July 1985 Print

Father Joseph Rickaby, S.J., was a distinguished British Jesuit of the pre-World War I era. He was a philosophy professor, retreat master and student chaplain, equally at home among the classical poets, the Fathers of the Church, and the English philosophers. His talks to university students were collected in a book which he called The Lord My Light, echoing the motto of Oxford, Dominus Illuminatio Mea, a quotation from Psalm 26 and a theme close to the heart of John Henry Newman. Our selection from his book was originally entitled simply The Sacrifice of the Mass. We have undertaken to improve on his simple title to show how well he illustrates the right way for a Catholic to theologize: remaining faithful to the Magisterium of the Church while searching for a clearer understanding of the deposit of faith. This search, as he shows, allows for a diversity of opinion, within the framework of fidelity to Scripture, Tradition and defined dogma. How different from the modernist-inspired trend of today, where any outlandish novelty can be put forward, claiming to be "ecumenical" or "in the spirit of Vatican II" or "a legitimate dissenting opinion" or "the result of contemporary scholarship"—the aim (or at least the result) in many cases being to subvert revealed truth. We will try to have more of Father Rickaby in coming issues.

LET ME FIRST EXPOSE what is of faith. The Council of Trent in the 22nd Session, chap. i, says:

Jesus Christ, our God and Lord, though He was once to offer Himself to God the Father by death on the altar of the cross, there to work out our eternal redemption, nevertheless, because His priesthood was not to be extinguished by His death, at the Last Supper, on the night of His betrayal, by way of leaving to His beloved Spouse the Church a sacrifice visible, as human nature requires—a sacrifice that might be a representation and re-enactment of the sacrifice that was once to be accomplished in blood upon the cross, whereby the memory of it might endure to the end of the world, and the salutary effect of it might be applied to the remission of the sins that are daily committed by us—showing Himself forth a priest appointed forever according to the order of Melchisedech, offered His Body and Blood to God the Father under the appearances of bread and wine, and under the symbols of the same things gave them to His Apostles to receive, appointing them at the same time priests of the New Covenant, and commanding them and their successors in the priesthood to offer the same, which command He gave in these words, Do this in commemoration of Me, as the Catholic Church has ever understood and taught.

And in chap. ii.:

It is one and the same Victim and the same Offerer, now offering by the ministry of His priests, who then offered Himself on the Cross; only the manner of offering is different.

In the canons that follow, any one is anathematized who says that a true and proper sacrifice is not offered to God in the Mass, or that the offering merely consists in Christ being given for our food, or that the sacrifice of the Mass is merely one of praise and thanksgiving, or that it is a bare commemoration of the sacrifice accomplished on the Cross, and not a propitiatory sacrifice, or that it benefits the receiver alone, or that the sacrifice of the Mass is any derogation from the most holy sacrifice of Christ accomplished on the Cross.

We have also some authentic guidance in the Epistle to the Hebrews. That Epistle puts before us the Priesthood of Christ, in comparison with the priesthood of Aaron and his sons in the Jewish Covenant. Christ's Priesthood is shown to be the reality, whereof the other was the shadow: Christ's Priesthood eternal, the other temporary, and now ceased: Christ's sacrifice one and all-sufficient for the taking away of sin. the sacrifices of the Old Covenant many and insufficient. The entrance of the Jewish high priest once a year, bearing the blood of victims, beyond the veil into the Holy of Holies, is marked for a figure of our Crucified Redeemer ascending beyond the clouds into heaven. Bearing this in mind we record the following texts, all the more willingly because they are quoted by Protestants against the Sacrifice of the Mass. The theory that we shall follow suits these texts, we think, better than any other, because it maintains a closer dependence than any other theory of the Sacrifice of the Mass upon the Sacrifice of the Cross. Our great high priest who hath passed into the heavens. Made higher than the heavens. Ever living to make intercession for us. Through his own blood entered in once and for all into the holy place. He hath entered into heaven to appear now before the face of God for us. Christ was offered once (as men die once). Offering one victim for sins . . . by one oblation he hath made perfect for ever them that are sanctified (Heb. iv. 14; vii, 25, 26; ix. 12, 24, 18;x. 13, 14).

Lastly, to the text quoted by the Council, Do this in commemoration of Me (I Cor. xi. 24), we add the following declaration of the same: For as often as you shall eat this bread, and drink this chalice, you shall show forth the death of the Lord until he come (ib. v. 26).

We have then two principal points of faith regarding Holy Mass:

1. The Mass is a true and proper sacrifice.

2. The Mass is a commemoration of the death of Christ, a showing forth of the death of the Lord.

Moot points among Catholic theologians are:

a.  In what precisely consists the sacrifice rite of the Mass.

b. How precisely the Mass shows forth the death of Christ.

