If Christ died once for all, why is the Mass a sacrifice?

01Your verses first

“By one oblation”

“In the which will, we are sanctified by the oblation of the body of Jesus Christ once.”

“But this man, offering one sacrifice for sins, for ever sitteth on the right hand of God,”

“For by one oblation he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.”

Hebrews even says that where sins are forgiven, “there is no more an oblation for sin.”⁸

Read fairly: Christ’s sacrifice was once, and it was enough. A priest offering sacrifice at an altar every day can look like a denial of that.

Catholics agree with every word of those verses. The question is what the Mass is.

02The Catholic reading

One sacrifice, made present

The Church teaches that the Eucharist is a sacrifice because it re-presents, that is, makes present, the sacrifice of the cross, because it is its memorial, and because it applies its fruit.³

“The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice.” “The victim is one and the same”; only the manner of offering is different.⁴

In the Mass, the Catechism says, the sacrifice Christ offered once for all on the cross remains ever present.⁹

Is there any hint of this in Scripture itself?

03In Scripture

In every place, a clean oblation

“For from the rising of the sun even to the going down, my name is great among the Gentiles, and in every place there is sacrifice, and there is offered to my name a clean oblation: for my name is great among the Gentiles, saith the Lord of hosts.”

Catholics hear this prophecy in the Mass: the Catechism calls the Eucharist “the pure offering” of the whole Body of Christ to the glory of God’s name.¹¹

“Whereby he is able also to save for ever them that come to God by him; always living to make intercession for us.”

Christ’s priesthood, the Catechism says, did not end with his death.³ And Hebrews says plainly: “We have an altar.”¹³

So where do we actually part ways?

04The real disagreement

Where we think it lies

Not over whether the cross was enough. Catholics hold that it was, completely. The question is whether the Lord’s Supper only recalls the cross, or makes the one sacrifice present.

The Church teaches that in the Mass “the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross is contained and is offered in an unbloody manner.”⁴

Our Case page on the Eucharist sets out what the earliest Christian writers said.

Once for all, on the cross. Made present, in every place. Catholics believe both.