The Eucharistic sacrifice belongs to the symbolic order to the realm of signs and symbols which, however, signify and point to deep realities. The inner core of the sacrifice consists in its sign value. In its intrinsic reality the sacrificial victim is nothing but the carrier of the offerer's self-commitment to God, for in offering the victim to God the offerer is in reality offering himself to him. Deep down the victim is nothing but a transparent symbol of the offerer's self-surrender to God.
Hence, in the offering of sacrifice man reaches the maximum self-devotedness since man cannot offer to God anything better than himself. At the Last Supper Jesus gave the Church even his body as a sign of his radical self-gift to her. Similarly now, in the offering of the Eucharistic sacrifice, the worshiping Church offers to God even her body as the supreme manifestation of her self-sacrificing love.
Rightly, "The external sacrifice represents the true, internal sacrifice according to which the human spirit offers itself up to God". - Saint Thomas - "It is you that God seeks, more than your own gift". - Saint Augustine -
This act of man's self-surrender into the hands of God, this radical giving of self is essentially marked by a profound Christological stamp. Christ's historical sacrifice on Calvary was but the consummation of his entire life. For, in him there is no visible dichotomy between life and worship, his whole being imbued with a deep sacrificial spirit. Christ's absolute self-gift to the Father marks his entire life, from Bethlehem to Golgotha, from birth to death. The epistle to the Hebrews presents Christ in this radical attitude of self-surrender to his Father from the very beginning of his earthly existence: - Heb. 10:5-9 - On the other hand, the entire span of his life is briefly summarized by his own word: - John 8:29 - And at the end his supreme act of willful surrender: - Luke 23:43 -
His whole life was but a self-gift to the two persons he so deeply loved: his Father and his Church. Probably the deepest aspects of Jesus' religious personality are his love and his self-gift or rather his self-gift out of love. The Father and the Church are the recipients of this twofold commitment of Jesus, of his profound sacrificial spirit. He gives himself totally out of love: he is simultaneously the perfect offerer and the perfect victim, his sacrifice is perfect because in him offerer and victim are fused into one, they are simply identified. His life led him, by an internal and necessary dynamism. towards the supreme sacrifice of his death and resurrection which was but the climax of an entire life steeped in the sacrificial spirit of self-gift. His Father and his Church, his two loves: "Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God".
Similarly, with this Christological model before his eyes, the Christian too has God as his centre, he tends to him, he turns to him or rather, he returns to him. The perfection of man's Christian sacrifice is reached when he, like Christ, becomes simultaneously offerer and victim when he offers to God, an external, immolated victim that is but the bearer, the vehicle of his own self-gift to God. It is the identification of the two roles of offerer and victim that determines the perfection of the sacrifice, whose real worth depends on the subjective sacrificial spirit of the offerer rather than on the intrinsic value of the victim offered. For "it is not the sacrifice that sanctifies man but rather man's conscience that sanctifies the sacrifice". - Saint Irenaeus -
Yet in the present state of sinful humanity, with the reality of sin clinging so fiercely to man and man given man's inner inclination to yield to the allurement of sin. It becomes next to impossible for man to surrender himself to God in a sacrificial act of self-commitment unless he first cuts himself loose from the surrounding entanglements of sin. The victim has first to be rendered free in order to be able to fly unimpeded to God. Sacrificial oblation or self-gift necessarily presupposes a certain amount of self-immolation as an indispensable, preparatory step.
Saint John of the Cross compares the Christian soul to a dove that would like to fly to God but cannot, for it is tied down by a thread to the leg of the table. As long as the thread-thick or thin, it does not matter-remains uncut, the dove will not fly. Similarly man is fettered, kept from flying to God by innumerable fetters that are to be cut before he can start his sacrificial, ascensional movement to God. And this cutting operation, this immolate process is always painful, at times exceedingly so. This is a preparatory but indispensable stage to be gone through before the flight to God can take place. This is the Christian meaning of sacrificial immolation.
The sacrifice does not end with an upward movement towards God, for this ascensional thrust of man is in itself but a preparation for the final goal of every sacrifice which is to create, strengthen or re-establish union with God. Sacrifice emerges therefore as a highly spiritual reality that tends directly to God and rests only in him. The sacrificial victim, on the hand, retains its value as the bearer of man's self-commitment, as an adequate symbol of his self-surrender and consequently when God accepts the victim (since without acceptance the sacrifice would be mutilated or crippled) he is in reality accepting the person of the offerer represented and carried over to the divine domain by the fragile victim. The offerer himself by means of the victim, ascends to God and becomes a "holy sacrifice, truly pleasing to God". - Rom. 12:1 -
The sacrificial oblation has truly become a bridge of union between God and man, a veritable link of sacrificial communion. Hence, Christian sacrifice, though in itself an act of cultic adoration, yet dynamically considered, is rather an impetus towards God, a longing for personal communion. The Church's liturgy expresses this in beautifully simple language: "Through the offering of this host, make of ourselves an eternal gift to you". (Prayer over the gifts on the feast of the Trinity)
One final remark. At times it is said that the relation implied in every sacrifice is that between Creator and creature. This is obviously correct but also unsatisfactory, for this merely natural relation has now been raised to a higher level. It is not a distant, majestic Creator that is reached by means of man's sacrificial self-offering but rather a loving Father, who, in accepting the victim of the sacrifice, accepts his own son. Like the fictitious father of the prodigal son, so also the real Father, when he sees his son approaching him in a genuine act of sacrificial surrender, "run, embraces and kisses him" - Luke 15:20 - in a warm act of acceptance: the sacrifice of the son has accomplished its end which was to be united with his Father in an attitude of total personal surrender and intimate communion.
The centre of a man is not in himself but outside himself. For man self-surrender is a means of self-realization. Man, therefore, reaches his perfection in another - that is, in Another - rather than in himself: this is the profound meaning of Christian sacrifice and Christian theocentrism.
BY REV. FR. LUIS M. BERMEJO S.J.
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Sunday, May 24, 2009
I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!
I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.
HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -
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