I can say as to myself, that I have been assailed on all sides, and have scarcely been able to enjoy repose for a single moment, but have always had to sustain some conflict either from enemies without or within the church.
John Calvin

The Roman Catholic Sacfifice Of

The Roman Catholic Sacfifice Of

The Roman Catholic Sacrifice of the MASS

The sacrifice of the Mass is the very heart of Roman Catholic faith. It is the most beautiful, the most sacred part of Catholic worship. “lt is the secret of her holiness and vitality.” Saint Francis De Sales said it is “the mainspring of devotion”. According to Pope Urban, if the angels could envy man anything, it would be his power to offer the Holy Sacrifice. Cardinal Newman called it “the greatest action that can be on earth”.

OFFICIAL CATHOLIC TEACHING

The Church of Rome teaches–(1) that at the Last Supper, Christ instituted the Mass, a true, visible sacrifice…; (2) that Christ bequeathed the Mass to His Church…to be of avail for the remission of sins and the punishment due them, and for the benefit of the living and the dead; (3) that Christ established a special priesthood for its celebration; (4) that Christ, through the ministry of His priests, offers Himself in the Mass as He offered Himself on the cross; but that, whereas He offered Himself in a bloody manner on the cross, He offers Himself in an unbloody manner in the Mass; (5) that, this difference apart, the sacrifice of the Mass is the same sacrifice as that of the cross, for there is the same Priest, the same Victim and the same Offering. Rome teaches that just as the sacrifice of Calvary was prefigured in the Jewish sacrifices, so it is continued in the Mass in its essentials as a sacrifice. Catholic doctrine teaches that through the sacrifice of the Mass a friend of God receives the appeasement of God’s anger, the extinction of the debt of temporal punishment and the reception of blessings, which include an increase of Sanctifying Grace. Through the Mass, one’s acts of adoration, praise, thanksgiving, atonement, satisfaction and petition receive a new and special efficacy. In the sacrifice of the Mass one is said to receive, more surely than through any other means, the grace of contrition in the hour of need, the grace of more perfect sanctity, and all temporal blessings not in conflict with one’s spiritual wellbeing.

FIFTH ARTICLE OF THE CREED OF POPE PIUS IV

“I profess likewise that in the Mass there is offered to God a true, proper, and propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead. And that in the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist there is truly, really and substantially the blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ; and that there is made a conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the blood, which conversion the Catholic Church calleth Transubstantiation, I also confess that under either kind alone Christ is received whole and entire and a true sacrament,”

THE COUNCIL OF TRENT

The canons of the Council of Trent on this subject passed in session xxii. cap, ii are as follows: 1, “If any one shall say, that in the Mass there is not offered to God a true and proper sacrifice, or that what is offered is nothing else than Christ given to be eaten, let him be anathema,”
2, “If any one shall say that in those words, This do in remembrance of Me, Christ did not make the apostles priests, or did not ordain that they themselves and other priests should offer His body and blood, let him be anathema.”
3. “If any one shall say that the sacrifice of the Mass is only of praise and thanksgiving, or a bare commemoration of the sacrifice performed on the cross, but not propitiatory or that it is of benefit only to the person who takes it, and ought not to be offered for the living and the dead for sins, punishments, satisfactions, and other necessities, let him be accursed,”
4, “If any one shall say that a blasphemy is ascribed to the most holy sacrifice of Christ performed on the cross by the sacrifice of the Mass, or the latter derogates from the former, let him be accursed,”

PRONOUNCEMENT FROM VATICAN II

“At the Last Supper.,,our Saviour instituted the Eucharistic Sacrifice of His Body and Blood. He did this in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the Cross,,.” p, 154, The Documents of Vatican II, Walter M. Abbott, S.J.

CATHOLIC PROOF – TEXTS EXPLAINED

Malachi 1:11: “From the rising of the sun even to the going down of the same my name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering”. Roman Catholic authorities claim that this prophecy is fulfilled in the sacrifice of the Mass, However, a close look at the meaning of this verse indicates not a literal, external offering, but a spiritual, internal offering. David declared in Psalm 51:17 that “the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;: a broken and a contrite heart”. Peter admonished the people of God to offer up spiritual sacrifices (I Peter 2:5), praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvelous light (v. 9). The author of Hebrews speaks of spiritual sacrifices as praise, thanksgiving and alms-giving (13:15-16). The Christians in Rome were admonished to present their bodies (i.e. their whole being) as living sacrifices (Romans 12:1). Catholic authorities say that the Hebrew word for offering (mincha) refers to the unbloody sacrifice of the Mass, but in I Samuel 2:17 the word mincha is used in reference to a bloody sacrifice and in Isaiah 66:20 the company of God’s people conistitutes the mincha, One cannot, therefore, use this verse to substantiate evidence in favor of the sacrifice of the Mass, Romans 15:16b: “…that the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost…” Again the offering of the Gentiles was a spiritual, internal sacrifice, that of obedience in word and deed (v. 18).

