **by God’s power **changes the people’s bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ.
The trouble is I don’t know which to believe is the Catholic explanation. I read Catholics like you explain it one way, while Duane and other Catholics write that “It can help to identify ourselves with the gifts [read: Christ] placed on the altar for consecration,” and “The congregation is invited by the priest to unite their sacrifices to those he offers in his manner of offering,” – as if whatever we could offer would avail us anything, when Christ has already made the once-and-for-all Sacrifice. And when I hear the words used in the Novus Ordo, I have to wonder if the latter group is reflecting a more accurate understanding of Rome’s position. If not, then why not correct the ambiguous language of the Mass? Why leave the potential for misinterpretation? And gross, potentially-blasphemous misinterpretation at that! After all, it’s not me on the altar - it’s only the pure Lamb. To say that I am part of a worthwhile sacrifice to God is putting myself in place of the One who was sacrificed - that is blasphemy.
The people are to unite themselves to the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. The people will exclaim, “We lift [our hearts] up to the Lord.” It is essential that we do so (in fact “It is right and just”), and in that sense (understood correctly) the sacrifice being offered is not the priest’s alone, but also the people’s. However in order for the people to unite themselves to Christ’s sacrifice, it is necessary that his sacrifice be prior to and distinct from our offering, so that we have something to which we unite ourselves. The Mass is a re-presentation of Christ’s saving action, and he alone (through the priest) offers that sacrifice. We, in turn, unite ourselves to this cosmic reality. Another way of saying the same thing is that “my sacrifice and yours” conveys the complimentarity of priest and people, both part of the Mystical Body of Christ. Each in their own way participates in the one sacrifice, the priest by the power he received in the Sacrament of Holy Orders **and the people by the power they received at Baptism.
**
The following is taken from the following website:
hughosb.wordpress.com/2011/08/15/missal-moments-iv-my-sacrifice-and-yours/
Perhaps on a more dangerous level it might lead some to believe that the congregation itself is offering the sacrifice to the Father along with the priest. This is a faulty understanding of the Mass. It is the priest who offers the Sacrifice of the Mass, the Lord’s Body and Blood. And he does so because by ordination he is empowered to act in persona Christi, in the person of Christ. Because, as we all know, it is not any human who offers Christ to the Father; rather it is Christ’s self-sacrifice to his Father, for us and for salvation. At Mass, as in other sacraments, the priest is the instrument by which Christ acts.
Nevertheless, the people do offer a sacrifice, and at this point in the Mass the dialogue can serve to remind the people to ensure they offer it.** St Paul (in Romans 12:1) tells us what this sacrifice of the people is:**
- I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.*
In the early Church not only were bread and wine brought up at the Offertory, but also other gifts that might be of service to the local Church. Today those gifts are condensed into and symbolised by the money given in the collection. That money, as too those original gifts, are themselves symbols of the offering of ourselves to God, of our bodies in spiritual sacrifice.
So the correction made in the revised Missal will serve not only to remind the people that the priest is offering a sacrifice that is not solely the priest’s but on behalf of all the Church, a symbol and microcosm of which is the congregation gathered at that particular time and place. This puts the congregation’s half of this dialogue in its proper context:
Code:
May the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands for the praise and glory of his name, for our good and the good of all his holy Church.
Yet the correction also serves as a timely reminder to the people to ensure that they unite the offering of themselves, their spiritual sacrifice, to that being offered by Christ at the priest’s hands on their behalf. The Church, the Body of Christ, offers itself in its individual members in union with Christ as he offers himself in the one great sacrifice of the Cross to the Father in his Body and Blood through the ministry of the priest. This all part of the individual Christian’s mission to unite himself, or herself, ever more intimately to Christ, indeed to become one with Him, which is the heart of holiness. For as Christ offers himself for us, lays down his life for us, so too are we called to offer ourselves with Him, to lay down our lives for our friends, for greater love than this there is not! (cf John 15:13)
1.) It is truly not a hard concept to understand.
**
2.) I hope no one thinks St. Paul is blaspheming!**
Then again, maybe I’m just terribly, humbly, fallibly Lutheran.
I agree with the fallible part. Not sure about the humble.
) but may I say that I would not be surprised. I am convinced – yes, convinced – that there’s an epidemic of people being drawn toward things that are anti-…
