The traditional teaching of
the Catholic Church is that the celebration of the Eucharist in the mass constitutes a form of
sacrifice in which the Church receives grace from the cross of Christ and participates in Christ's
offering of himself to the Father. This is what we call the sacrifice of the mass. What light can St.
Thomas' teaching shed on this topic?
The Catholic Church has always taught that the mass is a sacrifice, or better yet,
a participation in the one saving sacrifice of Christ. This traditional idea has its origins in
the teaching of Jesus himself, in the institution narrative of the Eucharist, where he states
the night before he dies that the Eucharist is the blood of the covenant and commands
his disciples to do this in memory of me. This set of statements points backwards in time to a
sacrifice at Mount Sinai in Exodus 24:8 where Moses sprinkles blood on the people of Israel
and claims that this is the blood of the covenant. It points forward to Christ's death, but also the
Eucharist that he is instituting for the Church as a perpetual celebration, one that commemorates his
redemptive death considered as a sacrifice.
Although the Church has always taught that the mass is a sacrifice, the teaching became
controversial in the 16th Century when the reformers claimed that the idea establishes a
rivalry between the one true sacrifice of Christ and the Church's sacrifice of the Eucharist.
The Catholic church responded by affirming that there is only one saving sacrifice,
that of Christ crucified, but that the Eucharist allows us to participate in this saving sacrifice
and to offer Christ's merits to the Father on behalf of others, united in prayer with
Christ by grace. Aquinas wrote before the 16th Century controversy, and consequently,
he only dedicates one article of the Summa to the question of the sacrifice of the mass.
Still, his treatment of the subject is instructive and provides one perennially valid way of
interpreting the Catholic doctrine.
Aquinas first asks straightforwardly whether the mass is a sacrifice, and he answers affirmatively
for two reasons. First, he says it is a sacrifice because it represents the passion of Christ.
What does he mean by this? In one sense, Aquinas is simply talking about the symbolism of the mass.
When the priest consecrates the elements, he does so in a twofold way after the example of Christ in
the last supper. First he consecrates the bread so that it truly becomes the body of Christ. Second,
he consecrates the wine so that it truly becomes the blood of Christ.
As Aquinas notes, the symbolism is one of separation. The blood is presented in distinction
from and in a sense in separation from the body in a twofold consecration. This is symbolic
of the death of Christ crucified, whose blood was separated from his body by exsanguination
on the cross. In other words, Christ intended, in the twofold consecration, to depict his own death
and the symbolic structure of the mass in turn refers us to his one saving sacrifice by way of
representation.
We should know that there's something more than a merely human symbolism here however.
As Aquinas notes, the Catholic Church teaches that where the body of Christ is his blood,
soul and divinity are also present by concomitance since Christ is one. And likewise, where his blood
is, his body, soul, and divinity are present by concomitance. So Christ is present, body,
blood, soul and divinity in both the Eucharistic host and the Eucharistic chalice. Nevertheless,
formally speaking, the bread becomes the body of Christ per se, not the blood, and the wine becomes
the blood of Christ per se, not the body. So in effect, there is a mystery of divine symbolism
inscribed in the very rite of the Eucharist by God himself and by the effects of God that
he intends in the Eucharist. Each element contains something distinct formally, either body or blood,
not both, but each contains also the mystery of the other by ontological union, as wherever your
body is, your soul is. And wherever Christ's body is, his soul and divinity are present.
So in the Eucharistic host, and in the chalice, the whole Christ is present. And yet, the consecration
is twofold due to a divine intention symbolizing the passion. Consequently, the Eucharist
represents the passion, but in a very particular way, through the twofold consecration instituted
by Christ himself.
Second, Aquinas says the Eucharist is a sacrifice by way of application. The Eucharist applies to
us the grace that Christ obtained for the Church in virtue of the sacrificial merits
of the cross. You might say that the mass, as a sacrifice, reactualizes the power of the cross
operatively, to apply it to our lives. Notice how reasonable this is. Christ dies for us,
and in doing so merits the grace of salvation we receive. This grace is given to us or applied to
our lives chronologically after the event of the sacrifice of Christ, which has already transpired.
But the Eucharist not only symbolizes to us where the grace comes from, but it's
the occasion in and through which the grace of salvation is dispensed to us in a particular
way. This is already the case with Baptism and with other sacraments. They effectuate what they
symbolize. The Eucharist does this with respect to the grace of the sacrifice of the cross.
Aquinas notes also in the Summa that the
Eucharist contains Christ himself, and therefore, the full power of the passion of Christ himself
is deployed in the sacrament. One dimension of the mystery of the passion is the transformative power
of Christ's grace, which can change us. Another is the prayer of Christ that he makes on behalf
of all, including those who do not know God or who are alienated from him or who are caught up
in sin. These elements of the sacrifice of Christ then are communicated to us in the Eucharistic
sacrifice. We can receive grace from Christ crucified that can transform our lives. We are
also invited to offer his sacrificial merits to the Father on behalf of all of humanity,
including those who are far from God.
For this reason, as Aquinas notes, we pray in the Eucharistic prayer for union with Christ
for others. In fact, as the Church's liturgy makes clear, for those within the Church and for those
outside the Church, that all might be affected and transformed by the one saving sacrifice of Christ.
This is indeed a beautiful mystery. Daily participation in the sacrifice of the mass
teaches us to inscribe the grace of the cross at the heart of our lives.
It also teaches us to pray to Christ, with him and in him, for the salvation of the world.
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