If the Mass is a sacrifice, doesn’t that mean Catholics are crucifying Jesus over and over again? Karlo Broussard explains how this common Protestant objection misunderstands what’s really happening during Mass.
Transcript:
Caller: How do I explain to someone the continuous sacrifice of Jesus in the holy sacrifice of the Mass?
Karlo: The first response would be to point out what Cy pointed out, and that is: we do not believe that in the Mass we are re-crucifying or re-sacrificing Jesus on the cross. It’s not that Jesus is dying again. So you could just simply assert that that, well, the objection is operating on a flawed assumption, right? You’re thinking that we believe we crucify Jesus—hence the objection—but we do not think that we’re re-crucifying Jesus in the Mass. That is not what we mean when we say that the Mass is the sacrifice of Christ.
And then you could go forward and begin to articulate, maybe in a clearer way, precisely what we do believe. And that is that the Mass is the one sacrifice of Jesus, but as the Catechism points out in 1367, insofar as it’s the same victim—it’s Jesus’s body and blood being offered to the Father—it’s the same victim, same priest, because the Catechism affirms that it’s Jesus exercising his priestly ministry, and then through the earthly priest offering it to the same person to whom the sacrifice is offered—namely, the Father.
So we affirm it’s the same sacrifice, but as the Catechism points out, quoting the Council of Trent, “the manner of offering is different.” And what the Catechism is getting that at there is that the manner of offering is in an unbloody way. The bloody aspect of Jesus’ sacrifice is confined and restricted to that historical event on Calvary two thousand years ago.
And so that’s the articulation of what we believe, but here’s here’s what we need to do, and I think this might help for your Protestant friend: we can actually go to scripture and show in scripture that there is a biblical precedent for this Catholic understanding of the Mass as the re-presentation of the one sacrifice of Jesus in an unbloody manner.
And here’s how we do it, brother: you go to the book of Hebrews, and let’s start with Hebrews 7:24. We’re told that Jesus holds his priesthood permanently, and he’s exercising that permanent priesthood “in the sanctuary and the true tent, which is set up not by man but by the Lord.” That’s Hebrews 8:2. And what is he doing there? He’s “always liv[ing] to make intercession” for us (Hebrews 7:25), so that all of us who draw near to him, we can be saved.
Now here’s the key: when you jump to 8:3, here’s what the author says—so this is coming after the author is saying that Jesus is our high priest who is exercising his priestly ministry forever, interceding for us in the heavenly sanctuary. Verse three, he writes: “For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices, hence it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer.” Now notice that the author of Hebrews is saying Jesus our high priest, as high priest in the heavenly sanctuary, must have a gift to offer in his heavenly priestly ministry.
Now which offering could that possibly be? It can’t be some distinct offering that he’s offering to his Father in this heavenly priestly ministry, because that would imply that his sacrifice on the cross was insufficient, which is absurd given revelation. So what is it that he’s offering? What is the gift? What is the offering that he’s making present to the Father? It is his one sacrifice on the cross. But notice, Gidalti, that he’s making it present to the Father in the heavenly sanctuary in a different manner—in an unbloody manner. And we as Catholics are saying the Mass is simply that reality of Jesus making his one sacrifice present to the Father in an unbloody manner; that reality becomes present on the altar every time we go to Mass, and that’s the reality behind the veil of the senses.
So for our Protestant friends who are going to have a problem with the Catholic belief that the Mass is the one sacrifice of Christ made present in an unbloody manner, if they got a problem with that theology and they think that takes away from Jesus’s death on the cross 2000 years ago, well then they’re gonna have a problem with Jesus making his one sacrifice present to the Father in an unbloody manner in the heavenly sanctuary. But of course, I don’t think they want to have a problem with that, because that’s what the Bible teaches. And so for a resource for this, I would recommend you get ahold of my book Meeting the Protestant Challenge, and I have a chapter in there where I actually articulate in more detail what I just explained to you concerning Jesus’ heavenly priestly ministry and making present his one sacrifice to the Father in an unbloody manner.