More on the Catholic Theology of the Mass

After I had posted my previous message about Dr. Scott Hahn’s defence of the Catholic theology of the Mass (which turned out to be a long post, because I had to quote his entire talk), I became more interested in his views, so I watched more of his videos, and researched his background, and discovered that he has an interesting history of converting from Protestantism to Catholicism—and he deserves credit for that. Protestantism is a heresy, and any move away from Protestantism is a move in the right direction.

I also discovered that he has several videos in which he tries to justify the theology of the Mass—all of them following more or less the same line of reasoning. The above video is the shortest one I could find; the rest tend to be rather long. It appears that he has recognized that the Catholic theology of the Mass is one of its weakest points (if not the weakest); and so he tries to defend it often. But defending the indefensible is not a winning strategy. The only way to deal with a theological error is to correct it; not try to defend it against all the odds. The Catholic Church has an authoritative Pope and a Magisterium, which should be able to cope with that problem without too much difficulty. Trouble of course is that the Catholic Church is too tied up with tradition to be able to easily change, or correct its theological errors.

Perhaps what is required is another Council of Trent, or a Vatican III,  in which all of Catholic Church’s remaining theological errors and “traditional baggage” can be discussed, identified, and corrected—without attempting to reach a compromise with the heresies of Protestantism. The theology of the Mass is not the only error of Catholicism. There are more. The Bible for example teaches that there is “one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5). That does not leave any room for a “third mediator,” such as Mary or the saints. “Praying” to anything other than the first two is not biblical.

There is a difference between praying for someone (living or dead, that their sins may be forgiven for example, as in 1 John 5:16; or that they may be healed, as in James 5:16); and praying to a dead “saint” asking them to “intercede” with God on our behalf. I don’t know if the dead saints are still aware of the living, and can continue to pray for them or not. It is possible that they can. But that is a different thing entirely from praying to a dead “saint” asking for their “intercession”. For the first option, there is biblical support; for the second, there isn’t. There is absolutely no chance, biblically speaking, of prayers addressed to anyone other than Deity actually being heard, let alone being answered. It seems to me that Catholic theology has mixed those two concepts up. They have confused praying for, with praying to.

The same applies to “intercession”. The only one who has a proper “intercessory” role to play with God is Jesus Christ (Heb. 7:24–27). People can “pray” for each other (including possibly for the dead); but praying to the dead asking for “intercession” is a different thing. If the “saints” in heaven want to “pray” for me (assuming that they are in a position to), I certainly appreciate their kindness, and will thank them for doing it when I get to heaven. But the idea of me “praying” to them, asking for their “intercession” is a different ball game entirely, and has no basis in scripture. The Bible teaches that when we pray, we should say, “Our Father which art in heaven” (Matt. 6:9; Luke 11:2). I know of no scripture that says we should pray, “Our saints which art in heaven”. The Catholic doctrine of the “intercession of the saints” is another one of their theological errors that need to be corrected.

Still another one of their serious error is enforced priestly celibacy, which again has no basis in scripture, and which has caused untold harm to the Catholic Church over the centuries. It has barred the most gifted and able Catholics from entering the ministry, because they were normal people and wanted to be married! From the limited research I have done into it, it appears that it was introduced initially in order to save money. A celibate priest requires less money to live on than a married priest. That is no way to establish doctrine in a church. Where “tradition” conflicts with the clear teaching of scripture, “tradition” needs to be ditched. That is the best way of knocking the wind out of the sail of Protestantism—but without attempting to reach a compromise with Protestant heretical beliefs.

Returning to the above video, it is the shortest one I could find in which he defends the theology of the Mass, so in it he gets to the point quicker than the rest. But the arguments he sets forth are the same, and therefore no additional comments are required. But it is shorter and more to the point, therefore it is worth watching.

