Once
for all
The Epistle to the
Hebrews stresses the definitive nature of the Lord's redemptive sacrifice,
emphatically classified, according to Hebrews 10:10, as "once for
all." Protestants have appealed to this clear biblical insistence as an objection to the Catholic teaching on the sacrificial nature of the Holy Mass, asking "Do you believe that Christ is re-sacrificed, or that the Mass adds something the unique, definitive sacrifice of Christ?"
Fr. Rory Pitstick, SSL
The answer to both questions is "No" - no, Catholics
do not believe Christ is sacrificed again at every Mass, nor do we believe that
the Mass adds something lacking in the unique, definitive sacrifice of Christ.
What the Church does teach, however, is that Holy Mass is the re-presentation
of Christ's sacrifice - not just a symbolic re-enactment, but a divinely
dynamic, "making present," a miraculous transcendence of time and
space, a profoundly personal participation, precisely because Christ's
sacrifice is indeed "once and for all," a historically anchored event
that nevertheless has an everlasting immediacy and efficacy unconstrained by
time.
At the Last Supper, Christ commanded His apostles to "Do
this in memory of Me." What was the "this" Christ commanded?
Christ had taken bread and wine, and, in anticipation of His definitive
sacrifice on the Cross, He changed the bread and wine into His Body and His
Blood, offered up so that His followers could share personally and intimately
in the communion of His once and for all sacrifice. The Mass is the
consummation of Christ's command, when the Church ever new fulfills the divine
directive to "Do this in memory of Me."
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