Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,
We continue to hear at Mass this weekend, passages from the 6th chapter of St. John’s Gospel. Last week we heard about Christ’s enduring presence with his Bride (us). Today we will explore the Eucharist as sacrifice.
Jesus willingly and lovingly sacrificed his life on the cross on our behalf, so that we could be freed from the bondage of sin, be released from death’s eternal hold and have access to the heavenly realm when this earthly life is over. This saving sacrifice, offered out of love by Jesus, was more pleasing to our Heavenly Father than all human sins of all time was displeasing to Him.
The Lord’s sacrifice was prefigured in the Old Testament account of the Exodus from Egypt, when God commanded the Israelites to sacrifice an unblemished lamb. The blood of the lamb saved them from death and freed them from slavery. God commanded them to eat the lamb that was sacrificed. That is why the priest raises the consecrated host at Mass and says, “behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world…”
Consider if you will, the sacrifice made by St. Maximilian Kolbe, when he volunteered to die in place of another man at Auschwitz. The best we can do with such a sacrifice is to remember it and let our memory of it influence how we choose to live today.
But in the Eucharist, the saving sacrifice of Jesus that took place 2000 years ago in time, is made present to us. This sacrifice, the crucified and resurrected body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus, who now sits at the Father’s right hand in heaven, is what we “re-present” to the Father in an un-bloody manner at every Mass.
Not only do we offer at every Mass that same once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus to our Heavenly Father, but we unite our own sacrifices, the little and sometimes not so little sacrifices that the Christian life demands, with the saving sacrifice of Jesus. At Mass, we both consent to the Lord’s sacrifice offered on our behalf and we, by joining our sacrifices with His, offer ourselves with Him.
Sincerely yours in Christ Jesus, the Way, the Truth, and the Life,
