Dr. Scott Hahn: "The Bible and the Sacrifice of the Mass"

let me say a word and offensive reason in dialogue with it because faith is that proof faith unites us to that substance a reason in order to realize its full potential meets the horizons revealed by and truths contained in the faith and not just any sense but the Catholic I was running late for the gate where my plane was taking off and I and I got stopped by a guy said are you Scott Han I'm like yeah and he's like you remember me and I'm like no I hate that question because I've got a professor's memory I mean it's the size of the P and I'm looking at him like okay help me hear him like I'm Kris we went to high school we graduated in 79 together I'm like oh my goodness I recognized him and he hadn't changed nearly as much as I had especially when it comes to weight I'm like it's great to see it but I don't have time to talk I'm late for my plane he's like I did gonna tell you one thing you remember back then I was a Catholic well I've got good news because I'm now an evangelical Bible Christian and I'm like well that's wonderful Chris but let me share with you one thing before I take off because I am now an evangelical Bible Catholic Christian and his jaw dropped to the floor what and he was like I can't believe it you were the one who would always come into the cafeteria sit at our table and after all the small talk you would target us especially the Catholics with all kinds of questions you'd pepper us I'm like I honestly don't remember that Chris but I'm gonna have to catch my flight here can we can we exchange business cards and we did and he's like but don't you remember that one time you wasn't just one time you'd come back again it again and you'd ask me especially me that question we're in the New Testament do you find the sacrifice of the mass remember that I'm like honestly I don't but it sure sounds like me and I'm like can I give you a call next week sure so I took off and I left him wondering whether I really meant it and so I called him we basically picked up where we left off in the airport I'm like okay realizing I had to kind of make up for lost time and do a little bit of evangelical restitution I said to Chris okay so what was it you recalled from our cafeteria conversations you used to say to us at the table you know we're in the New Testament you find the sacrifice of the mass and then quickly you'd go on to point out that the masses we called it or the Lord's Supper as you refer to it was not a sacrifice it was only a meal that the sacrifice was precisely what Jesus had offered on Calvary and years later Scott honestly I came to realize you were right Calvary's the sacrifice I'm like okay I I still agree with that Chris but I I think we need to take a step or two back in order to see things in perspective at least the way I've come to see them so that particular conversation lasted well over an hour because in that talk I shared with him what the early church fathers had sort of shared with me that if you had been there on Good Friday standing at Calvary as a devout Jew and you would watch Jesus suffer and die you would not have gone home and recounted your experience to your family members and friends as though you had just witnessed a sacrifice because for the Jews in the first century a sacrifice had to take place inside the city of Jerusalem within the temple upon an altar where there would be a priest standing by offering the sacrifice whereas Jesus died outside the walls far from the temple where there were no altars or priest offering sack so what they would have gone home and related to their family members and friends was not a sacrifice but what a Roman execution and a rather bloody one at that I said Chris you know from a Jewish precipitous perspective following the Old Testament Jesus death on Calvary was an execution a Roman execution a bloody and unjust act of violence and he's like okay so I asked the question to Chris just as the fathers had kind of posed it to me how in the world does a Roman execution get suddenly changed into a Holy Sacrifice and not just any sacrifice but the supreme sacrifice of all times how does that happen and he's like help me here no like well I'll help you the way the father's helped me the only way to illuminate the mystery of what happened that Jesus in Good Friday is by rewinding the tape and looking at it in the light of what he had previously done in the upper room with his disciples on Holy Thursday because he wasn't just celebrating a meal he wasn't just sharing a supper he was celebrating the Passover the Old Covenant one last time but that's not all he was doing he was fulfilling it as the Lamb of God but he wasn't fulfilling it as the Lamb of God for the purpose of terminating it he was fulfilling it as the Lamb of God for the purpose of transforming the Passover of the Old Covenant into the Passover the new and you recall how he does it because the synoptic Gospels tell us in the context of celebrating the familiar ancient Jewish Passover which all twelve the disciples would have known like the back of their hands near the beginning of the nail near the beginning of the meal he did something different he he took the bread which was unleavened and he spoke the words this is my body which will be given up for you and I suspect that the disciples must have been sitting there wondering what is that you know he's just deviated from the liturgical rubrics a little bit here you know nobody apparently said a thing but they must have kind of wondered and and recalled you know why did he say that this is my body which will be given for you what was that rhetoric and then near the end of the meal Chris he takes the third cup of blessing and what does he do he he takes it and he speaks those words that we know so well this chalice is the blood of the Covenant the blood of the New Covenant poured out for many for the remission of sins do this in remembrance of me so this chalice this cup is the blood the blood of the New Covenant poured out for many for the remission of sins do this in remembrance of me and there again the disciples must have been scratching their heads one what is this new ritual edition that he's kind of appending here nobody apparently asked him and a few moments later they were out into the night over to the garden of gethsemane and I said Chris I suspect that those disciples were wondering what Jesus was saying and doing what was this new rhetoric was it just you know an additional ritual or was there some reality but not until the next day not until Good Friday did it discover that he wasn't