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“We have been consecrated through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” [Hebrews 10:10]
I was asked at a Bible study: “Father Dave, why do we Catholics re-sacrifice Jesus every Sunday? Didn’t he die on the Cross only once, and it was good for eternity?”
I answered “no” to the first question, but “yes” to the second.
My niece, a first-time mother, once put a thought in my mind that I then used to explain Catholic teaching about Jesus’ Sacrifice on the Cross.
When leading a Bible study during my years on a reservation, I learned to end with time for questions and answers. People might be confused by what non-Catholics (including former Catholics) say about Catholic teaching, and they hope that I can clarify Catholic teaching and practices. One such challenge is the claim that we Catholics are always re-sacrificing Jesus. Of course, we know that Jesus’ Sacrifice on the Cross was (and remains) eternal.
When this came up in a Bible study class, I explained that we inherited a Jewish understanding of a prayer (called zikkaron, זִכָּרוֹן) which is a memorial that makes present a saving event. At Passover, the zikkaron of remembering the Passover puts them in Egypt with their ancestors for the escape from slavery. To this day, Jews are reminded at Passover: “In every generation, a person is obligated to see himself as if he came out of Egypt.”
When Jesus called the apostles to share the meal that would memorialize his dying and rising, he naturally drew upon the Jewish zikkaron prayer tradition. Thus, Jesus gives us this memorial that makes present his once-and-for-all Sacrifice.
We do not re-sacrifice Jesus. Instead, we know his Sacrifice is eternally present, lying just beyond our five senses in God’s heavenly realm, and is not bound to a date on the calendar some 2,000 years ago.
Just as Israel remembers the Exodus as a saving event made present to each generation, the Church remembers Christ’s Passover from death to life as a saving reality into which he draws us at every Mass.
Mom insight
One of my Bible study friends was quietly processing this when I said, “It can be difficult to grasp this when we think in a European way of one event followed by another and not as Jews with their Semitic culture in the Middle East, 2,000 years ago.” At that moment, and realizing I needed something more immediate to people’s own experiences, I recalled what my niece told me about being a first-time mother.
A few months after Shannon had her first child, the extended family gathered at her place for Thanksgiving dinner. I asked her: “Is there anything about having your first child that you did not anticipate or has surprised you?” With little John cradled in her arms, she said, “Yes!” then continued: “I never knew I could love someone so intensely, so completely.” This uncle replied: “I have no doubt that’s what you’re experiencing.”
As a priest always on the lookout for illustrations for my Sunday homilies, I wrote it down and filed it for future reference. Of course, I used it on Mother’s Day, but also in other settings when I spoke about love.
Again, back at Bible study, I looked at my confused friend and said, “Perhaps the following example can help,” and I began with the story of Shannon’s early experience of a mother’s intense and complete love for her child. Ten of the 15 people at Bible study were mothers, and they all nodded in agreement that they had (and still have) that experience of loving their child.
From the beginning, my mother loved me that way as well, and only with time did I more fully appreciate its intensity and completeness. It was always there, and she never had to recreate it for me. And yet, there were times when she wanted to remind me that her love was always a part of my life. For example, every day when I headed out the door to walk to school, she would stop me at the door, give me a kiss, and say, “I love you.” My little boy’s world was a type of bubble of limited experiences and understandings. My mother used my departure for school as a chance to step into my bubble with a reminder of her love for me. She never reinvented it, because it was the same love she had for me at the beginning of my life. She wasn’t loving me again and again as if with a new love. With hindsight, I can see that her love transcended my life, as if lying just beyond my five senses, ready to step into my world of limited understanding. To that little boy, her love was other worldly.
Of course, any example that comes from worldly experiences will, in some way, fall short of fully capturing what happens in God’s heavenly realm. However, I hope my example captures something of how Jesus’ transforming love is made real in his Sacrifice on the Cross and continues to break into our bubble of limited understanding.
We do not re-sacrifice Jesus on Sundays. With the memorial meal that he personally charged the earliest disciples to continue, he makes us present to his one and only Sacrifice on the Cross.
For he is the true and eternal Priest,
who instituted the pattern of an everlasting sacrifice
and was the first to offer himself as the saving Victim,
commanding us to make this offering as his memorial.
[Preface I for the Most Holy Eucharist]
