Mass and sacrifice

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garysibio

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This question occurred to me at Mass this morning. I hope someone can help me with it.

The sacrifice of the Mass is not a resacrificing of Jesus but the same sacrifice that occurred at Calvary. That being the case, why do we ask God to accept the sacrifice during the Offertory? He’s already accepted it, hasn’t He?

Is this just the result of a flawed English translation of the liturgy? If so, is it changed in the revised translation we will start using in November?
 
It is the same sacrifice, but it is being re-presented to the Father, and so we ask Him to accept it each time it is presented (even thought we know He will). I also take it to mean that we are asking Him to accept it, and to apply it to us individually.
 
In a sense, every time you attend Mass you step into eternity. The re-presentment (in the linear time dimension in which we live) of the sacrifice of Jesus at Calvary joins you to the one and only sacrifice.

It’s kind of as if every Mass that has ever taken place and every Mass that will take place in the future is the same Mass.
 
Also keep in mind that the sacrifice we’re praying God will accept is, in one sense, the sacrifice of our “worldly” lives to praise him and obediently follow. Even though he accepted that sacrifice today from me, I’m sure I’ll screw up and need to offer myself to him again someday (likely soon).
 
Cor_ad_Cor said:
Also keep in mind that the sacrifice we’re praying God will accept is, in one sense, the sacrifice of our “worldly” lives to praise him and obediently follow. Even though he accepted that sacrifice today from me, I’m sure I’ll screw up and need to offer myself to him again someday (likely soon).
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The text of the Mass reads:

“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.”

Since “your” refers to the priest, it doesn’t make any sense apart from the context of the Eucharistic sacrifice. While we certainly are to offer ourselves up as a living sacrifice (Rom 12:1), the sacrifice here is the sacrifice at the priest’s hands, the Eucharist.
 
SMHW said:
In a sense, every time you attend Mass you step into eternity. The re-presentment (in the linear time dimension in which we live) of the sacrifice of Jesus at Calvary joins you to the one and only sacrifice.

It’s kind of as if every Mass that has ever taken place and every Mass that will take place in the future is the same Mass.
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I understand this. My point is that the text of the Mass seems to contradict it. Since there is only the one sacrifice, why do we continually need to ask God to accept it?
 
Spirithound said:
It is the same sacrifice, but it is being re-presented to the Father, and so we ask Him to accept it each time it is presented (even thought we know He will). I also take it to mean that we are asking Him to accept it, and to apply it to us individually.
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Why do we ask Him to accept what He has already accepted?
 
We continue to sin, so we ask God to continue to accept Christ’s sacrifice for the forgiveness our of sins.
 
garysibio said:
I understand this. My point is that the text of the Mass seems to contradict it. Since there is only the one sacrifice, why do we continually need to ask God to accept it?
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Because we are bound by time. It’s an accommodation to our limited human perception. We perceive the sacrifice of Calvary as a repeated set of Masses. But the Mass just IS.

The closest way for us to experience an eternal event is to “repeat” it. But it is not so much a repeat as it is we are doing at for the first time “again”. I know that seems like a distinction without a difference. Again, that’s because we humans live in time. The Mass transcends time.
 
garysibio said:
But we do this during confession, not Mass.
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We also confess our sins during Mass, right?

Many of the things that I hear said at Mass benefit me spiritually and help to put me in the right frame of mind for worship.
 
garysibio said:
That being the case, why do we ask God to accept the sacrifice during the Offertory?
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I think you have your answer but this is also done after the Washing of the Hands (EF), after the Consecration (EF and EP1), before the blessing (EF), and in certain prefaces, I believe.
 
novusCatholic said:
We also confess our sins during Mass, right?

Many of the things that I hear said at Mass benefit me spiritually and help to put me in the right frame of mind for worship.
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Not mortal sins. They can only be forgiven in confession.
 
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