just adding new words he wasn't just adding a new ritual gesture when he said this is my body which will be given up for you on Holy Thursday in the upper room he proved that he said what he meant and he meant what he said on Good Friday because his body was given up for them and likewise the cup after supper when he speaks those sacred words and declares that this cup is the blood of the New Testament the blood of the new covenant poured out for many for the remission of sins do this in remembrance of me the very next day he did what he said he poured out his blood for the forgiveness of sins as a sacrifice I said the Passover is the key because in the Old Covenant the Passover was never merely a meal it always started off as a sacrifice just ask the lamb but the sacrifice of the unblemished male lamb was then culminating in the sacrificial communion the meal known as the Passover and if that was true of the Old Covenant it isn't less true but more of the new because Jesus comes as the lamb not just to feed us but to die for us but to do so in the context of the Old Covenant Passover which he's celebrating one last time by fulfilling it but he fulfills it by transforming than the old into the new as the Lamb who must die as the sacrifice and then as the one who makes provisions for the sacrificial communion I said if the Eucharist that Jesus instituted on Holy Thursday was just a meal that his death unholy on Good Friday was just a Roman execution but if on the other hand and only if Jesus institution of the Holy Eucharist was nothing less than the sacrifice of the New Covenant Passover then what was instituted on Thursday is precisely what is consummated on Friday he didn't lose his life on Friday if he had already freely given it to us by instituting the Eucharist as the Passover of the New Covenant on Holy Thursday he wasn't the victim of Roman violence and injustice he was the victim of divine love he made his life a gift which he freely laid down before anybody laid their hands upon him and try to take it I said if the Eucharist is a meal then Calvary is an execution but if the Eucharist is the sacrifice of the New Covenant then and only then do we see the Calvary is more than an execution that indeed it is the consummation of the sacrifice of the New Covenant Passover lamb there's this long pause and he said to me I never saw it that way and I had to admit neither did I until I read Melito of Sardis you know his homily Perry paska in the Greek I had translated into English and there I discovered what was a commonplace what it seems like all the Christians believed in the 1st 2nd 3rd and 4th centuries as Paul himself declares to the Corinthians in first Corinthians 5 or 7 Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed therefore 1 let us simply believe that's all we need to be doing and then were saved and once say no he said therefore let us keep the feast and what feast is he talking about the New Covenant Feast of the Eucharist the Feast of the unleavened bread which he goes on in the subsequent chapters of 1st Corinthians 10 and 11 to explain more fully than he does in all of the other epistles put together and so it is that we agree with our non Catholic Christian brothers and sisters who describe Calvary as the sacrifice we would just hasten to clarify the fact that Calvary would only be an execution unless the Holy Eucharist is nothing less than the sacrifice of the New Covenant Passover and so when we as Catholics go about the New Evangelization they've got good news to share and we don't begrudge them because they share so generously they take on risks they take the good news as they understand it and they share it freely and fully with excitement and so we should to only more fully and more excitedly because the good news they share just gets better when you discover the fullness of the faith in the family of God that we call the Catholic Church because it's not just a person relationship it's not just cohabiting with another person that you sincerely love it's a covenant relationship that calls for interpersonal communion but it has to pass from the person relationship to a committed relationship to a coven ental bond and so for us it takes a little bit longer and why because we're Catholics and we just kind of drag things out no because that's what human nature calls for falling in love is not over and done in a day falling in love is over and done in a lifetime but it needs to go through stages of growth and development whether we call it courtship engagement in marriage or whatever we call it whatever culture we live in we recognize that the crisis in the church today is very similar the crisis and the culture we don't understand the inter logic of love when it comes to the inter personal bond between a male and a female when it comes to the deeper interpersonal bond between God and humanity it isn't just my decision it isn't just my experience those are necessary steps but they are baby steps they're like the first steps as I said the prodigal son took from a far country long before he ever got home to the merciful father who had been waiting for him and that feast that he celebrated for the prodigal son is the Eucharistic banquet the marriage supper of the Lamb that the prodigal sons and daughters of God get to share when Catholics proclaim the gospel in its integrity with all of its truth with all of its power indeed with all of its beauty and I would also go on to say that the Eucharist that Jesus instituted on Holy Thursday is not only what illuminates the mystery of a suffering on Good Friday it's also what really clarifies the importance of his resurrection on Easter Sunday because if the Eucharist is what transformed Jesus suffering from being an execution into a true and holy sacrifice then the resurrection is what transformed sacrifice into a sacrament that we can now do in remembrance of him because the resurrection of the Lord's body is precisely what makes that body not only come back alive the resurrection is more than the resuscitation of his corpse it's more than the vindication of his innocence the resurrection is the glorification of his sacred humanity his sacred humanity now resurrected is both deified and deifying and the resurrection is what makes it communicable to us it's what makes that glorified body dare I say edible by us which is why when you study the synoptic traditions in John you discover that each and every time you read about a resurrection appearance just it just so happens that what day of the week doesn't always fall upon Sunday why well you know because that's the day