I recently re-read Thomas Nash’s book titled WORTHY IS THE LAMB.  Nash goes into great depth to explain what happens when we celebrate the Eucharist at Mass. Our doctrine of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist comes from the bread of life discourse from John 6:48-71. I felt that Nash had taken a very difficult doctrine to understand and made it easy to read.  Hopefully you will be encouraged to read more of his book to better understand what happens at Mass in our Sacrament of the Eucharist. Below are some offerings from his book.

First and foremost, we do not sacrifice Jesus at every Mass. It is important to remember that this had to make sense to the 1st century Jew, what was their understanding of what Jesus meant when he said “I am the living bread which has come from heaven; whoever eats of this bread will live forever.  The bread I shall give is my flesh and I will give it for the life of the world.”  So we need to begin with the OT and how the Passover was understood.

For the Israelite’s, “remembering” was never simply a commemoration of a past event: it had a much more powerful meaning.  Memory and action are intrinsically connected in the Bible, for to “remember” a past event is to call forth the power of that past event and feel its impact in the present.  It is to be there to relive the actual event in some sense (see CCC 1363).  To convey “remembrance” in this special biblical way, the Israelite’s would use the Hebrew verb “zakar” and its cognates…

When the Israelites remembered the Passover, God enabled the original event to transcend time somehow and impact the present. His action that first Passover possessed an enduring power that the Israelite’s could tap into again and again every time they celebrated the feast…  God transcends all time.  All time is present to him, and therefore he is not limited or boxed in by time.  He is super-historical, for he stands outside of or above time, which enables him to be present to and impact all time, all human history…  In commanding that the Passover be a ‘memorial”, that is, an “ordinance forever” (Ex 12:14), God invited successive generations of Israelite s to acknowledge and draw upon the divine power of the original event… Israel would realize that the Passover was not simply directed to Moses and the Israelite’s at the time of the Exodus, but rather was a trans-historical event in which God saw all of Israel’s descendants.  Thus, while the Israelite’s sacrificed new lambs each year to re-experience the Passover, past and present were always bridged with the remembrance of the inaugural offering, a remembrance that invoked anew, in the present, God’s enduring blessing…  That is why the Jewish Mishnah, the part of the Talmud containing oral laws based on the Pentateuch, can say, “In celeb rating the feast, we must act as though we ourselves had come up from Egypt: (Pesahim 10:5)  (Nash: WORTHY IS THE LAMB, Ignatius press, 75-78)

This understanding would then carry over into the NT sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, “How do we ‘remember’ Christ’s Sacrifice in the New Covenant Passover?” Again from Worthy is the Lamb, “The Church teaches that the Mass miraculously re-presents Christ’s one Sacrifice under the appearances of bread and wine, and yet we know that Jesus died only once.  How can we reconcile these two realities, which apparently conflict?” (p. 77)  As Nash points out,”we need to understand how sacrifices are offered to God in general, and how Jesus offered his Sacrifice in particular” (p. 77)

“To explain the two fold phases of biblical sacrifices that involved the slaughter of victims, let us consider the sacrifices offered on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur).  Along with the Passover offering of lambs, the Day of Atonement sacrifices were the most important offerings of the Old Covenant that God made with Moses.  As the Letter to the Hebrews teaches, the Day of Atonement sacrifices both prefigured and were perfected by Christ’s once-for-all Sacrifice of himself.” (Nash: p. 78).

To understand more about the Day of Atonement you can go to Leviticus 16: 1-34 along with the description of the “tent of meeting” consisting of three sections in Ex 26:33-34; Ex 27:9.

