The Meaning of “Memory “in the Mass

08-10-2025Weekly ReflectionFr. Leonard F. Villa

The Mishnah or Mishna is the first written collection of the Jewish oral traditions that are known as the Oral Torah. Having been collected in the 3rd century A.D. it is the first work of rabbinic literature, written primarily in Hebrew but also partly in Aramaic. The oldest surviving physical fragments of it are from the 6th to 7th centuries. It is viewed as authoritative and binding revelation by most Orthodox Jews and some non-Orthodox Jews.

Exodus 12:14 – This day will be a memorial for you (ZIKARON in Hebrew), and you shall celebrate it as a feast to the Lord. The Teaching of the Mishnah: Jewish oral traditions, around 200 AD states: In each generation, a person must regard himself as having personally left Egypt. Practical consequences: Every Jew says: This is what the Lord did to me when I came out of Egypt, not “to my fathers.” Passover is not a history lesson, but a mystical participation in the Exodus.

However, the meaning of Memory in the Mass goes beyond even the notion of memorial in the Passover seder. The teaching of the Church is that the Mass is the same (!) sacrifice as the sacrifice of the Cross. Why? The Priest is the same Jesus Christ; the Victim is the same Jesus Christ; the altar is the same, His sacred humanity. The only difference between the Mass and Jesus offering Himself on the Cross on Good Friday is the manner of offering. Then it was a bloody sacrifice. In the Mass it is an unbloodly sacrifice under what looks like bread and wine. This is why the Church teaches Mass is a sacrifice and a sacrament. The sacrifice? The same sacrifice as the sacrifice of the Cross. The Sacrament? It is offered without blood under what looks like bread and wine.

The Church uses the word transubstantiation to teach this mystery: the substance of bread and the substance of wine stop being bread and wine and become the substance Jesus Christ, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. There is a double consecration to show sacramentally the separation of Jesus’ Blood from His Body on Calvary, the first Good Friday. Nevertheless, if you receive the Host only you are receiving all of Jesus His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity; if you receive just from the chalice you receive all of Jesus His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. St. Thomas Aquinas in the Sequence he wrote for Corpus Christi, the Body and Blood of the Lord, is a primer on Catholic teaching about the Eucharist which should be memorized. Some bullet points from St. Thomas:

-A teaching is given to Christians, that bread becomes flesh, and wine becomes blood.
-What you do not grasp, what you do not see, a lively faith confirms what is beyond the ordinary. (Faith means I believe what the Son of God says because there is nothing truer than He who is truth which is what the “Amen” means when a person responds to the priest or deacon saying: The Body of Christ.)
-Under different appearances, signs only, not the reality, lies hidden a marvelous reality
-Flesh as food, Blood as drink Christ remains whole and entire under each. (Are we cannibals as the pagans charged? No it is living Flesh and Blood to communicate and nourish God’s life in us as a mother communicates her flesh and blood to her unborn child to nourish and sustain ordinary life.)
-Christ is received whole and entire by the communicant not broken, or divided, or cut in pieces
-One receives, a thousand receive, the same for each, and consuming does not exhaust the Presence.
-The good receive, the wicked receive (sacrilegious reception) their destiny unequal, life for the good, death for the wicked (mortal sin spiritual death and unrepentant mortal sin leads to Hell.)
-When the sacrament is broken, do not waver, but remember that each part remains what it was in the Host whole and entire
-The reality is not broken, only what looks like Bread is broken, the reality remains whole and entire.
-Behold the bread of angels has become food for the wayfarer, truly the Bread of sons and daughters, which must not be thrown to the dogs.
-Good shepherd, true Bread, Jesus, have mercy on us, feed us, protect us, and make us see the good things in the land of the living.

Bread has been called the staff of life, but it has a larger meaning of spiritual sustenance, especially since we are body and soul. The Bread of the Angels is the vision of God which completely nourishes and fulfills them. In the Eucharist we consume and are nourished by God Himself, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, made flesh to redeem us from our sins.

Thus, memory in the Mass has a past and present component. Good Friday happened over two-thousand years ago, but, when we are at Mass we are partaking in Good Friday in the present. The memory is on the altar as Priest, Victim and Altar offering Himself in the present tense, making present His Crucifixion and Resurrection. We can all testify after Mass, Jesus crucified lives and is risen and we saw Him were just with Him.