Sacrificing Sacrifice
In the midst of the Eucharistic Revival, Dr. Lawrence Feingold, seminary professor at Kenrick-Glennon and author of (among many other things) The Eucharist: Mystery of Presence, Sacrifice, and Communion, suggests that we may be missing something of importance in our focus on the Paschal Mystery. We may be leaving out the centrality of sacrifice in the revival of our knowledge, love, and adoration of Our Lord in the Eucharist.
Is he right? One prooftext for his claim might be the USCCB’s 5 pillars of our national Eucharistic revival; the explanation for this initiative reads thus:
Foster encounters with Jesus through kerygmatic proclamation and experiences of Eucharistic devotion. Contemplate and proclaim the doctrine of the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist through the Truth of our teaching, Beauty of our worship, and Goodness of our accompaniment of persons in poverty and those who are vulnerable. Empower grassroots creativity by partnering with movements, apostolates, parishes, and educational institutions. Reach the smallest unit: parish small groups and families. Embrace and learn from the various rich intercultural Eucharistic traditions.
Nowhere in this initial claim is the word sacrifice used. To be sure, the “Beauty of our worship” and “Eucharistic traditions” are extolled, and these do not exclude per se the principle of sacrifice; furthermore, I know of no official documents rejecting or challenging the reality of the Eucharist as sacrifice. However, in a time of grave confusion about the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist among church-goers, it may also be helpful to ask if the faithful understand the reality of sacrifice in the Eucharist. If nothing else, deepening our understanding of sacrifice can assist in our learning “from the various rich intercultural Eucharistic traditions,” as the Bishops direct.
Some striking passages from recent Magisterial teaching would suggest that we intentionally move in that direction.
Consider the profound reflection from Pope St. John Paul II:
By virtue of its close relationship to the sacrifice of Golgotha, the Eucharist is a sacrifice in the strict sense, and not only in a general way, as if it were simply a matter of Christ’s offering himself to the faithful as their spiritual food. The gift of his love and obedience to the point of giving his life (cf. Jn 10:17-18) is in the first place a gift to his Father. Certainly it is a gift given for our sake, and indeed that of all humanity (cf. Mt 26:28; Mk 14:24; Lk 22:20; Jn 10:15), yet it is first and foremost a gift to the Father: “a sacrifice that the Father accepted, giving, in return for this total self-giving by his Son, who ‘became obedient unto death’ (Phil 2:8), his own paternal gift, that is to say the grant of new immortal life in the resurrection”. In giving his sacrifice to the Church, Christ has also made his own the spiritual sacrifice of the Church, which is called to offer herself in union with the sacrifice of Christ. This is the teaching of the Second Vatican Council concerning all the faithful: “Taking part in the Eucharistic Sacrifice, which is the source and summit of the whole Christian life, they offer the divine victim to God, and offer themselves along with it.”
Furthermore, the teaching of the Second Vatican Council makes it imperative that priests instruct the faithful in the centrality of Eucharistic sacrifice: “Thus the Eucharistic Action, over which the priest presides, is the very heart of the congregation. So priests must instruct their people to offer to God the Father the Divine Victim in the Sacrifice of the Mass, and to join to it the offering of their own lives.” The Eucharist is the “heart” of the congregation; indeed, as we have heard ample times since Vatican II, it is the source and the summit (Sacrificium eucharisticum, totius vitae christianae fontem et culmen),5 the goal of our Christian striving: to give back to God all he has given to us . . . which is everything. And in Christ this gift of the self is made perfect: divinized.