On the Day of Atonement, the two sacrificial phases regarding the bull and one goat took place in the courtyard and the most holy place, respectively.  The courtyard featured the altar of sacrifice, the place on which animals were regularly both slaughtered and offered… Meanwhile, the most holy place was aptly named, for there God provided his most intimate presence on earth. Flanked by two angels, Yahweh was present upon his mercy seat, which was fixed atop the sacred Ark of the Covenant (Ex 25:8, 17-22)…  In the atoning for the sins of Israel and the high priest, the Day of Atonement sacrifices did not begin and end with the slaughter of the bull and one goat on the altar of sacrifice in the courtyard.  To complete the sacrifices and this finish making atonement for Israel’s sins, the high priest had to enter the most holy place to offer the sacrificial victims to God, communing with the Almighty by sprinkling their blood in front of and on his mercy seat (Lev. 16:14-15)…  The sacrifice of Calvary does not begin and end with the slaughter of the victim.  That is, the Sacrifice does not begin and end with Jesus’ suffering and death on the Cross on Good Friday.  That is why we can speak of the Sacrifice of Calvary instead of the Sacrifice on Calvary: the sacrificial events are not confined to Christ’s Passion.  (cf. Heb 8:13; 9:23-24) (Nash 78-79)

In summary, without Christ’s Ascension and his associated Offering in the heavenly sanctuary, there would be no fulfillment of the Day of Atonement sacrifices and the Old Covenant, and no completion of the Sacrifice begun on Calvary.  While there was never any doubt that the divine Christ would complete the mission his Father gave him, we need to make proper sacrificial distinctions.  When Christ says, “It is finished” (Jn 19:30), he refers to the earthly phase of his Offering, specifically the suffering he endured to atone for our sins.  Similarly, when the Letter to the Hebrews says Christ does not “offer himself repeatedly”, it refers only to Christ’s Passion and this suffering “repeatedly” on the Cross (Heb 9:25-26; cf. 1 Pt 3:18).  In other words, Jesus dies only once and, because he is both victim and priest, Jesus distinctively offers himself to the Father in both phases of his Sacrifice. (Nash 78-79)

“But Christ’s atonement could not be completed until he ascended to heaven and presented his Self-Offering to the Father, just as the Old Covenant Day of Atonement sacrifices could not have atoned for the sins of Israel had the high priest simply slaughtered the bull and goat, declining to enter the most holy place to present the atoning blood to God.  Given this insight, we can better understand that Christ’s Sacrifice did not begin and end on Calvary.  Scripture affirms the sacrificial importance of Christ’s Ascension to the heavenly sanctuary:

(Here see Hebrews 9:11-12, 24-26)…Our Lord enters not into the earthly Temple but into the heavenly holy place with the heavenly mercy seat, making intercession on our behalf before his Father and our God.  Jesus has achieved an “eternal redemption” so there is no need to suffer again.  His was the perfect Sacrifice.  And, as the Letter to the Hebrews also conveys, part of sacrificial perfection means having a Sacrifice that keeps on giving, for though Christ has entered into-past tense-the heavenly sanctuary at his Ascension, he continues “now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf” (Heb 9:24)

Scripture affirms that “every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; hence it is necessary for  this priest [Jesus] also to have something to offer” (Heb 8:3).  Notice that the Letter to the Hebrews uses the present tense – “offer” – and that it is speaking of Christ’s heavenly activity, after his death on the Cross, for it describes Jesus as “a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, a minister in the [heavenly] sanctuary and the true tent which is set up not by man but by the Lord: (Heb 8:1-2). In addition, the Letter to the Hebrews further affirms that Jesus’ priesthood continues in heaven, for he “holds his priesthood permanently” and thus “always lives to make intercession” for us (Heb 7:24-25)… while he “has entered” the heavenly sanctuary, he continues “now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf” (Heb 8:1-2; 9:24, emphasis added: see Heb 10:12).

What is important again is to remember that the New Testament is revealed in the old and the Old Testament is explained in the new.  It is also important to remember that we must always keep in mind what the historical author and historical audience (in this case 1^st century A.D.) understood by what was first orally spoken and then written: “Stand firm, then, brothers, and keep the traditions that we taught you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.” (2 Thes 2:15)  Only when we are true to the oral and written traditions can we then bring it forward for our understanding today.