The Bible and the Sacrifice of the Mass

I found this interesting video by Dr. Scott Hahn titled, “The Bible and the Sacrifice of the Mass,” in which he attempts to justify the Catholic theology of the Mass, where the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper (also known as the Eucharist and Holy Communion) is presented as a perpetual sacrifice of Jesus Christ, offered by the priest every time the Mass is celebrated. In Catholicism the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, the Mass, is presented as a literal sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the altar by the priest. The priest literally sacrifices Jesus Christ (in an “unbloody” manner) on the altar every time he celebrates the Mass, and by so doing he transforms the bread and wine literally into the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ. This is how the Mass is described in the Catholic Catechism:

1367 The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice: “The victim [Christ] is one and the same: the same [victim] now offers through the ministry of priests, who then [at Calvary] offered himself on the cross; only the manner of offering is different.” “And since in this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the Mass, the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross is contained and offered in an unbloody manner. … this sacrifice is truly propitiatory.”

1382 The Mass is at the same time, and inseparably, the sacrificial memorial in which the sacrifice of the cross is perpetuated and the sacred banquet of communion with the Lord’s body and blood.

1388 … As the Second Vatican Council says: “That more perfect form of participation in the Mass whereby the faithful, after the priest’s communion, receive the Lord’s Body from the same sacrifice, is warmly recommended.”

1651 … They should be encouraged to listen to the Word of God, to attend the Sacrifice of the Mass, to persevere in prayer, …

Thus in the theology of the Catholic Church the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, the Mass, is identified literally as a sacrifice. It is a perpetuation of the original sacrifice of Jesus Christ. That is the word used in the Catechism. To “perpetuate” something means to make it continuous and oft-repeated. That is the dictionary definition. This theology of the Mass, however, has no scriptural basis. In the Bible, the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is presented as a memorial of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. It is a means of always remembering that sacrifice; it is not a redoing, reenactment, or perpetuation of that sacrifice. This is how the Bible describes the sacrament:

Luke 22:

14 And when the hour was come, he sat down, and the twelve apostles with him.

15 And he said unto them, With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer:

16 For I say unto you, I will not any more eat thereof, until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God.

17 And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, Take this, and divide it among yourselves:

18 For I say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God shall come.

19 And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.

20 Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.

1 Corinthians 11:

23 For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread:

24 And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.

25 After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.

26 For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come.

27 Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.

(See also Matthew 26:26–28; Mark 14:22–24.) The sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is identified in the Bible as nothing more than a memorial, a means of continual remembrance of the original sacrifice. It was never intended to be a  perpetuation of that sacrifice.

The original sacrament that Jesus instituted (and the Apostles promulgated, as in 1 Cor. 11:23–27), was also a very simple ceremony of breaking bread. There were none of the trappings and paraphernalia that were added to it later. There was no suggestion of it being a repeat of the original sacrifice; or of the bread and wine literally turning into flesh and blood. There is nothing taught anywhere in the New Testament that would suggest that. In the above video Dr. Hahn tries to defend the theology of the Mass as a literal sacrifice; but he fails to make the necessary logical connection that proves his point. He argues passionately at times; but arguing passionately does not prove a point; only sound reason and logical argumentation does, which in his case is missing. Starting at around 2:40 minutes into the video, he begins his presentation in the form of a dialogue with an interlocutor named Chris, as follows:

“I said to Chris, Okay, so what was it you recalled from our cafeteria conversations? You used to say to us at the table, you know, ‘Where in the New Testament do you find the sacrifice of the Mass?’ And then quickly you would go on to point out that the Mass as we called it, or the Lord’s Supper as you refer to it, was not a sacrifice, it was only a meal; that the sacrifice was precisely what Jesus had offered on Calvary. And years later, Scott, honestly I came to realize you were right; Calvary is the sacrifice. I am like, Okay, I still agree with that Chris, but I think we need to take a step or two back in order to see things in perspective, at least the way I have come to see them.”