Nearly all theologians are now agreed that:

c. The sacrificial rite of the Mass consists precisely in the consecration.

d. Precisely in the consecration does the Mass show forth the death of Christ.

Thus, you see nearly all theologians agree in holding c. and d. as distinct propositions. But the theory that I am about to propose identifies c. and d., says that c. is d. and d. is c. In other words (c.d.) The sacrificial rite of the Mass consists in the consecration precisely inasmuch as the consecration shows forth the death of Christ.

This theory was taught by Father Gabriel Vasquez, S.J. (1551-1604), in Spain and at Rome, and by Father John Perrone, S.J. (1794-1876), at Rome. The two Jesuit Cardinals de Lugo and Franzelin set it aside as insufficient. Still the theory remains tenable and probable. I give it to you as one which, as Catholics, you may hold till you find better. For twenty-five years, since I first approached the subject, I have not found one better, nor to my mind nearly as good.

First then, how the consecration in the Mass shows forth the death of Christ, and consequently the Sacrifice of the Cross. No theory here is satisfactory, that does not take account of the consecration under both kinds, or that so dwells upon the consecration of the bread as to make the consecration of the chalice superfluous, or at least, apart from the positive institution of Christ, non-essential. Christ died on the Cross by the shedding of His Blood, by the separation of His Blood from His Body. That separation is marked by the separate consecration of the bread into the Body of Christ and the wine into His Blood. To understand this better, we must observe what is present under either species "by concomitance," as theologians speak, and what "by force of the words" of consecration. On the principle that "the sacraments effect what they signify," there is present in the Host, by force of the words of consecration, the Body of Christ and no more; and in the Chalice, by force of the words of consecration, the Blood of Christ and no more. But inasmuch as the Body of Christ does not exist except in conjunction with the rest of His Sacred Humanity, wherever the Body is, there is the whole Christ. Thus the Body is under the species of bread in the Host by force of the words: the Blood of Christ, His Soul, and His Divinity, by concomitance. And similarly of the Chalice. But, in regard of what is present by force of the words apart from concomitance the first consecration places separately the Body of Christ, the second consecration of His Blood. This is called by theologians a "mystical," or "symbolical," separation, and consequently a mystical or symbolical, slaying of Christ. Thus in the double consecration the death of the Lord is shown forth, although He does not actually die.

Vasquez puts the matter thus:

Since by force of the words, only the Body of Christ is put under the species of bread, and only His Blood under the species of wine—although under either species the whole Christ is present by concomitance—the consecration of the two separate species thus performed constitutes a representation of that separation of the Body from the Blood which makes death; and this representation is called a mystical separation. And the death itself is represented: therefore it is called a mystical slaying . . . . Before the consecration of the wine, the Body of Christ is not represented as dead and immolated (Vasquez, disp. 223, nn. 37, 45).

To this I will add some words from the Lenten Pastoral of His Eminence Cardinal Vaughan for 1895:

It is to be noted that after the consecration the Priest addresses not one word to Our Lord as there, but addresses only God, as God in Heaven . . . . But at the Agnus Dei we begin to pray to Jesus Christ. This is said to be because Our Lord is treated after, the Consecration, as a Victim slain: a Victim is offered up, not spoken to. The placing of the particle of the Sacred Host in the Chalice [immediately before the Agnus Dei] is thought to represent the reunion of the Body and Blood of Our Lord in the Resurrection (The Woman and Her Child with Us, p. 12).

We are next to consider how in the Consecration we have the sacrifice of the Mass. For a sacrifice you must have a priest and a victim. The victim is some living creature. This living creature must be offered to God, and more than that, its life must be taken, it must be slain. To have been sacrifice and still to be alive (apart from any resurrection) is a contradiction in terms.¹ The victim is slain to denote God's sovereign dominion, as Lord of life and death. Also, as the sacrifice is propitiatory, i.e., an atonement for sin, the victim is slain in substitution for the offerer, who confesses that he for his sin deserves to die. Such substitution is denoted by laying the hands on the victim.² Thus we gather our definition. A sacrifice is a religious rite, whereby a living thing is offered to God and slain, in acknowledgement of God's supreme dominion as Lord of life and death, and also in atonement for his sin for whom the sacrifice is offered, who confesses that he deserves to die, and gives the life of this living thing in substitution for his own.

Whatever then there is in the Mass to mark Christ as slain, that constitutes the essential sacrificial rite of the Mass. But, as we have shown, the twofold consecration marks Christ as slain in the Mass: therefore it is the twofold consecration, so significant, that essentially constitutes a Mass as a sacrifice.