Genesis 14:18: “And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was a priest of the most high God”. One cannot assume that this verse speaks of a sacrifice offered to God, Melchizedek was a priest of God and he brought bread and wine, not for a sacrifice but for the refreshment of Abram and his men returning from battle, Cyprian was the earliest of the post-apostolic fathers to teach that Melchizedek was a sacrificer but there is no Biblical reference of Melchizedek offering sacrifice (see Hebrews 7), I Corinthians 11:24b: “This do in remembrance of me”, Catholics are taught that in this verse Jesus was, in effect, saying “As I have now offered My body and blood under the appearances of bread and wine as a sacrifice, so must you offer in sacrifice My body and blood in every celebration of this sacrament”, Rome teaches that with these words Jesus made the apostles priests and gave Himself as a perpetual victim whom they were to sacrifice daily, It is estimated that there are more than 200,000 sacrifices offered on Roman altars around the world each day of the week, What a perversion of the common expression “this do” which in this context simply means that God’s people are to partake of the bread and wine as a reminder (not a perpetuation) of Christ’s atonement, John 19:30: “lt is finished”. According to a Roman Catholic priest, Richard W, Grace, in his book “The Sacrifice of Christ”, “These words do not declare that His sacrifice was finished, but that He had finished His former, normal, earthly life and was now fixed in the state of a victim…He then began His ever lasting career as the perpetual sacrifice of the “New Law”, According to Rome, the sacrifice of Christ was completed on Calvary, but not finished, i.e. He must be perpetually sacrificed in the Mass. However, it is not the blood sacrifice of the Cross that is repeated, but the so-called unbloody sacrifice of the upper room, the sacrifice of His flesh and blood under the appearance of bread and wine, It was “the shedding of Jesus” blood that brought remission of sin, That sacrifice was finished as He said and Hebrews 9:22 later tells us that apart from the shedding of blood there ic no remission of sin. Therefore, what took place in the upper room was not a sacrifice but an explanation of the sacrifice that was to take place and since admittedly, there is no blood in the sacrifice of the Mass, it cannot be a sacrifice for sin. John 6:54-55: “Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed”. Meat is to satisfy hunger and in verse 35 Jesus said “he that cometh to me shall never hunger”, Therefore, to come to Him is to eat, To drink is to satisfy thirst and again in verse 35 Jesus said “he that believeth on me shall never thirst”. Therefore, to believe is to drink. No one can say that here Jesus was establishing the eating and drinking of a sacrifice for sin, especially not after what he said in verse 63: “the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life”. In Levitical law, not only was the blood never eaten, but the sin offering was never to be eaten, Yet Catholics believe that they really eat Christ’s body and drink His blood in their communion, If they insist on a literal meaning in this verse, then they must take literally the whole statement and also believe that all who receive their communion are saved (will live forever) and they do not believe that. Without doubt, to consistently literalize this passage involves some impossible interpretations for the Catholic.

Matthew 26:26 and 28: “This is my body… this is my blood”. No one can deny that here we have figurative language. Jesus did not say touto gignetai (this has become or is turned into) but touto esti (this signifies, represents or stands for), In another passage He said “this cup is the new testament”. For one thing, “the cup” refers to its contents and certainly neither the cup nor its contents constitutes the new covenant, but symbolizes it. Throughout Scripture we find similar metaphorical language: Jesus referred to Himself as “the door” “‘the vine”, “the light”, “the root”, “the rock”, “the bright and morning star” as well as “the bread”, If I were to show someone a photograph of my son and say, “this is my son”, they would not take these words literally, The Scripture is written with such common language that it is obvious to any observant reader that the Lord’s Supper was intended primarily as a memorial and in no sense a literal sacrifice, In taking Biblical statements literally, we must be sure that doing so is consistent with the context and not in contradiction to other clear teaching,

THE FINALITY OF CHRIST’S SACRIFICE

The Bible teaches that the priesthood of Jesus Christ is unique: “Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedek” Psalm 110:4 and Hebrews 7:17); “but this man, be-cause he continueth-ever hath an unchangeable priesthood (i.e. it cannot be transferred to another)” (Hebrews 7:3b and 24); “there is… one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (l Timothy 2:5). There is an obvious superiority in Jesus Christ, the one who is approachable and can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities (Hebrews 4:15). The human sacrificing priesthood was weak and unprofitable being made up of “many priests” and men of infi:mity, but Christ was holy, undefiled and separate from sinners (Hebrews 7:23 and 28).

Roman Catholicism teaches that her priests dischar