The only thing that I should like to add at this point is that what Jesus did at the Passover before he was crucified was not just a “meal;” he instituted a true sacrament, the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. But being a true sacrament does not turn it into a sacrifice (as Scott will later argue). He then continues his conversation with Chris as follows:

“So that particular conversation lasted well over an hour, because in that talk I shared with him what the early church Fathers had sort of shared with me, that if you had been there, on Good Friday, standing at Calvary, as a devout Jew, and you would watch Jesus suffer and die, you would not have gone home, and recounted your experience to your family members and friends as though you had just witnessed a sacrifice; because for the Jews in the first century, a sacrifice had to take place inside the city of Jerusalem, within the temple, upon an altar, where there would be a priest standing by offering the sacrifice; whereas Jesus died outside the walls, far from the temple, where there were no altars or priest offering sacrifice. So what they would have gone home and related to their family members and friends was not a sacrifice, but what? a Roman execution, and a rather bloody one at that. I said Chris, you know from a Jewish perspective, following the Old Testament, Jesus’ death on Calvary was an execution, a Roman execution, a bloody and unjust act of violence. And he is like, Okay! So I asked the question to Chris—just as the Fathers had kind of posed it to me—How in the world does a Roman execution get suddenly changed into a holy sacrifice; and not just any sacrifice, but the supreme sacrifice of all times? How does that happen? And he is like, Help me here! you know; I am like, Well, I will help you the way the Fathers helped me.”

The argument he will be making is that what turns Jesus’ Roman execution the following day into a “sacrifice” is his institution of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper the day before, as he observed the Passover with his disciples for the last time. That is his way of theologically transforming Jesus’ “execution” into a “sacrifice” (and in turn, his roundabout way of identifying the sacrament itself as a literal “sacrifice”). But the reasoning behind it is evidently incorrect. What makes Jesus’ “execution” a sacrifice is that it was a voluntary act from his point of view—even though It may have looked like an “execution” from the Roman or the Rabbis’ point of view. Jesus’ execution would still have been a “sacrifice” even if he had never instituted the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper the previous day, because what makes it a sacrifice is that it was a voluntary act which he could have avoided if he had wanted to, but chose not to:

John 10:

17 Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.

18 No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.

Jesus spoke those words long before the Passover meal that Scott is referring to; and that is what makes his execution a sacrifice, not the observance of the Passover the day before. See also Matt. 26:52–54; Eph. 5:2; Heb. 7:27; 9:14, 25. That choice, that decision, to offer that sacrifice, was not made on the day when he observed the Passover with his disciples. It had been made long before. In the Revelation of John Jesus is referred to as the “lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8). That choice, that decision, to offer the sacrifice, was made before the foundation of the world, long before he observed the Passover with his disciples for the last time; and that is what makes it a sacrifice. So the first plank of his argument, in attempting (in a roundabout way) to identify the Mass itself as a literal “sacrifice” fails from the start. He then continues his dialogue with Chris as follows:

“The only way to illuminate the mystery of what happened to Jesus on Good Friday is by rewinding the tape and looking at it in the light of what he had previously done in the upper room with his disciples on Holy Thursday; because he wasn’t just celebrating a meal, he wasn’t just sharing a supper, he was celebrating the Passover, the old covenant, one last time. But that’s not all he was doing. He was fulfilling it as the Lamb of God. But he wasn’t fulfilling it as the Lamb of God for the purpose of terminating it. He was fulfilling it as the Lamb of God for the purpose of transforming the Passover of the old covenant into the Passover of the new.”

Scott has made several mistakes here. Firstly, Jesus didn’t “fulfill the Passover” on Thursday. He fulfilled it on the cross the following day. The Passover was a prophetic sign of the sacrifice of the cross where it was fulfilled. The “fulfillment” occurred on the cross, not at the Passover the day before. Secondly, Jesus was indeed terminating the Passover, and replacing it with the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. And thirdly, none of that turns the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper into a perpetual sacrifice. It just doesn’t. The logical connection between the two is missing. The purpose of the institution of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was that it should serve as a permanent reminder of his sacrifice, which was offered freely on the cross. It was to be a permanent act of remembrance, a memorial of that sacrifice; not a perpetual reenactment of that sacrifice—which is what in Catholic theology the Mass is. Scott then continues his dialogue with Chris as follows:

“And you recall how he does it, because the synoptic Gospels tell us. In the context of celebrating the familiar ancient Jewish Passover which all twelve disciples would have known like the back of their hands, near the beginning of the meal he did something different, he took the bread which was unleavened, and he spoke the words, ‘This is my body which will be given up for you.’ And I suspect that the disciples must have been sitting there wondering, What is that? you know; he has just deviated from the liturgical rubrics a little bit here, you know. Nobody apparently said a thing, but they must have kind of wondered and recalled, you know, why did he say that: ‘This is my body which will be given for you?’ What was that rhetoric? And then near the end of the meal, Chris, he takes the third cup of blessing, and what does he do? He takes it and he speaks those words that we know so well, ‘This chalice is the blood of the covenant, the blood of the new covenant poured out for many for the remission of sins, do this in remembrance of me.’ So ‘This chalice, this cup, is the blood, the blood of the new covenant poured out for many for the remission of sins, do this in remembrance of me.’ And there again the disciples must have been scratching their heads, wondering, What is this new ritual edition that he is kind of appending here? Nobody apparently asked him. And a few moments later they were out into the night over to the garden of Gethsemane.

“And I said, Chris, I suspect that those disciples were wondering what Jesus was saying and doing? What was this new rhetoric? Was it just, you know, an additional ritual, or was there some reality? But not until the next day, not until Good Friday did they discover that he wasn’t just adding new words, he wasn’t just adding a new ritual gesture when he said, ‘This is my body which will be given up for you’ on Holy Thursday in the upper room; he proved that he said what he meant, and he meant what he said on Good Friday, because his body was given up for them; and likewise the cup after supper, when he speaks those sacred words, and declares that this cup is the ‘blood of the new testament,’ the ‘blood of the new covenant poured out for many for the remission of sins, do this in remembrance of me;’ the very next day he did what he said; he poured out his blood for the forgiveness of sins as a sacrifice.”

He argues passionately, but fails to make his case. Arguing passionately does not prove a point; only logic and sound reason does, which in this case is missing. He then continues his dialogue with Chris as follows:

“I said, the Passover is the key, because in the old covenant the Passover was never merely a meal, it always started off as a sacrifice. Just ask the lamb! But the sacrifice of the unblemished male lamb was then culminating in the sacrificial communion, the meal known as the Passover; and if that was true of the old covenant, it isn’t less true, but more of the new; because Jesus comes as the lamb, not just to feed us but to die for us—but to do so in the context of the old covenant Passover which he is celebrating one last time by fulfilling it. But he fulfills it by transforming the old into the new, as the Lamb who must die as the sacrifice, and then as the one who makes provisions for the sacrificial communion. I said, ‘If the Eucharist that Jesus instituted on Holy Thursday was just a meal, that his death on Good Friday was just a Roman execution; but if on the other hand, and only if, Jesus’ institution of the Holy Eucharist was nothing less than the sacrifice of the new covenant Passover, then what was instituted on Thursday is precisely what is consummated on Friday.”

He has made two mistakes here. Firstly, he argues that just because the old Jewish Passover was a literal sacrifice, it therefore follows that the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, which Jesus instituted in its place, must also be a sacrifice, which does not logically follow. The old Jewish Passover was a sacrifice because it was a prophetic sign pointing to the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus Christ, which took place on the cross (not at the Passover, as he states). Once that prophecy had been fulfilled, and the ultimate sacrifice offered, there was no more need for the perpetuation of that sacrifice. The sacrament of the Lord’s Supper that Jesus instituted in place of the Passover was to act as a permanent reminder of the sacrifice which Jesus had already offered. That is what Jesus said it meant in Luke 22:19, and which Paul later affirms in 1 Cor. 11:24–25. That destroys the second plank of his argument, that because the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, the Eucharist, was instituted to replace the old Passover, which was now fulfilled; it therefore follows that the Eucharist itself must also be a “sacrifice,” which does not logically follow. On the same occasion Jesus also explained what the purpose of the sacrament was: to serve as a permanent reminder of his sacrifice; not a perpetual reenactment of the sacrifice. He said, “Do this in remembrance of me.” He did not say, “You sacrifice me again and again every time you do this!”