But here comes the difficulty. Christ is not slain in the Mass really, only mystically and symbolically: therefore, it would appear, the Mass is not a real but only a mystical or symbolical sacrifice, which is no "true and proper sacrifice." To this it may be replied that, as a sacrifice is essentially a sign to God, symbolizing His dominion and our sinfulness, such a sign may be paid sufficiently by a slaying which is symbolic only, in a case where the fitness of things militates against the actual death of the victim: this is illustrated by Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac (Gen. xxii. 1-15). This answer goes some way to meet the difficulty. But our answer goes further. We distinguish between the symbol of a slaying which never takes place, the symbolic rite in either case being performed upon the very person of the victim there present. We observe that though Isaac was not actually slain the sacrifice was completed by the actual slaying of the ram that was substituted for him. But there can be no substitution for Christ as Victim of our redemption. If then Christ never had been actually slain, the objection would have some weight. It might even be conceded—Vasquez at least concedes—that the mere mystical slaying of Christ by the separate consecration of His Body and Blood would not be enough to constitute a true and proper sacrifice but for the fact of its re-presenting and re-enacting in symbol the actual shedding of the Blood of Jesus Christ on the altar of the Cross. Thus the Crucifixion it is that makes the Mass a sacrifice. The Mass is a sacrifice precisely by re-presenting before God the Crucifixion. With reason then does the Epistle to the Hebrews speak of one oblation. With reason does the Council of Trent define "the same Victim and the same Offerer, only the manner of offering being different." These are Vasquez's words:

It is essential to a sacrifice commemorative, without actual shedding of blood, that it should represent a sacrifice where there was actual shedding of blood and death of the victim. Wherefore, if Christ had not died, this Sacrament would not be a sacrifice (disp. 223, n. 47).

I am bound to add that this last assertion of Vasquez is vehemently denied by other Catholic theologians: still I believe he is right. And his opinion is confirmed by the testimony of antiquity. When the Fathers and Doctors who lived before the Council of Trent speak, as they often do, of the Sacrifice of the Mass, what is the special sacrificial feature that they fix upon? Precisely that which the words of the New Testament also fix upon, that the Mass is the memorial of the death of Christ. It is the memorial of a sacrifice, and by that it is itself a sacrifice; in other words, it is essentially a commemorative sacrifice, and the commemoration makes the sacrifice. Here are some examples:

What then, do not we offer every day? Indeed we do offer, but by making commemoration of this death. And it is one sacrifice, not many . . . . for we offer ever the same Victim . . . . Not a different sacrifice, as the Jewish high priest offered now one lamb, now another, but the same sacrifice we offer always; or rather, we make commemoration of a sacrifice (St. Chrysostom on Hebrews x. 10).

The celebration of this Sacrament is a representative image of the Passion of Christ, which Passion is a true immolation of Him; and therefore the representation made in this Sacrament is called an immolation of Christ (St. Thomas, Summa, p. 3, q. 83, art. 1).

As often as the commemoration made by this Victim is celebrated, the work of our redemption is put in exercise (Secret for Ninth Sunday after Pentecost).

As often as we offer to Him the Victim of His Passion, so often do we make His Passion over again to ourselves for our forgiveness (St. Gregory, hom. 37 on the Gospels, n. 7).

St. Augustine says that He suffered once on the Cross, in His Body manifest and in the distinctly visible members of His Humanity, who every day in the Sacrament is represented, not manifestly, but invisibly, not suffering, but as it were suffering (Algerus, De Sacramentis, 1, I, c. 16). Algerus was a monk of Cluny (1075-1135).

I have kept back a difficulty which I must now face—the main objection alleged against the theory of Vasquez. I face it gladly: a sound theory gains strength from opposition. It is said: "A commemoration is not the thing commemorated: the commemoration of a victory is not a victory, neither then is the commemoration of a sacrifice a sacrifice: thus it would appear that the theory reduces the Mass to a 'bare commemoration of the sacrifice accomplished upon the Cross,' the very view which the Council of Trent formally condemns as heretical." The objection, I say, rather brings out the merits of the theory. In the first place, though the commemoration of an event is not the event itself, and the Mass is not the Crucifixion, yet the commemorative re-enactment of a sign may well be itself a sign. But a sacrifice, as we have seen, is a sign to God of recognition of His dominion. Thus the instance of the victory is not in point: a victory and a sacrifice are not in the same category, for a victory is not essentially a sign. A sacrifice is. Moreover, the Mass is emphatically not a "bare commemoration." Deny the Real Presence, as the heresies of the sixteenth century denied it: leave only bread and wine on the altar; and any rite gone through upon that bread and wine will be the "bare commemoration," which the Council of Trent anathematized. The Sacrifice is lost without the Real Presence. But the rite as we have described it, commemorative of the sacrifice of Calvary, is performed upon the very Body which was pierced there and the Blood which flowed there. It is performed by the express institution and command of Him who was offered there. It is a sacrifice of Christ's own designing; and the living, present Christ is offered in it.

