Bible Heaven/Bible Heaven.iso/misc/answers/answers.009

Text File | 1990-07-10 | 17KB | 278 lines

                            The Mass

     There is no mistaking it.  Fundamentalists do not like the
Mass, and they like it even less than they otherwise might
because they misunderstand what it is.
     In his monthly magazine, television evangelist Jimmy
Swaggart wrote, "The Roman Catholic church teaches that the Holy
Mass is an expiatory sacrifice, in which the Son of God is
actually sacrificed again on the cross."  Loraine Boettner, the
dean of anti-Catholic fundamentalists, said that the Mass is a
"jumble of medieval superstition."  The late Keith Green, founder
of Last Days Ministries, called the Mass blasphemous because
there can be no continuing offering for sin, Christ having died
"once for all."
     One may assume these proponents of fundamentalism never read
an official Catholic explanation of the Mass--or, if they did,
that they did not understand it.  Each could have turned for help
to Vatican II, which put the Catholic position succinctly: "At
the Last Supper, on the night he was betrayed, our Savior
instituted the Eucharistic Sacrifice of his body and blood.  He
did this in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the Cross
throughout the centuries until he should come again, and so to
entrust to his beloved spouse, the Church, a memorial of his
death and resurrection: a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a
bond of charity, a paschal banquet in which Christ is consumed,
the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is
given to us" (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 47).
     But you don't need to read the documents of Vatican II to
know Catholics say the Mass was instituted at the Last Supper.
Any modestly-informed Catholic can set an inquirer right on this
one and can at least direct him to the biblical accounts of the
final night Jesus was with his disciples.  Anyone turning to the
text would find these words: "Then he took bread, and blessed and
broke it, and gave it to them, saying, This is my body, given for
you; do this for a commemoration of me" (Luke 22:19).
     The Greek here and in the parallel Gospel passages (Matt.
26:26, Mark 14:22) reads: Touto estin to soma mou.  It is given
slightly differently by Paul: Touto mou estin to soma (1 Cor.
11:24).  They all translate as "This is my body."  The verb estin
is the equivalent of the English "is" and can mean "is really" or
"is figuratively."  The usual meaning of estin is the former
(take a look at any Greek grammar book and prove it to yourself),
just as, in English, the verb is usually taken in the real or
literal sense.
     Fundamentalists, of course, insist Christ, in saying "This
is my body," spoke only a trope.  But this interpretation is
precluded by Paul's discussion of the Eucharist in 1 Cor. 23-24
and by the whole tenor of John 6, the chapter where the Eucharist
is promised.  The Greek word for "body" in John 6 is sarx, which
can only mean physical flesh, and the word for "eat" translates
as "gnaws" or "chews."  This is certainly not the language of
metaphor.
     The literal meaning can't be avoided except through violence
to the text--and through the rejection of the universal
understanding of the early Christian centuries.  The writings of
Paul and John reflect belief in a Presence that is Real.  There
is no basis for forcing anything else out of the lines, and no
writer tried to do so until the early Middle Ages.  In short,
Christ did not institute a Figurative Presence.
     Some fundamentalists say the use of the word "is" can be
explained by the fact that Aramaic, the language spoken by
Christ, had no word for "represents."  Jesus just had to do the
best he could with a restricted vocabulary.  Those who make this
claim are behind the times, even for fundamentalists, most of
whom now acknowledge that such an argument is feeble since, as
Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman showed a century ago, Aramaic has about
three dozen words which can mean "represents," so Christ would
have had no difficulty at all in giving an unmistakable
equivalent of "This represents my body."
     There have been attempts to get around the plain sense of
the passage by wishing the words away.  James Moffatt produced
his second translation of the New Testament in 1913; it gives
Matt. 26:26 and parallel passages this way: "Take and eat this,
it means my body."  With this Moffatt ceased to be a translator
and became an interpreter.  Present-day fundamentalists do not
rely on his version of the New Testament, generally preferring
the Authorized Version instead, but Moffatt's lapse from
scholarly proprieties (what Arnold Lunn called "a glaring example
of the subordination of scholarship to sectarian prejudice") is
indicative of the problems the accounts of the Last Supper cause
people who refuse to take the words at face value.
     As if the Catholic claim about the reality of the Real
Presence were not bad enough, the Church insists that the Mass is
the continuation and re-presentation of the sacrifice of Calvary.