The second mistake he makes is what has already been pointed out. What makes Jesus’ execution on Calvary a sacrifice was not the sacrament that he instituted at the Passover the day before, but the fact that it was a voluntary act performed by him, and predetermined much earlier, and also spoken of and referred to much earlier, as already shown. Jesus refers to it in John 10:17–18, long before the Passover meal that Scott is talking about; and John further informs us in Rev. 13:8, that it had been determined by God “before the foundation of the world”. That is what makes Jesus’ execution on Calvary a sacrifice, not the institution of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper the day before. His execution would still have been a sacrifice even if he had never instituted the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper the day before. Scott then continues his dialogue with Chris as follows:

“He didn’t lose his life on Friday, if he had already freely given it to us by instituting the Eucharist as the Passover of the new covenant on Holy Thursday. He wasn’t the victim of Roman violence and injustice, he was the victim of divine love. He made his life a gift which he freely laid down, before anybody laid their hands upon him and try to take it. I said, ‘If the Eucharist is a meal, then Calvary is an execution; but if the Eucharist is the sacrifice of the new covenant, then and only then do we see the Calvary is more than an execution, that indeed it is the consummation of the sacrifice of the new covenant Passover lamb.’ There is this long pause, and he said to me, ‘I never saw it that way!’”

Well, Chris may have “seen it,” but I certainly don’t! How does all of that rhetoric convert the Eucharist into a sacrifice? It doesn’t. He argues passionately; but the logical connectivity between the two is missing. If there is a valid logical connection to be made, he should be able to express it succinctly in a few short sentences, by means of a few well reasoned logical steps; not spend half an hour of passionate preaching without establishing a clear connection. He continues:

“And I had to admit neither did I, until I read Melito of Sardis, you know, his homily Perry Paska in the Greek I had translated into English. And there I discovered what was a commonplace, what it seems like all the Christians believed in the 1st 2nd 3rd and 4th centuries, as Paul himself declares to the Corinthians, in 1 Corinthians 5 or 7: Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed, therefore what? Let us simply believe. That is all we need to be doing, and then we are saved, and once saved, now he said, Therefore Let us keep the feast. And what feast is he talking about? The new covenant feast of the Eucharist, the Feast of the unleavened bread, which he goes on in the subsequent chapters of 1 Corinthians 10 and 11 to explain more fully than he does in all of the other epistles put together.”

The prophetic connection between the old Jewish Passover and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross does not turn the Eucharist into a sacrifice. The logical connection is not there. The old Jewish Passover was a prophetic sign or symbol pointing to the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus Christ. No arguments about that. That prophetic sign was fulfilled when Jesus offered his sacrifice on the cross. Once that sacrifice had been offered, and the prophetic sign fulfilled, there was no more need for the Passover observance to be continued, and therefore it was replaced with the Eucharist, the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, the purpose of which (by Jesus’ own affirmation, and Paul’s later confirmation), was nothing more than a ritualistic remembrance of the sacrifice Jesus had offered; not a redoing, reenactment, or perpetuation of that sacrifice. There is nothing in the Corinthian chapters that he cites, that is calculated to lead one to such a conclusion. In 1 Corinthians Paul is simply affirming the prophetic connection between the Passover and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ—which is not in dispute. What is in dispute is whether that turns the Eucharist into a sacrifice, which of course it doesn’t. Scott then continues:

“And so it is that we agree with our non-Catholic Christian brothers and sisters, who describe Calvary as the sacrifice. We would just hasten to clarify the fact that Calvary would only be an execution unless the holy Eucharist is nothing less than the sacrifice of the new covenant Passover.”

Which is not a logical conclusion! There is absolutely no logical connection between the conclusion and the premise. The Passover looked forward to the fulfillment of a future sacrifice. The sacrament of the Lord’s Supper looks back in remembrance of that sacrifice which was already offered. That does not make it a redoing, reenactment, or perpetuation of that sacrifice. That sacrifice, already offered, need only be remembered; but not perpetuated, or redone over and over again. He then continues:

“And so when we as Catholics go about the new evangelization—they have got good news to share, and we don’t begrudge them because they share so generously. They take on risks. They take the good news as they understand it, and they share it, freely and fully with excitement; and so we should too—only more fully and more excitedly, because the good news they share just gets better when you discover the fullness of the faith in the family of God that we call the Catholic Church; because it is not just a “personal relationship;” it is not just cohabiting with another person that you sincerely love; it is a covenant relationship that calls for interpersonal communion; but it has to pass from the “personal relationship” to a committed relationship, to a covenantal bond. And so for us it takes a little bit longer; and why, because we are Catholics, and we just kind of drag things out? No, because that is what human nature calls for. Falling in love is not over and done in a day. Falling in love is over and done in a lifetime. But it needs to go through stages of growth and development—whether we call it courtship, engagement, marriage, or whatever we call it in whatever culture we live in. We recognize that the crisis in the church today is very similar to the crisis in the culture. We don’t understand the inner logic of love. When it comes to the interpersonal bond between a male and a female—when it comes to the deeper interpersonal bond between God and humanity. It isn’t just my decision, it is’t just my experience. Those are necessary steps, but they are baby steps. They are like the first steps as I said the Prodigal Son took from a far country, long before he ever got home to the merciful father who had been waiting for him. And that feast that he celebrated for the Prodigal Son is the Eucharistic banquet, the marriage supper of the Lamb, that the prodigal sons and daughters of God get to share when Catholics proclaim the gospel in its integrity, with all of its truth, with all of its power, indeed with all of its beauty.”

Like I said, he argues passionately; but arguing passionately does not prove a point; only sound reason, valid argumentation, and logical connectivity does, which in his case is missing. He continues in the same vein in the rest of his talk as follows:

“And I would also go on to say that the Eucharist that Jesus instituted on Holy Thursday is not only what illuminates the mystery of a suffering on Good Friday, it is also what really clarifies the importance of his resurrection on Easter Sunday, because if the Eucharist is what transformed Jesus suffering from being an execution into a true and holy sacrifice, then the resurrection is what transformed sacrifice into a sacrament that we can now do in remembrance of him, because the resurrection of the Lord’s body is precisely what makes that body not only come back alive; the resurrection is more than the resuscitation of his corpse; it is more than the vindication of his innocence. The resurrection is the glorification of his sacred humanity. His sacred humanity now resurrected, is both deified and deifying; and the resurrection is what makes it communicable to us. It is what makes that glorified body, dare I say, edible by us; which is why when you study the synoptic traditions in John you discover that each and every time you read about a resurrection appearance, it just so happens that what day of the week does it always fall upon? Sunday! Why? Well, you know, because that is the day he was resurrected. But that is also the day that these two disciples said, you know, our hearts were burning within us, when you open up the scriptures; but our eyes were only open, when? in the breaking of the bread, the Eucharistic celebration.”

I like his theology of the resurrection, how Christ’s resurrected body is both deified and deifying, and how his resurrection makes his passion and suffering “communicable” to us. I also respect the passion and conviction with which he argues his case. But none of that proves his point, of turning the Eucharist into a literal (though “unbloodied”) “sacrifice” of Jesus Christ on the altar every time the Mass is celebrated. The logical connectivity is not there. He then continues as follows:

“And so week after week, back then in the first century, Sunday after Sunday in the 21st century, it is the resurrected Lord of lords and King of kings who comes to us. It isn’t the bleeding battered body of Jesus hanging on the cross—though it is one in the same sacrifice that he offered on Calvary. But the sacrifice that he offers he now offers as the high priest in heaven, as St. John describes it in the visions that we find in the book of Revelation. Then I tried my best to explain, in the Lamb’s supper as I experienced it in my very first Mass, where he is the Lamb of God. 28 times in 22 chapters, where he is the high priest of the heavenly temple, where he is the one offering, and yet he is also the Lamb who is offered. And in the Mass then, God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven, more perfectly than anything else we do.”

Several theological mistakes are made in that passage. According to the Bible, Jesus’ sacrifice was a one-time offering by which he has entered into the presence of God in the heaven, where he makes intercession for us at the throne of grace. He is not continually “offering a sacrifice” in heaven. He is continually making intercession, which are not the same thing:

Hebrews 7:

24 But this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood.

25 Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.