Vasquez himself meets the objection in these words:

For a commemorative sacrifice to be a true and proper sacrifice, it is not enough for it to be a mere bare sign of the death of a thing, without in any way containing the thing itself, the death of which is represented. At any rate, the thing itself, the death of which is represented, could not be said to be offered in sacrifice; nor would there be any true commemorative sacrifice, but rather a mere sign and phantom of a sacrifice. It is an indispensable requisite that the thing itself, the death of which is represented, be the sign of its own death . . . For how can that be said truly and really to be offered in sacrifice, about which no action of the offering priest takes place in reality, but only in similitude and in figure?

In plain words, how could Christ be offered if He were not there? Vasquez goes on:

Christ Himself under the species of bread and wine by the peculiar way in which the consecration is performed by the priest, represents the death that He died by real shedding of His Blood . . . . And though He is not said really and truly to be slain and die, but only in figure and similitude, nevertheless He is said really and truly to be immolated and offered in sacrifice (Vasquez, disp. 222, nn. 66, 67).

"We repudiate any repetition of the sacrifice of Christ: we only place before God the memorial of it," writes an Anglican to The Times (Jan. 20, 1899, signed C. N. Gray). Before letting this statement pass, we must enquire whether the "memorial" is bread and wine, which would be the "bare commemoration" condemned at Trent, the larva sacrificii repudiated by Vasquez, or whether it is the true Body and Blood of Christ under the appearances of bread and wine, in which sense we willingly accept the statement. In speaking of the Mass, the Catholic Church never uses the phrase "repetition of the sacrifice of Christ." Our Catholic bishops write: "It was then offered once and for all: and there is no necessity of repeating it." The Mass they call "a mystic representation of the blood-shedding of Christ" (Vindication of the Bull Apostolicae Curae, n. 12). "Representation" (in the sense of "re-presentation"), and "re-enactment," and "reflection," of the Sacrifice of the Cross are terms that we may employ in speaking of the Mass. But it is not a "repetition," any more than the moon is a representation of the sun. All the Masses that are said shine as moons or planets around the central sun of the Sacrifice of the Cross, deriving from it their light and their sacrificial being. Christ Crucified, Christ in Heaven, Christ in the Consecration of the Mass, are the three phases of the eternal priesthood of our great High Priest. The Crucifixion was once for all, it is past and gone, but abides in everlasting efficacy. In heaven, Christ ever lives to make intercession for us, not in any posture of supplication or humiliation, for He reigns there in glory, but the very presence of His Sacred Body, marked with the Wounds, is a continual intercession on our behalf. He comes on our altars, not in glory, but in simple and abject guise, a Lamb standing as slain (Apoc. v. 6), to the end of the world. The great fact is, that one and the same Person, God and Man, was on Calvary, is in Heaven, and is also (under another appearance) on the altar from the consecration till He is received in Holy Communion. Whoever accepts that fact, can have no difficulty in accepting the definitions of Trent on the Mass, which alone are of faith: beyond that, as a theological speculation, he can make his choice between the theories of Vasquez, Franzelin, Cienfuegos, and others. Using this liberty, I have followed and advocated the theory of Vasquez. It is helpful to devotion to have some theory here.

To us Catholics in England above all, it is the Mass that matters. For the Mass, the English martyrs bled, and confessors of the faith were imprisoned for harboring the Mass in their homes. It must matter very much to our salvation with what earnestness and frequency we assist at Holy Mass. Do we hear it as often as we can, or as seldom as we dare? And while we kneel before the altar, what is our appreciation of the Mystery?

 

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1. The reader may look up the meanings of sphattein and mactare in the dictionaries. The substantive hostia is connected with an old verb hostio, "I strike." And the truth that without sacrifice there is no forgiveness of sin is thus expressed: without shedding of blood is no remission (Heb. x. 22). Sacrifice then involves the shedding of blood.

2. Thou shalt bring a calf before the tabernacle of the testimony; and Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands over its head, and thou shalt slay it in the sight of the Lord (Exod. xxix. 10, 11; cf. Levit. xvi. 21). This is why the priest stretches his hands over the bread and wine at the prayer Hanc igitur just before the consecration.