he was resurrected but that's also the day that these two disciples said you know our hearts were burning within us when you open up the scriptures but our eyes were only open when in the breaking of the bread the Eucharistic celebration and so week after week back then in the first century Sunday after Sunday in the 21st century it is the resurrected Lord of lords and King of Kings who comes to us it isn't the the bleeding battered body of Jesus hanging on the cross though it is one in the same sacrifice that he offered on Calvary but the sacrifice that he offers he now offers as the high priest in heaven as st. John describes it in the visions that we find in the book of Revelation that I tried my best to explain than the Lamb supper as I experienced it in my very first mass where he is the Lamb of God 28 times in 22 chapters where he is the high priest of the heavenly temple where he is the one offering and yet he is also the Lamb who is offered and in the mass then God's will is done on earth as it is in heaven more perfectly than anything else we do the Eucharist is the resurrected Lord and if we are the ones who are alive at the end of time when he comes again and reveals his glory we may be in for a surprise because we're going to discover that he won't have any more glory at the end than he already has now not only up in heaven but in his Eucharistic presence he is the Lord of lords and the King of Kings he comes to us under the appearance of bread and wine but he comes to us as the resurrected ascended in throne glorified deified and deifying Jesus and that is why God the Father is not content with leaving his prodigal son in a far country simply making an act of contrition that is just the beginning of a long journey and when we come back home and that's what fallen away Catholics are doing now by the thousands and the tens of thousands they discover the mercy of a father who loves them more than they ever imagined but they also discover that the banquet that the father is throwing is more than they ever expected it is not a reward for our righteousness it is a remedy for our sin and weakness and our failures we are not worthy but we sure are needy and so we're not only going out to realized the de-christianized we are going out being realized ourselves we are coming here and being realized ourselves week after week after week I was talking to Chris and he would keep bringing up okay so get me back to that question and its answer we're in the New Testament you find the sacrifice of the mass and another occasion in a different conversation I pointed out to him what Jesus said and did there in the upper room when he instituted the Eucharist he takes this chalice and he says what this is the cup of My Blood the blood of the New Testament the blood of the New Covenant poured out for many for the remission of sins do this in remembrance of me or words that effect I said notice Chris what he said this is the cup of My Blood the blood of the kinase dia fake a we can translate that new covenant we can just as easily translate that New Testament this is the blood of the New Testament poured out for many for the remission of sins drink this do this in remembrance of me notice I said Chris he said he didn't say this is the cup of My Blood the blood of the New Testament write this in remembrance of me he didn't say read this in remembrance of me he said do this do what the New Testament and what's the New Testament the New Testament is the Eucharist according to the New Testament Luke 22 21st Corinthians chapter 11 as well he didn't say write this in remembrance of me and in fact over half of the 12 in the Upper Room never ended up contributing a single book to the collection of 27 that we now call the New Testament but not because they were lazy or disobedient but because he didn't say write this in remembrance he said do this and guess what they all went out doing this they were proclaiming the gospel they were instructing the repentant they were then baptizing and they were celebrating the breaking of the bread from the very beginning as we read in acts 2:42 again in acts 20 and elsewhere so Jesus says this is the cup of My Blood the blood of the New Testament he says do this in remembrance of me not write this so I said Chris the plain and simple fact that I had to learn the hard way was this that the New Testament was a sacrament long before it ever started to become a document according to the document it was like a zinger for him but much earlier for me it was really a Ratzinger because that was the guy who taught me oh I'm sorry I should have resisted that temptation but in fact it was then professor Joseph you know Cardinal before he was Pope Benedict who taught me just like the fathers all that I was trying to share with Chris the New Testament is a sacrament long before it starts to become a document according to the document and he asked me to clarify that I said well the early church and the Apostles went out preaching baptizing and celebrating the New Covenant the New Testament in the Holy Eucharist for years in all directions but in actual fact the New Testament books weren't begun for at least 10 or 50 maybe 20 years after Jesus death and resurrection and they weren't really completed until the end of the first century but as a matter of historical fact it's interesting to notice that these documents that were being read in the church especially in her sunday liturgy were never referred to as the New Testament until the second half of the second century those are the earliest references we find documented to these books being called the New Testament and why were they suddenly being called the New Testament at the end of the second century because of their liturgical proximity to what had been called the New Testament since the first half of the first century and what was that the Eucharist that Jesus himself called the New Testament Jesus never uses that word do you think a covenant or Testament any other time except when he instituted the Eucharist and when he did he said this is the cup of My Blood the blood of the New Testament do this in remembrance of me I said not only is the new testament of sacrament long before it starts to become a document but it also gives us an answer to that question I used to ask you all the time Chris where in the New Testament do you find the sacrifice of the mass the sacrifice of the mass is the New Testament according to the New Testament you you

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Length: 24min 9sec (1449 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 14 2013