JonNC;4712589:
Confused. What would be the two separate purposes?
well you said that you dont see it in a sense as sacrifice. i believe you said that is not the same as Catholics do.
right?
Oh, ok. Perhaps this will explain better than I can:
usccb.org/seia/luthrc_eucharist_1968.shtml
I. THE EUCHARIST AS SACRIFICE2 With reference to the eucharist as sacrifice, two affirmations have not been denied by either confession; four aspects of the problem have been major points of divergence.
. Lutherans and Roman Catholics alike acknowledge that in the Lord’s supper "Christ is present as the Crucified who died for our sins and who rose again for our justification, as the once-for-all sacrifice for the sins of the world who gives himself to the faithful."3 On this Lutherans insist as much as Catholics, although, for various reasons, Lutherans have been reticent about speaking of the eucharist as a sacrifice.
The confessional documents of both traditions agree that the celebration of the eucharist is the church’s sacrifice of praise and self-offering; or oblation. Each tradition can make the following statement its own: "
By him, with him and in him who is our great High Priest and Intercessor we offer to the Father, in the power of the Holy Spirit, our praise, thanksgiving and intercession. With contrite hearts we offer ourselves as a living and holy sacrifice, a sacrifice which must be expressed in the whole of our daily lives."
2. Historically, our controversies have revolved around the question whether the worshiping assembly “offers Christ” in the sacrifice of the mass a general, Lutherans have replied in the negative, because they believed that only thus could they preserve the once-for-all character and the full sufficiency of the sacrifice of the cross and the eucharist from becoming a human supplement to God’s saving work, a matter of “works-righteousness.”
First of all, we must be clear that Catholics as well as Lutherans affirm the unrepeatable character of the sacrifice of the cross. The Council of Trent, to be sure, affirmed this, but Lutheran doubts about the Catholic position were not resolved. Today, however, we find no reason for such doubt, and we recognize our agreement in the assertion that "What God did in the incarnation, life, death, resurrection and ascension of Christ, he does not do again. The events are unique; they cannot be repeated, or extended or continued. Yet in this memorial we do not only recall past events: God makes them present through the Holy Spirit, thus making us participants in Christ (I Cor. 1:9)."5
Further, the Catholic affirmation that the church “offers Christ” in the mass has in the course of the last half century been increasingly explained in terms which answer Lutheran fears that this detracts from the full sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice. The members of the body of Christ are united through Christ with God and with one another in such a way that they become participants in his worship, his self-offering, his sacrifice to the Father. Through this union between Christ and Christians, the eucharistic assembly “offers Christ” by consenting in the power of the Holy Spirit to be offered by him to the Father.6 Apart from Christ we have no gifts, no worship, no sacrifice of our own to offer to God. All we can plead is Christ, the sacrificial lamb and victim whom the Father himself has given us.
Another historically important point of controversy has been the Roman Catholic position that the eucharistic sacrifice is “propitiatory.” Within the context of the emphases which we have outlined above, Catholics today interpret this position as emphatically affirming that the presence of the unique propitiatory sacrifice of the cross in the eucharistic celebration of the church is efficacious for the forgiveness of sins and the life of the world. Lutherans can join them up to this point.7 They reject, however, what they have understood Trent to say about the mass as a propitiatory sacrifice "offered for the living and the dead,"8 even though the Apology of the Augsburg Confession concedes with respect to prayer for the dead that "we do not forbid it."9 We have not discussed this aspect of the problem; further exploration of it is required.
In addition to the growing harmony in ways of thinking about the eucharistic sacrifice, there is a significant convergence in the actual practice of eucharistic worship. Doctrine is inevitably interpreted in the light of practice, as well as vice versa, and consequently oppositions on this level can negate apparent doctrinal agreement. For example, the Reformers and later Lutherans have believed that the multiplication of private masses and the associated systems of mass intentions and mass stipends are evidence that Roman Catholics do not take seriously the all-sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice, and this suspicion has been reinforced by such statements of Catholic theologians as "the sacrificial worth of two Masses is just double the sacrificial worth of one Mass."10 Now, however, the Second Vatican Council in its Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy has declared that the nature of the mass is such that the communal way of celebrating is to be preferred to individual and quasi-private celebrations.11
As the liturgical renewal progresses in this and other respects, each group in these discussions finds it increasingly easy to understand and approve what the other says about the eucharist in general and its sacrificial aspects in particular.
Your thoughts as to whether this means we have 2 different purposes.
Jon