But it is not a recrucifixion of Christ.  He does not suffer and
die again.  On the other hand, it is more than just a memorial
service.
     John A. O'Brien, writing in The Faith of Millions, said,
"The manner in which the sacrifices are offered is alone
different: on the Cross Christ really shed his blood and was
really slain; in the Mass, however, there is no real shedding of
blood, no real death; but the separate consecration of the bread
and of the wine symbolizes the separation of the body and blood
of Christ and thus symbolizes his death upon the Cross.  The Mass
is the renewal and perpetuation of the sacrifice of the Cross in
the sense that it offers anew to God the Victim of Calvary and
thus commemorates the sacrifice of the Cross, reenacts it
symbolically and mystically, and applies the fruits of Christ's
death upon the Cross to individual human souls.  All the efficacy
of the Mass is derived, therefore, from the sacrifice of Calvary"
(p. 306).
     Keith Green wouldn't have bought such an explanation.  The
second of Green's Catholic Chronicles is called The Sacrifice of
the Mass.  The subtitle is Jesus Dies Again, which aptly
summarizes Green's position.  Though Green now presumably knows
better, having had a chance to obtain the proper interpretation
of the Bible from the Author himself, people who still distribute
his writings apparently do not, so let's take a look at what he
thought while here below.
     His tract asks, "Have you ever wondered why in every
Catholic church they still have Jesus up on the cross?  Every
crucifix with Jesus portrayed as nailed to it tells the whole
Catholic story--Jesus is still dying for the sins of the world!
But that's a lie!  We need only look to the Scriptures to see the
truth.
     "The Epistle to the Hebrews speaks of the 'once for all'
sacrifice of Christ on the cross, not a daily sacrifice on
altars.  The Bible repeatedly affirms in the clearest and most
positive terms that Christ's sacrifice on Calvary was complete in
that one offering.  And that it was never to be repeated is set
forth explicitly in Hebrews, chapters 7, 9, and 10."
     Green then quotes Heb. 7:27, 9:12, 9:25-28, and 10:10-14.
(The Catholic reader should review these passages; Heb. 9:28, for
instance, reads: "Christ was offered once for all, to drain the
cup of the world's sins.")  Green notes that "throughout these
verses occurs the statement 'once for all' which shows how
perfect, complete, and final Jesus' sacrifice was! ...  Any
pretense of a continuous offering for sin is worse than vain, it
is blasphemy and true fulfillment of the Scripture, 'Seeing they
crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an
open shame' (Heb. 6:6)."
     Green doesn't mention the context in which Heb. 6:6 is
placed.  It has nothing directly to do with the Mass.  Instead,
the first verses of the chapter deal with those who fall away
from the faith after baptism.  Forgiveness of their sins can't
come through a second baptism, since there is only one baptism
established by Christ and it can be received only once.  What do
they want? the sacred writer asks.  Do they want a new baptism to
be given through a second crucifixion?  That's the only way it
could happen.  "Would they crucify the Son of God a second time,
hold him up to mockery a second time, for their own ends?"
     This passage simply doesn't say what Green thought it did.
Nor do the others.  The Catholic Church specifically says Christ
does not die again--his death is indeed once for all--but that
does not contradict the doctrine of the Mass.  It would be
something else if the Church were to claim he does die again, but
it doesn't make that claim.  A re-presenting of the original
sacrifice does not necessitate a new crucifixion.
     Loraine Boettner, in the eighth chapter of Roman
Catholicism, argues that the meal instituted by Christ was
strictly symbolic.  He gives a cleverly incomplete quotation to
support his position.  He writes, "Paul too says that the bread
remains bread: 'Wherefore whosoever shall eat the bread and drink
the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner. ...  But let each man
prove himself, and so let him eat of the bread, and drink of the
cup' (1 Cor. 11:27-28)."
     The part of verse 27 represented by the ellipsis is crucial.

