“Do this…” What did He mean?
In the Last Supper, Christ gave his apostles this command, “Do this in memory of me,” making them priests of the New Testament. With these words, Jesus meant: Do not just make a remembrance or memorial, a theatrical representation of what I have done. Rather ‘do this,’ what I have done and as I have done it. Offer exactly what I have offered, and drink the chalice that I have drunk. In short, in the Last Supper, Christ was looking forward to the sacrifice of the Cross, anticipating it, and establishing the manner of perpetuating it.
The Church continues offering the same sacrifice but in an unbloody manner, sacramentally. The historical event that took place on Calvary does not repeat itself; neither is it continued in each Mass. The sacrifice of Christ is perfect and therefore does not need to be repeated. Glorious in heaven, Christ does not die again. The ‘presence’ of the singular sacrifice of the cross is multiplied, overcoming time and space. Therefore, the Mass is not a new sacrifice, but rather the real, sacramental renewal of the one supreme sacrifice of Calvary.
On the Cross, he would die by the separation of his blood from his body. In the Last Supper, as happens in every Mass, Jesus Christ did not consecrate the bread and the wine together, but separately, to show forth the manner of his death by the separation of body and blood.
The double Consecration is necessary to represent the real separation of the body and blood of Christ, which took place in the sacrifice of the Cross.
In the Mass, there is no new offering, but only another kind of presence of the same offering of Calvary through the ministry of the priest.
In the Last Supper, our Lord was ‘about to suffer;’ on Calvary he was ‘suffering;’ in every Mass he is present, ‘having suffered,’ glorious, as he is heaven. Thus, we have the possibility of participating actively in Christ’s sacrifice. Calvary is among us.
In the Cenacle, as in Calvary, the essential elements of the sacrifice are there: the slaying of the victim and the offering: ‘immolation’ and ‘self offering’ to God the Father. In the old Jewish ritual, the offering ought to be done by the priests, it was not necessary for the slaying to be done by them. It often was the work of the Temple servants. For it was not the slaying that made the victim sacred, but the offering. The essential thing was that the priest offered a living thing slain right there and then.
In the sacrifice of Calvary, the priest was perfect, for Christ was the priest. The victim was perfect, for He was the victim, too. He offered himself, slain. But not slain by himself. He was slain by others, slain indeed by his enemies, by our sins. Christ is the unspotted Lamb. He set all men free from the slavery of sin and established the eternal alliance between creature and Creator, the New Covenant.
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