26 For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens;

27 Who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people’s: for this he did once, when he offered up himself.

Hebrews 9:

24 For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us:

25 Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others;

26 For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

27 And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:

28 So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.

So this idea that Jesus is continually offering “sacrifices” for us in heaven (or in the Eucharist on earth for that matter) is simply incorrect and unscriptural. Jesus is continually making intercession for us in heaven, made possible by his one-time sacrifice. But the sacrifice itself need not be offered more than once, nor “perpetuated”. Then he continues:

“The Eucharist is the resurrected Lord; and if we are the ones who are alive at the end of time when he comes again and reveals his glory, we may be in for a surprise, because we are going to discover that he won’t have any more glory at the end than he already has now, not only up in heaven, but in his Eucharistic presence. He is the Lord of lords and the King of kings. He comes to us under the appearance of bread and wine; but he comes to us as the resurrected, ascended, enthroned, glorified, deified and deifying Jesus. And that is why God the Father is not content with leaving his prodigal son in a far country, simply making an act of contrition. That is just the beginning of a long journey. And when we come back home, and that is what fallen away Catholics are doing now by the thousands and the tens of thousands. They discover the mercy of a father who loves them more than they ever imagined. But they also discover that the banquet that the father is throwing is more than they ever expected. It is not a reward for our righteousness; it is a remedy for our sin and weakness, and our failures. We are not worthy, but we sure are needy, and so we are not only going out to realized the de-christianized, we are going out being realized ourselves. We are coming here and being realized ourselves. Week, after week, after week I was talking to Chris, and he would keep bringing up, Okay so get me back to that question and its answer. Where are in the New Testament do you find the sacrifice of the Mass?”

Chris isn’t the only one who is wondering about that; so am I! I have listened to his talk thus far, and heard a lot of passionate rhetoric; but I haven’t seen anything of theological substance, any scriptural evidence, proof, or affirmation to establish his case—that the Eucharist, the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, is to be regarded as anything other than a rite of remembrance, a constant reminder to us of the one-time sacrifice of Jesus Christ. He has presented no convincing argument, no theological basis, no scriptural evidence to support the claim that the sacrament is in any shape or form to be regarded as a perpetual sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Passionate preaching cannot substitute for logical reasoning. He continues:

“And another occasion, in a different conversation, I pointed out to him what Jesus said and did, there in the upper room when he instituted the Eucharist—he takes this chalice and he says what? This is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new testament, the blood of the new covenant poured out for many for the remission of sins, do this in remembrance of me, or words that effect. I said, Notice Chris what he said, This is the cup of my blood, the blood of the kainí diathíki [καινή διαθήκη]. We can translate that new covenant, we can just as easily translate that new testament. This is the blood of the new testament poured out for many for the remission of sins, drink this, do this in remembrance of me. Notice I said Chris, he didn’t say, This is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new testament, write this in remembrance of me. He didn’t say, Read this in remembrance of me. He said, Do this. Do what? The new testament. And what is the new testament? The new testament is the Eucharist—according to the New Testament! Luke 22:2; 1 Corinthians chapter 11 as well. He didn’t say, Write this in remembrance of me. And in fact over half of the 12 in the Upper Room never ended up contributing a single book to the collection of 27 that we now call the New Testament. But not because they were lazy or disobedient, but because he didn’t say, Write this in remembrance. He said, Do this. And guess what, they all went out doing this. They were proclaiming the gospel; they were instructing the repentant; they were then baptizing; and they were celebrating the breaking of the bread from the very beginning, as we read in acts 2:42; and again in acts 20, and elsewhere. So Jesus says, This is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new testament. He says, Do this in remembrance of me, not, Write this. So I said Chris, the plain and simple fact that I had to learn the hard way was this, that the New Testament was a sacrament, long before it ever started to become a document, according to the document.”

He has made quite a lot of theological and exegetical errors in that passage. His passionate preaching is taking over his logical thinking! “Do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19; 1 Cor. 11:24–25) refers specifically to the observance of the sacrament that he has just instituted. He is saying that whenever you perform this rite, observe this ritual, conduct this ceremony (of breaking bread and drinking the wine); whenever you administer the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, do it in remembrance of me. “Do this” has reference to the observance of the sacrament, not preaching the gospel. He is saying that the observance of the sacrament is a rite of remembrance only, and nothing more. It is not a perpetual sacrifice of Jesus Christ. That is the obvious meaning of the scripture. He then continues his talk as follows:

