E SACRIFICE OF THE MASS

THE SACRIFICE OF THE MASS.
Mass to be a true and proper Sacrifice ;
"
and says
one and the same Victim and the same Offerer now offer
it is
ing by the ministry of His priests Who then offered
Himself on the Cross, only the manner of offering is
different." The Council has not defined a Sacrifice.
Sacrifice is commonly held to be an offering of a sub
stantial thing made to God by a fitting minister through
its destruction, or equivalent destruction. Sacrifice is
made to God alone; 1 His supreme dominion over
life and death is shown in the destruction of the
victim, to acknowledge God s supreme dominion and
to appease Divine Justice when sin has been com
mitted.
The Mass, according to the Penny Catechism, is
the Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ,
really present on the altar under the appearance of
bread and wine, and offered to God for the living and
the dead.
In the Mass there is all that we need for a true
Sacrifice :
(i) a visible thing, i.e., the Body
and Blood
of Christ under the appearance of bread and wine ;
(2) the offering is made by Christ through His minister ;
(3) there is the mystical
of bread and wine ; (4)
never to saints or to our Lady ; (5)
destruction in the consecration
Mass is offered to God alone
Mass is offered for
the living and dead, "for all faithful Christians living
and dead," as the Church says at the Offertory.
1 See Trent, Sess. xxii. cap. 3, where the Council teaches that
though the Mass is said in honour and in the memory of the
Saints, sacrifice is offered not to them but to God alone who
crowned them.