The Last Supper, the Cross, each Mass, same sacrifice?
Imagine one of those stars far from our solar system. Imagine a pulsar emitting radio magnetic waves. This star has existed for eons, but it is only now that we start receiving its radio magnetic waves. It takes hundreds of thousands of years for the waves to reach us. So, too, the sacrifice of the cross projects itself into the future and for all eternity. The Mass helps us to “tune in” on the merits of Christ’s sacrifice and apply them to ourselves. And Christ lives on in his holy humanity and in his Person.
Our Lord suffered on the cross sometime in the past, but his sacrifice is made actual, here and now, at every moment of history. His sacrifice is not just something that happened two thousand years ago: It is still happening. Christ’s sacrifice is not an heirloom or an antique that survives to the present: It is a drama as real now as then. As long as there are men on earth, it will go on.
Again, let us imagine, as in the novel of H.G. Wells, that a scientist has devised a “time tunnel.” Going through this fantastic machine, one could become present at any place and time in the past with the flick of the dials. Let us imagine ourselves present at Calvary, seeing our Lord suffering and offering himself up for all our sins...
Of course, this is not feasible because that machine exists only in the writer's imagination. However, the spiritual effects of this action of Christ on us are the same when we attend the Mass today as they would have been, had we been present on Calvary. The redemptive love of Christ on the Cross is projected through time and space and applied to us precisely in the Mass. It is a form of time in which the past, the present, and the future penetrate one another and touch eternity.
We do not travel back in time or get off the present moment. What happens is that the Mass incorporates us into a present redeeming act of Christ that is substantially the same as the sacrifice of the Cross. Sometimes, we use the expressions to reenact, to re‑actualize, and to make present to signify this happening.
Through the mystery of the Eucharist, the sacrifice of the Cross, which was once carried out on Calvary, becomes present in a wonderful fashion. It is constantly recalled in the Holy Mass, and its salvific power is applied for the forgiveness of sins we commit each day.
“As often as the sacrifice of the cross in which Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed is celebrated on an altar, the work of our redemption is carried on.” This sacrifice of our redemption is renewed at each Mass; the faithful gather around the priest and, together with him, join Jesus in offering himself to God the Father as in Calvary.
The same words of the Last Supper and the Mass bear a sacrificial character. Christ calls his body a sacrificial body and his blood, sacrificial blood. The expressions “to give up the body” and “to shed blood” are biblical sacrificial terms; they express the rendering of a true and proper sacrifice.
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