“It was like a zinger for him, but much earlier for me. It was really a Ratzinger, because that was the guy who taught me—oh I am sorry, I should have resisted that temptation! But in fact it was then professor Joseph, you know, Cardinal before he was Pope Benedict, who taught me, just like the Fathers, all that I was trying to share with Chris. The New Testament is a sacrament long before it starts to become a document according to the document. And he asked me to clarify that. I said well, the early church and the Apostles went out preaching, baptizing, and celebrating the new covenant, the new testament in the holy Eucharist for years, in all directions; but in actual fact the New Testament books weren’t begun for at least 10 or 50 maybe 20 years after Jesus death and resurrection; and they weren’t really completed until the end of the first century. But as a matter of historical fact it is interesting to notice that these documents that were being read in the church, especially in her Sunday liturgy, were never referred to as the ‘New Testament’ until the second half of the second century. Those are the earliest references we find documented to these books being called the New Testament. And why were they suddenly being called the New Testament at the end of the second century? because of their liturgical proximity to what had been called the new testament since the first half of the first century. And what was that? the Eucharist that Jesus himself called the new testament. Jesus never uses that word diathíki [διαθήκη] ‘covenant’ or ‘testament’ any other time except when he instituted the Eucharist. And when he did he said, This is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new testament, do this in remembrance of me. I said, not only is the new testament a sacrament long before it starts to become a document, but it also gives us an answer to that question I used to ask you all the time Chris, Where in the New Testament do you find the sacrifice of the mass? The sacrifice of the mass is the new testament—according to the New Testament.”

He is now engaging in a bit of literary obfuscation. The fact that the word “testament” (covenant) is used in Christian literature with more than one meaning, or to refer to more than one thing, is irrelevant to the question of whether the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, the Eucharist, is a perpetual sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the altar by the priest or not. This brings us to the end of his 25 minute talk in which he has argued passionately, but without proving his point. I have quoted his entire talk (except a couple of minutes at the beginning) so that those reading can see that I have not left anything out. At no point in his talk does he provide a valid, logical, theological, scriptural, exegetical support for his argument. Arguing passionately is not a substitute for that. His entire argument can be summarized as follows:

It is the institution of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper the day before, that turned Jesus’ execution the following day into a sacrifice; and since the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was a replacement for the old Jewish Passover, which always began as a sacrifice, therefore the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper itself must also be viewed as a sacrifice—a perpetual sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the altar every time the Mass is celebrated.

That reasoning is completely erroneous from start to finish, and contradicts all scripture evidence. The Bible tells us exactly what the purpose of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was—to serve as a permanent reminder of the sacrifice that Jesus had offered, and nothing more. It is not a perpetual sacrifice of Jesus Christ; and it does not turn the bread and wine literally into flesh and blood. “Do this in remembrance of me,” Jesus says. How can that mean anything other than what it says?

There is no question that the Catholic theology of the Mass is fundamentally erroneous and has no scriptural support. If the mechanism exists within the Catholic Church to correct that error, then it should be corrected; otherwise it will continue to haunt them and work against them no matter how hard they try to defend or to justify it—or cover it up! I am not quite sure whether Scott Hahn is actually trying to defend the indefensible—or trying to cover it up!

I am generally more sympathetic to Catholicism than to Protestantism. The object of the above exercise is not to give comfort to Protestantism—although it may have that unintended consequence. Catholics and Protestants both have their theological errors; and the Protestants have a lot more of them (and more serious ones) than the Catholics do. But errors are still errors, be they Catholic or Protestant, and ought to be corrected. The difference between Catholic and Protestant theological errors is that the Protestant ones are more fundamental, and more foundational to the religion, so that if they were to be corrected, the entire religion would be wiped out and disappear out of existence; whereas the Catholic Church is more resilient, and should be able to correct its theological errors without altogether sinking into oblivion.
If you eliminate predestination, “faith alone,” and TULIP (all of which are theological errors) out of Protestantism, you will be saying its last rites and putting it out of commission. There will be no more Protestantism left after that. The entire religion (or largest segment of it at least) would be wiped out and become extinct. The Catholic Church has a stronger theological foundation, and should be able correct its theological errors without self-destructing completely. They have a different kind of problem. They are too steeped in tradition to be able to easily change, or rectify their theological errors.