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But the Mass is not a supper...

02-19-2023Weekly Reflection

Vatican news commentator, Sandro Magister, recently commented on Pope Benedict’s book , which came out after his death, called What Christianity Is and its comments on the sacrifice of the Mass. Here are some bullet points from Magister’s essay and then from an excerpt from Benedict’s book. You can read the whole commentary and essay here.

Magister: In this text of his, Joseph Ratzinger goes to the root of the question. If Catholics also reduce the Mass to a fraternal supper, as it is for Protestants, then everything is permitted, even … intercommunion... But the Mass is not a supper, even if it was born during the last supper of Jesus. Nor is it derived from Jesus’ meals with sinners. From the start it has been only for the community of believers, subject to “strict conditions of access. Its true name is “Eucharistia,” and at its center is the encounter with Jesus risen.

Pope Benedict: In recent centuries the celebration of the Supper has by no means occupied a central place in the ecclesial life of the Protestant Churches. In not a few communities the Holy Supper was celebrated only once a year, on Good Friday. [...] It is evident that in terms of this sort of practice the question of intercommunion has no significance whatsoever. Only a substantial adoption of today’s form of Catholic common life can make the question urgent in human terms.

In the ancient Church, surprisingly, the daily celebration of Holy Mass was considered obvious from very early on. As far as I know, there was no discussion around this practice, which established itself peacefully. Only in this way can we understand the reason why [in the “Pater noster”] the mysterious adjective *“epiousion” …For the Christian, the “supersubstantial” is the everyday necessity. * The Catechism of the Catholic Church #2837 holds that there are several ways of understanding epiousios, including the traditional meaning daily-bread, but most literally as supersubstantial or superessential, bread.

Of course, the Sunday precept demanded that every Catholic participate in the celebration of the mysteries on the Lord’s day, but the Catholic conception of the Eucharist did not necessarily include the weekly reception of Communion.

…celebrating the Eucharist in the ancient Church was from the beginning linked to the community of believers and with this to strict conditions of access, as it is possible to see from the most ancient sources: the “Didachè,” Justin Martyr, etc. This has nothing to do with slogans like “open Church” or “closed Church.” Instead, the Church’s profound becoming one, a single body with the Lord, is prerequsite in order that she may have the strength to bring her life and light into the world.

…the primitive Church did not …repeat the Supper, but rather, instead of the Supper in the evening, deliberately chose the morning for the celebration of the encounter with the Lord, which already in the earliest times was no longer called Supper, but Eucharist. Only in the encounter with the Risen One on the morning of the first day is the institution of the Eucharist complete, because only with the living Christ can the sacred mysteries be celebrated.

…. When the Lord said “Do this,” he did not mean to exhort his disciples to the repetition of the Last Supper as such. …(I)t is evident that the mandate given was not to repeat the entire supper of that time, but only the new offering of Jesus …The Church, which knew itself bound to the words “Do this,” therefore knew at the same time that the supper was not to be repeated as a whole, but that it was necessary to extrapolate what was essentially new and that for this a new overall form had to be found. […]

Already the most ancient account of the celebration of the Eucharist that we have – the one handed down to us from around 155 by Justin Martyr – shows that a new unity was formed that consisted of two fundamental components: the encounter with the Word of God in a liturgy of the Word, and then the “Eucharist” as “logiké latreia (Greek for spiritual worship).”

When the celebration of the institution of Jesus that took place in the setting of the Last Supper is called Eucharist, what is validly expressed with this term is both obedience to the institution of Jesus and the new form of sacrament developed in the encounter with the Risen One.

This is not a matter of a reproduction of the Last Supper of Jesus, but of the new event of the encounter with the Risen One: novelty and fidelity go hand in hand. The difference between the (Protestant) denominations “Supper” and “Eucharist” is not superficial and casual, but indicates a fundamental difference in the understanding of Jesus’ mandate. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches:

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.” “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.”

1368 The Eucharist is also the sacrifice of the Church. The Church which is the Body of Christ participates in the offering of her Head. With him, she herself is offered whole and entire. She unites herself to his intercession with the Father for all men. In the Eucharist the sacrifice of Christ becomes also the sacrifice of the members of his Body. The lives of the faithful, their praise, sufferings, prayer, and work, are united with those of Christ and with his total offering, and so acquire a new value. Christ’s sacrifice present on the altar makes it possible for all generations of Christians to be united with his offering…

1369 The whole Church is united with the offering and intercession of Christ. Since he has the ministry of Peter in the Church, the Pope is associated with every celebration of the Eucharist, wherein he is named as the sign and servant of the unity of the universal Church. The bishop of the place is always responsible for the Eucharist, even when a priest presides; the bishop’s name is mentioned to signify his presidency over the particular Church, in the midst of his presbyterium and with the assistance of deacons, the community intercedes also for all ministers who, for it and with it, offer the Eucharistic sacrifice:

1372 St. Augustine admirably summed up this doctrine that moves us to an ever more complete participation in our Redeemer’s sacrifice which we celebrate in the Eucharist: This wholly redeemed city, the assembly and society of the saints, is offered to God as a universal sacrifice by the high priest who in the form of a slave went so far as to offer himself for us in his Passion, to make us the Body of so great a head.... Such is the sacrifice of Christians: “we who are many are one Body in Christ” the Church continues to reproduce this sacrifice in the sacrament of the altar so well-known to believers wherein it is evident to them that in what she offers she herself is offered.

1376 The Council of Trent summarizes the Catholic faith by declaring: “Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering under the species of bread, it has always been the conviction of the Church of God, and this holy Council now declares again, that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation.”

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