There is a man who used to be a Satanist, Zachary King, who used abortion as a Satanic sacrifice to power his spells. (Read this article for more info). He became a Christian through a vision of Mary who pointed him to Jesus. Using the ‘fruit’ argument (you shall know them by their fruit) it seems most logical to assume that the vision was from God. This causes a new problem for those who are opposed to the honor Catholics give to Mary, the Mother of God made Man.  I’m getting distracted here – see my previous discussion of Mary and the Saints.) He is now Catholic and devoted to ending abortion by use of spiritual weapons. His story intrigued me, he had a Baptist background, and I could see no particular reason for him to be pulled to the Catholic Church. One concept that I have come to thoroughly embrace is that Satan can create nothing of his own – he can only twist the holy. One thing that Mr. King mentions is that the Satanic services he was a part of were called ‘black mass’, meaning they were a mockery, a twisting, of the Catholic Mass. That made me think again. Why attack something if it’s idolatrous at worst, or invalid at best? For more about Mr. King, you can visite his website: www.allsaintsministry.org

What is the Mass? The word ‘mass’ comes from the latin ‘missa’ which means ‘sent’. That is because the point of the Mass is to energize the faithful with Christ so that they can go out and spread the Gospel. This however is simply a word designating a holy service that has happened since the time of the apostles. The “Breaking of Bread”. There are some common misunderstandings about the mass that I would like to address. Some anti-Catholics claim that the Mass is a sacrilege because it claims to re-sacrifice Christ. (The article I just linked to says that they understand they are misunderstanding but are going to misunderstand anyway… I’m confused). I’ve come to notice that it is common for those set against the Catholic faith to study exclusively non-catholic sources about Catholic issues. This is something I have been guilty of myself. When we don’t understand something, we tend to be afraid of it. We may not realize it overtly, but the reason we avoid going right to the source is because of that insecurity. It’s much easier to read and listen to only those whom we agree with.

So what’s going on here? How can the Mass be a sacrifice but Christ have died once for all? To answer that we have to be familiar with what Jesus was doing with his sacrifice on the cross – and to understand that we need to have a Jewish perspective of Passover and the awaited Messiah. The original Passover sacrifice pointed forward to the ultimate sacrificial lamb. This was Passover was done ‘once for all’, however, every year, the sacrifice would be offered again.  While the angel of death had already been rebuffed, the yearly sacrifice was a way of participating in the original sacrifice. The article I just linked to is Jewish and at the end talks about how they can’t offer a true Passover sacrifice anymore because of the destruction of the temple and thus the inability to offer a sacrificial lamb. Hmm lamb. Sound familiar? Perhaps like, “behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins if the world!” John 1:29.

The Mass, then, is what we have come to call ‘the last supper’, re-presented, just as Christ commanded. But we can’t see the meal separate from the sacrifice. Passover required a lamb. When Jesus celebrated Passover for the last time, who would become the sacrificial lamb? Himself of course. Again the Jewish article I linked above mentions the four cups. At the Last Supper the cup that Jesus passed, “the new covenant in my blood”, was the third cup, known to the Jews as the cup of blessing. The 4th cup and final cup would have been passed after they sang, but Jesus skipped it and instead went to the garden of Gethsemane. (Below emphasis mine.)

26 But as they ate, Yeshua took bread and blessed and broke and he gave to his disciples, and he said, “Take eat; this is my body.” 27 And he took a cup, and he gave thanks and he gave to them, and he said, “Take, drink from it, all of you. 28 This is my blood of the new* covenant, which is shed in exchange for the many for the release of sins. 29 But I say to you that I shall not drink again from this fruit of the vine until the day in which I shall drink it with you new in the Kingdom of my Father.” And they sang praises and they went out to Gethsemane.

Jesus did nothing arbitrarily, He wasn’t skipping the fourth cup, but rather delaying it. When did He next ‘drink of the fruit of the vine? Right before He said “It is Finished“. Just to make sure we don’t miss anything John notes that a hyssop branch was used to deliver the wine vinegar – the same kind of branch used to spread the blood of the sacrificial lambs on the doorposts in Exodus.

To be fair, I didn’t come up with all this on my own. Here is a talk by Scott Hahn who was the first one I learned about the 4th cup from. I highly recommend listening to it when you are driving, working out, or otherwise have extra time and can listen to audio. Now – I’ve moved from Discussing the Mass to discussing the Eucharist (what a protestant would refer to as ‘communion’) without even flinching – and it’s because they are intricately connected. If the Eucharist is truly Christ – and if He is being made available to us weekly (even daily!) through the mass – we can easily see how it becomes the most important place on earth. Indeed the place where heaven and earth, time and eternity intersect and the sacrifice of Christ from 2000 years ago is made real to us at that exact moment in time.

Let me leave you with one more talk to prep you for part two. Try listening to Brant Pitre’s discussion on the Jewish roots of the Eucharist. He dives into the history of Jewish people and how the Catholic understanding of the Eucharist was prefigured.