Q. 1. What does the Catholic Church mean by the Holy Mass Sacrifice?

A. 1. Traditionally, the Holy Mass was called a "Sacrifice."

Originally, in the ancient world, when something went wrong, be it bad weather, a shortage of food, a volcano acting up, the people would offer animals to their gods in order to appease them so the gods would remedy the situation.

Later in time, when there was a crisis in the tribe, people would look for someone to blame. So they looked for foreigners, an oddball or even a person with extraordinary gifts. They shifted the blame on that person and killed the troublemaker to appease the gods. But this did not bring satisfaction. On one hand, the people had a sense of relief, but on the other hand, they felt guilty for having killed someone.

Consequently the people created what they called a class of "priests" who would do their killing for them, believing that this process pleased the gods and brought peace. At this stage of time, the sacrifices, humans at first, were replaced by animals. So now we are back at sacrificing animals, but through the priests.

Depending on the belief of the tribe, some of the animal sacrifices were substituted for some of the crops or even children. This is supported by the Holy Bible when God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. [Gen. 22:2]

The biblical sacrifices were a foreshadow of the sacrifice of Christ on the Holy Cross. Jesus, the High Priest, instead of offering a sacrifice, He offered Himself as the ultimate Sacrifice, the Son of God. He offered Himself as the Sacrificial Lamb and the scapegoat, blaming Himself for all the sins of the world. He paid the price for all the wrongs created by mankind, from the beginning to the end of time.

Therefore the Sacrifice of Jesus is the sacrifice that ends all sacrifices. Death on the Holy Cross is the one, full and final sacrifice. Through His death and glorious resurrection, all sacrifices came to an end.

This truth is found in Hebrews 10 where it states:

Christ’s Sacrifice Once for All

1 Since the law has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered year after year, make perfect those who approach. 2 Otherwise, would they not have ceased being offered, since the worshipers, cleansed once for all, would no longer have any consciousness of sin? 3 But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sin year after year. 4 For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. 5 Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said,

“Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me;

6 in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure.

7 Then I said, ‘See, God, I have come to do your will, O God’ (in the scroll of the book it is written of me).”

8 When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), 9 then he added, “See, I have come to do your will.” He abolishes the first in order to establish the second. 10 And it is by God’s will that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

11 And every priest stands day after day at his service, offering again and again the same sacrifices that can never take away sins. 12 But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, “he sat down at the right hand of God,” 13 and since then has been waiting “until his enemies would be made a footstool for his feet.” 14 For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. 15 And the Holy Spirit also testifies to us, for after saying,

16 “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds,”

17 he also adds, "I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”

18 Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.

The teachings of the Catholic Church, found in the Catechism confirmed that the old sacrificial system has come to an end. It states:

#613. Christ’s death is both the Paschal sacrifice that accomplishes the definitive redemption of men, through “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”, and the sacrifice of the New Covenant, which restores man to communion with God by reconciling him to God through the “blood of the covenant, which was poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins”. This sacrifice of Christ is unique; it completes and surpasses all other sacrifices.

So now we are back to our original question, why do we call the Holy Mass a "Sacrifice?"

It is because of what Christ did on the Holy Cross. Every Holy Mass and the whole liturgical cycle of the Church is a reminder that Christ was sacrificed to end the old way of sacrificing. The Holy Mass is the re-enactment of the event that took place, bringing the present participants (faithful) into the event that took place in the past.

The Catechism explains it as follows:

The sacrificial memorial of Christ and of his Body, the Church

# 1362 The Eucharist is the memorial of Christ’s Passover, the making present and the sacramental offering of his unique sacrifice, in the liturgy of the Church which is his Body. In all the Eucharistic Prayers we find after the words of institution a prayer called the anamnesis or memorial.

# 1363 In the sense of Sacred Scripture the memorial is not merely the recollection of past events but the proclamation of the mighty works wrought by God for men.184 In the liturgical celebration of these events, they become in a certain way present and real. This is how Israel understands its liberation from Egypt: every time Passover is celebrated, the Exodus events are made present to the memory of believers so that they may conform their lives to them.

# 1364 In the New Testament, the memorial takes on new meaning. When the Church celebrates the Eucharist, she commemorates Christ’s Passover, and it is made present the sacrifice Christ offered once for all on the cross remains ever present. “As often as the sacrifice of the Cross by which ‘Christ our Pasch has been sacrificed’ is celebrated on the altar, the work of our redemption is carried out.”

# 1365 Because it is the memorial of Christ’s Passover, the Eucharist is also a sacrifice. The sacrificial character of the Eucharist is manifested in the very words of institution: “This is my body which is given for you” and “This cup which is poured out for you is the New Covenant in my blood.” In the Eucharist Christ gives us the very body which he gave up for us on the cross, the very blood which he “poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”

# 1366 The Eucharist is thus a sacrifice because it re-presents (makes present) the sacrifice of the cross, because it is its memorial and because it applies its fruit: [Christ], our Lord and God, was once and for all to offer himself to God the Father by his death on the altar of the cross, to accomplish there an everlasting redemption. But because his priesthood was not to end with his death, at the Last Supper “on the night when he was betrayed,” [he wanted] to leave to his beloved spouse the Church a visible sacrifice (as the nature of man demands) by which the bloody sacrifice which he was to accomplish once for all on the cross would be re-presented, its memory perpetuated until the end of the world, and its salutary power be applied to the forgiveness of the sins we daily commit.

# 1367 The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice: “The victim is one and the same: the same now offers through the ministry of priests, who then offered himself on the cross; only the manner of offering is different.” “And since in this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the Mass, the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross is contained and is offered in an unbloody manner... this sacrifice is truly propitiatory.”

In summary, the Holy Mass is a real sacrifice. Christ is not offered over and over again. That is not the teaching of the Catholic Church. The Church teaches that His one time Sacrifice, made once for all sacrifices, is made present and real through the Sacrifice of the Holy Mass.

As a token of appreciation, the "Eucharist," which means "Thanksgiving", is celebrated ritually during the Holy Mass to thank God for the Sacrificial gift of His Son, Jesus Christ.