By RAYMOND DE SOUZA, KM
Part 22
The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the most outstanding reality of God’s Presence among us this side of the Pearly Gates of eternity. We must endeavor to know everything we can about it, so as to benefit from its graces to the best of our ability, with God’s help.
But before we begin this study on the Sacrifice of the Mass, it is important to investigate the Jewish sacrifices. This is so because, just like them, the Mass is a true sacrifice under the form of a sacred rite: It is an outward means of worship appointed by God for frequent and public use.
The Sacrifice of Calvary, as offered by Christ in Person, with the shedding of His Precious Blood, was not a sacred rite: It was offered only once, and was not to be repeated. In its essentials as a sacrifice, however, it is continued in the Mass, and was prefigured in the sacred rites of the Jews.
Since Judaism foreshadowed Christianity, familiarity with the ancient sacrifices prepared the apostles and the first Christians for the doctrine of the sacrifice of Calvary and the Sacrifice of the Mass.
To put it simply, if you compare Judaism with a beautiful caterpillar, the Catholic Church is the butterfly that elegantly flew out of it.
The idea to offer sacrifices to God was not a Jewish invention: It was God Our Lord Himself who commanded them to worship Him with sacrifices. He set forth all the details of those sacred rites. He ordered that they should be offered in one place alone — the Tabernacle in the desert and later in the Temple of Jerusalem — and through the hands of a specially appointed priesthood.
All sacrifices were offered within the precincts of the Tabernacle, a tent-like structure, brilliant with curtains of fine linen and many colors and decorated with cherubim (Exodus 26:1. Description in Exodus 25-27). That was the first time in the Bible when the God who condemned idols wanted to have statues of angels in the most sacred place of the world.
The great Temple of Solomon took the place of the Tabernacle, and was completed by 970 B.C. It was heavily decorated with all sorts of images on the walls and huge statues of cherubim in the Holy of Holies.
But the Jewish priesthood was not for everyone. All who ministered in the temple were of the tribe of Levi. All men of the other eleven tribes were excluded from the priesthood, because they had adored the golden calf at the foot of Mount Sinai. God took very seriously their lack of seriousness. Moreover, from among the Levites, only the descendants of Aaron could offer sacrifice. All the other men acted as “Levites,” literally, something like deacons in the Church today, but not as priests.
One of them was chosen as the High Priest. He alone was permitted to enter the Holy of Holies. This he did on the Day of Atonement (Expiation), which occurred only once a year.
The Jews had different types of sacrifice. Depending on the nature of the offerings, sacrifices were with or without bloodshed. In the sacrifices with bloodshed, an animal was slain by whoever wished to have it offered, or by the Temple attendants. The slaying of the victim preceded the Sacrifice proper and did not form part of it. The key part was the holocaust, offered on the Altar of Holocausts, which stood outside the Tabernacle but within the sacred enclosure.
The holocaust was the great public act of divine worship, and was offered up for the whole people every day, morning and evening. After the blood had been poured out beside the altar, the entire victim was burnt, to signify the supreme dominion of God over creatures.
Sacrifices with bloodshed were also offered to obtain forgiveness of sin (sacrifices for sin or trespass); or to praise and thank God and beg His blessings (sacrifices of peace). The distinguishing feature of sin-offering was that the blood was sprinkled on the Altar of Holocausts, the altar of incense, or the Ark, according to whether it was offered, respectively, for the people, priests or the high priest. After certain parts had been burnt on the altar and the blood poured out, the rest was eaten by the one who did the offering and his friends and others, especially the Levites and the poor.
In the sacrifices without bloodshed, the following things were offered: cereal foods; wine; frankincense. The wine was poured out beside the altar. The incense, when offered alone, was entirely consumed on the special altar reserved for it. The unbloody sacrifices are also known as clean oblations.
You could ask: What was the purpose or the meaning of all those sacrifices of the Old Law? When the Jews obeyed the commandment of God to offer Him sacrifice, they professed in act their subjection to Him, the one true God, the God of Love, the Creator of all things.
The very rites themselves were the outward sign of this acknowledgment. First, as to the sacrifices with bloodshed: blood was thought to be the seat of life. In offering the blood, therefore, the priest offered the life of the animal, and the life of the animal was a symbol of the soul of man: The Lord said, “The life of the flesh is in the blood….I have given it to you, that you may make atonement with it on the altar for your souls” (Lev. 17:11).
In the sacrifice with bloodshed for sin, there was the further notion that the sinner who caused it to be offered held himself guilty of death: He identified himself with the victim, and transferred his sins to it by confessing them while he held his hand on its head.
As to the sacrifices without bloodshed: Food and drink are necessary for the support of life, so such offerings indicated the dependence of human life on God.
After all of these explanations, we must bear in mind that if sin was remitted and grace obtained through the sacrifices of the Old Law, it was not, however, of their own intrinsic efficacy, but in virtue of the future Sacrifice of the Cross of which they were figures.
They were not causes of grace like our sacraments: They produced their effect by operating on the understanding and will of the sinner, by appealing to him like some inspired preacher.
Next article: More on the sacrifices of the Old Law.
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(Raymond de Souza, KM, is a Knight of the Sovereign and Military Order of Malta; a delegate for International Missions for Human Life International [HLI]; and an EWTN program host. Website: www.RaymonddeSouza.com.)
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