Is the daily offering in sacrifice of Christ’s Body and Blood, in the Mystery of the Eucharist and in many Christian churches, consistent with the Apostle’s teaching on the unity of Christ’s sacrifice?
Does Christ’s sacrifice remain one, despite the repeated and universal celebration of the Eucharist? We answer: yes, it remains one.
The unity, or identity, of Christ’s sacrifice is seen from the following.
1. On Golgotha and in the often-celebrated Eucharist, one and the same Thing Offered, or Person Offered, remains.
In His discourse on communion, the Lord said: “The bread which I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world” (Jn 6:51).
From this it is clear that in the Eucharist, under the form of bread, the very Flesh of Christ is broken and offered in sacrifice.
It is the same Flesh that was given up for the life of the world to the sufferings and death of Golgotha.
One thing is not offered on the altar’s holy table, while another was once offered on Golgotha. Here and there, there is one offering.
The Apostle Paul says that “we all partake of the one bread” (1 Cor 10:17). The Bread of the Eucharist always and everywhere remains one.
For its substance is the one and same unchanging Flesh of Christ.
Were it not for this invisible and everywhere one substance, the Apostle would not have called the Bread of the Eucharist one.
For bread, as the work of human hands, will not be tomorrow what it is today, nor in one church what it is in another (1 Cor 11:25-27).
Although the Eucharistic service is celebrated by various persons, the One Who offers the sacrifice of the Body and Blood remains the one Christ. Priests are only His visible instruments.
That Christ, Who gave His Flesh over to suffering and death, Himself gives it in the Eucharist for the faithful to eat, is seen from the same discourse on communion.
There the Lord says that He Himself, and no other, will give the bread of life, which is His Flesh (Jn 6:51 and others).
The Jews understood His words in no other way when they said, “How can He give us His flesh to eat?” (Jn 6:52).
But if Christ gives us His Flesh in the Eucharist to eat, then He also offers it at that time as a saving sacrifice.
For we know that the giving of the Body and Blood in this Mystery has the meaning of a sacrifice.
Therefore the Lord said: “This is My Body, given for you, broken for you. This cup is the New Testament in My Blood, which is poured out for you” (Lk 22:19-20; 1 Cor 11:24).
He did not say, “given to you” or “broken to you,” as though He wished only to show for whom the Body is broken and given.
He said, “for you,” wishing to show for whom the Body is offered in sacrifice.
Therefore in the Eucharist, the One Who Gives, Breaks, and Pours Out, even by the hands of priests, is at the same time the One Who offers sacrifice.
And who among men, even if sanctified by the grace of the Holy Spirit, would dare to dispose of the Flesh and Blood of Christ?
He would not dare unless the very One Offered presided over the sacrifice.
Therefore in the Eucharist, always and everywhere, there is one Offerer: the King of kings, “Who comes to be slain” as sacrifice “and to be given as food to the faithful,” in the words of the Church hymn.
The Stundists will say to us: why do you present Christ as repeatedly offering His Body and His Blood, when the Apostle clearly teaches that Christ sanctified us by the one offering of His Body (Heb 10:10, 14)?
But we too acknowledge that Christ’s offering of His Body was once for all. The Body and Blood of Christ do not repeatedly become a sacrifice for us.
Yet, having been offered once, they did not afterwards lose the sacrificial significance that became theirs in the days of the Son of God’s saving self-emptying for us.
Always and everywhere they are a sacrifice for us.
The Blood of the covenant did not dry up on Golgotha, nor is it silent. It speaks and cries out, like the blood of Abel.
Only it speaks better. It cries out not for vengeance on the guilty, but for their forgiveness and mercy (Heb 12:24).
Where, then, is this interceding Blood on earth? Nowhere but in the Church, in the Chalice where the Lord Himself appointed it to be.
He said: “This cup is the New Testament in My Blood,” and, “This is My Blood of the New Testament” (Lk 22:20; Mt 26:28).
Thus the Body and Blood of Christ were offered in sacrifice once for all. But their sacrificial, or intercessory, significance was joined to them forever.
It remains unchangeably with Christ’s humanity in every condition. This is so whether it sits at the right hand of the Father on the throne of glory.
It is so whether it is present under the forms of bread and wine on the holy table of the church. It is so whether it is broken or given to the faithful.
In the Eucharist, the Body and Blood of Christ are a sacrifice for us, not by virtue of a new sacrifice of them, but by virtue of the change of bread and wine into Christ’s Body and Blood.
The following circumstance can clarify the thought about the constant intercessory, or sacrificial, significance of Christ’s Body and Blood.
When the Lord instituted the Eucharist, He designated His Body as sacrificial not only once, and not only in one condition of that Body.
He said first, “broken for you” (1 Cor 11:24), and then, “given for you” (Lk 22:19).
The expression “for you,” which indicates the intercessory, or sacrificial, significance of the Body, belongs to it both when it is broken and when it is given.
Therefore it belongs to it constantly and can never be taken from it.
The same thought is also suggested by this. In the Old Testament, the sacrificial animal was considered and called a sacrifice and a holy thing not only at the moment of sacrifice.
It was so called also after the sacrifice, when the remains of the sacrifice were given to the priests or eaten (Lev 2:3, 10; 6:18, 26, 30; 7:6, 16; 10:17, and many others).
The meat of pagan sacrifices is also called idol-sacrifice when it is set upon the table (1 Cor 10:28).
Therefore Christ’s Body is a sacrifice wherever it may be, but especially in the Eucharist, where it is offered to us for eating.
Thus the Body and Blood of Christ appear in the Eucharist as sacrifice through their very presence there, and not because they are offered there anew in sacrifice.
They could not and never can lose the sacrificial quality they received in the days of the Son of God’s self-emptying.
Christ’s sacrifice is one in the object of the offering, for the One Offered is one. It is one in the Person Who performs the offering, for the Offerer is one.
It is also one in the action of the sacrifice, as a once-for-all offering that continues in its effects.
THEOSIS