Many protestants believe the Eucharist is the re-sacrificing of Christ over and over again. What does Catholic doctrine say in the different counsels and other historical documentation on this? The Holy Bible says it was a once and for all perfect sacrifice from our Lord and Savior for all those who repent of their sins and accept him as their Lord and Savior. I subscribe to wretched radio and Todd Friel talks about this with a Catholic caller on his podcast. If anyone would like to hear it. Please tell me.
May God Bless!
Ed
I’m trying to simplify - hope this doesn’t confuse you Ed :
A common way we look at it is that are two dimensions to our Blessed Lord’s Sacrifice at Calvary -
**His Passion **- everything that happened to Him, is sometimes (for the sake of explanation) referred to as the “exterior” Sacrifice.
**His Action **- His *offering *to the Father, for our sake ,of everything that happened during His Passion, is the corresponding “interior Sacrifice”.
We say Christ paid the price once for all, and He cannot die again. So we say that during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass , Christ offers Himself in an “unbloody” manner - big difference here between the word “unbloody” and the word “bloodless”.
So that *re-presentation *(being made present again) of the Sacrifice is centred on His “interior” Sacrifice (offering to the Father), but it fully embodies all the merits of His sacred Passion. Everything (prayers) we bring to the Mass, Christ takes them to himself and offers them to the Father too. Basically, we all join in the one offering, but only through Him, with Him and in Him. It would be important to note here, that there are varying degrees of comprehension of the aforementioned among Catholics. We are sort of at different levels or individual speeds , if you will.
There is some mystery involved too - we say an “unbloody” (not “bloodless”) manner, but Jesus is fully and personally present in the consacrated Species - Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. And if we were able to fully understand it, then we wouldn’t call it a mystery. But , as I heard Fr. John Corapi once say: “Christ said, ‘Take this and eat it’ - He didn’t say, ‘Take this and understand it’.”
When asked of what mind we should be when we attend Mass, St. Padre Pio replied - “the same as if you were at Calvary.”
So some of it is a mystery, but we’ll never be closer to the foot of the actual Cross than we are when attending Holy Mass.
One thing you might be able to pick up, is how, without the interior sacrifice (we could use the example of anyone’s suffering here) the exterior sacrifice would have very little value.
God Bless you too Ed.
