Is the Mass still a sacrifice?It's in there. At Mass Catholics pray to God to "look with favor on your church's offering and see the victim whose death has reconciled us to yourself.... Calling to mind the death your Son endured for our salvation ... we offer you in thanksgiving Thanksgiving annual U.S. holiday celebrating harvest and yearly blessings; originated with Pilgrims (1621). [Am. Culture: EB, IX: 922] See : America Thanksgiving national holiday with luxurious dinner as chief ritual. [Am. Pop. this holy and living sacrifice Living Sacrifice was a Christian death/thrash/metalcore band that formed in 1989 in Little Rock, Arkansas, U.S.. They are considered one of the most influential bands in the Christian metal scene. Biography Living Sacrifice was one of the first Christian death metal bands. ." Throughout the church's history and to the present day, the Mass has been many things--a community meal evoking the presence of the risen Jesus; the remembrance of his Last Supper Last Supper, in the New Testament, meal taken by Jesus and his disciples on the eve of the passion. Jesus broke bread and passed a cup of wine among the disciples, identifying himself with the bread and the wine and linking the meal to his impending death on the and his death; communion communion: see Eucharist; Lord's Supper. with Christ and the church; thanksgiving and praise--but underlying it all has been sacrifice. Just how is the Mass a sacrifice? At his Last Supper Jesus made an offering of himself by telling his disciples to eat and drink his body and blood in memory of him. And this sacrifice, which Catholics reenact at every Mass, makes real, here and now, Christ's sacrifice on the cross for the forgiveness Forgiveness Angelica, Suor is forgiven by the Virgin Mary for ill-considered suicide. [Ital. Opera: Puccini, Suor Angelica, Westerman, 364] Bishop of Digne of sins. "To satisfy God's justice for the sins of men" was how the old Baltimore Catechism A Catechism of Christian Doctrine, Prepared and Enjoined by Order of the Third Council of Baltimore (or, simply, the Baltimore Catechism) was the de facto standard Catholic school text in the United States from 1885 to the 1960s. defined the purpose of Jesus' self-sacrifice on the cross, reenacted in the Mass. While the church's understanding has broadened, Christ's sacrifice celebrated in the Mass still gives Catholics a key to bringing his Good News to the world. Christ's dying for the forgiveness of our sins refers to his whole life, not only his death. Christ is the best model of a "person for others" who embodies God's love, compassion, and justice. His suffering and death were the ultimate expression of his suffering love--and God's--for humanity. The sins of hatred, misunderstanding, and violence killed him, but by enduring the destruction of his body he gave indestructible in·de·struc·ti·ble adj. Impossible to destroy: indestructible furniture; indestructible faith. [Late Latin ind hope to all who suffer and who sacrifice for others, and forgiveness to those who inflict suffering or refuse to live generously. Sacrifice is not only something Jesus did; it's something Christians do as well if they are to follow him. "That the Eucharist contains the sacrifice of Christ is clear," liturgy professor Kevin Irwin has said; "that his sacrifice should be imitated and lived in our lives of ... self-sacrifice and service should be equally clear." In the sacrifice of the Mass, Catholics enter into communion with one another and with God. In this offering of themselves through Christ, they put themselves at God's disposal, to work in love and service for the good of the world. JOEL SCHORN, managing editor of TrueQuest Communications in Chicago. |
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