It reads: "shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord."
Why does Boettner omit this?  Because to be guilty of someone's
body and blood is to revile him, and one can hardly revile baked
flour or fermented grape juice.  The omitted words make no sense
at all unless they mean a profanation of the Sacrament is
something serious--and they clearly imply the bread and wine
become Christ himself.
     The Old Testament predicted that Christ would offer a true
sacrifice to God in bread and wine, that he would use those
elements.  In Gen. 14:18 Melchisedech, the king of Salem and a
priest, offered sacrifice under the form of bread and wine.
Psalm 109 predicted Christ would be a priest "according to the
order of Melchisedech," that is, offering a sacrifice in bread
and wine.  We must, then, look for some sacrifice other than
Calvary, since it was not under the form of bread and wine.  The
Mass fits the bill.
     Joseph Zacchello, revealer of Secrets of Romanism, remarks:
"Melchisedech brought bread and wine to refresh Abraham and his
followers, not to sacrifice.  The Roman version is a
mistranslation.  It translates 'And he was a priest,' as follows:
'For he was a priest,' in order to make it appear that he brought
forth bread and wine in his official capacity as a priest to
offer sacrifice with them" (p. 69).  But Zacchello grasps for
straws.
     First of all, the conjunction "and" in Greek often has the
force of "for," so "and he was a priest" means the same as "for
he was a priest."  What's more, "according to the order of
Melchisedech" means "in the manner of Melchisedech" ("order" not
referring, of course, to the modern notion of a religious order,
there being no such thing in Old Testament days).  The only
"manner" shown by Melchisedech was the use of bread and wine.  A
priest sacrifices the items offered--that is the main task of all
priests, in all cultures, at all times--so the bread and wine
must have been what Melchisedech sacrificed.  He didn't bring
these elements along just because he thought it might be time for
Abraham's lunch.
     Fundamentalists sometimes say Christ followed the example of
Melchisedech at the Last Supper, but that it was a rite that was
not to be continued.  They undermine their case against the Mass
in saying this, since such an admission shows, at least, that the
Last Supper was truly sacrificial.  The key, though, is that they
overlook that Christ said, "Do this for a commemoration of me"
(Luke 22:19).  Clearly, he wasn't talking about a one-time thing.
     As might be expected, fundamentalists don't put much stock
in claims about the antiquity of the sacrificial aspects of the
Mass, even if they think the Mass, in the form of a mere
commemorative meal, goes all the way back to the Last Supper.
Many say the Mass as a sacrifice was not taught until the Middle
Ages, alleging Innocent III was the first pope to teach the
doctrine.  But he merely insisted on a doctrine that had been
held from the first but was being publicly doubted in his time.
He formalized, but did not invent, the notion that the Mass is a
sacrifice.  Jimmy Swaggart, for one, goes further back than do
most fundamentalists, claiming, "By the third century the idea of
sacrifice had begun to intrude."  Still other fundamentalists say
Cyprian of Carthage, who died in 258, was the first to make
noises about a sacrifice.
     But Irenaeus, writing Against Heresies in the second
century, beat out Cyprian when he wrote of the sacrificial nature
of the Mass, and Irenaeus in his turn was beaten out by Clement
of Rome, who wrote, in the first century, about those "from the
episcopate who blamelessly and holily have offered its
sacrifices" (Letter to the Corinthians, 44, 1).  It simply isn't
possible to get closer to New Testament times than this because
Clement was writing during New Testament times.  After all, at
least one Apostle, John, was still alive.
     Fundamentalists are particularly upset about the Catholic
notion that the sacrifice on Calvary is somehow continued through
the centuries by the Mass.  To them it seems Catholics are trying
to have it both ways.  The Church on the one hand says that
Calvary is "perpetuated," which seems to mean the same act of
killing, the same letting of blood, is repeated again and again.
This violates the "once for all" idea, fundamentalists claim.  On
the other hand, what Catholics call a sacrifice seems in fact to
have no relation to biblical sacrifices since it doesn't look the
same; after all, no splotches of blood are to be found on
Catholic altars.
     "We must, of course, take strong exception to such pretended
sacrifice," Boettner instructs.  "We cannot regard it as anything
other than a deception, a mockery, and an abomination before God.

The so-called sacrifice of the mass certainly is not identical
with that on Calvary, regardless of what the priests may say.
There is in the mass no real Christ, no suffering, and no
bleeding.  And a bloodless sacrifice is ineffectual.  The writer
of the book of Hebrews says that 'apart from shedding of blood
there is no remission' of sin (9:22); and John says, 'The blood
of Jesus his Son cleanseth us from all sin' (1 John 1:7).  Since
admittedly there is no blood in the mass, it simply cannot be a
sacrifice for sin" (p. 174).
     First of all, Boettner misreads chapter nine of Hebrews,
which begins with an examination of the Old Covenant.  Moses is
described as taking the blood of calves and goats and using it in
the purification of the tabernacle (Heb. 9:19-21; see Ex. 24:6-8
for the origins of this).  "And if such purification was needed
for what was but a representation of the heavenly world, the
heavenly world itself will need sacrifices more availing still.
The sanctuary into which Jesus has entered is not one made by
human hands, is not some adumbration of the truth; he has entered
heaven itself, where he now appears in God's sight on our behalf.
Nor does he make a repeated offering of himself, as the high
priest, when he enters the sanctuary, makes a yearly offering of
the blood that is not his own" (Heb. 9:23-25).  So it was under
the Old Law that a repeated blood sacrifice was necessary for the
remission of sins.  Under the Christian dispensation, blood
(Christ's) is shed only once, but it is continually offered to
the Father.
     But how can that be? ask fundamentalists.  They have to keep
in mind that "What Jesus Christ was yesterday, and is today, he
remains for ever" (Heb. 13:8).  What Jesus did in the past is
present to God now, and God can make the sacrifice of Calvary
present to us at Mass.  "So it is the Lord's death you are
heralding, whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, until
he comes" (1 Cor. 11:26).

                                        --Karl Keating
                                          Catholic Answers
                                          P.O. Box 17181
                                          San Diego, CA 92117