Worship in the Bible and in the Mass
Mary Clare Piecynski

Throughout the Old and New testaments the concept of worship is prevalent.  From the pre-historic pages of Genesis to all the nations adoring the Lamb in Revelation, the words of the Bible bring to life ancient forms of worship that converse in the historic person of Jesus Christ Who fulfills and perfects all previous forms of worship while elevating worship to a new level through His Church and the sacrifice of the Mass.  Though God creates the world as a cosmic temple wherein He is worshipped, man falls and henceforth must strive to escape the clutches of a wounded nature in order to find himself once again able to worship his Creator.  God brings man into a gradual deepening relationship with Him through successive covenants that are continually broken by a humanity plagued by concupiscence.  It is only in the Person of Jesus Christ and by His life, passion, death and resurrection that man can once again enjoy a right relationship with Yahweh and worship correctly.  The New Testament relates how timeless divinity and fallen historic humanity are brought together in Christ to fulfill the covenants of the Old Law and to institute a New Law, a new way of living and a perfect form of worship found in Christ’s Church and celebrated in the Mass. 
Creation and the Sabbath.  In the beginning, creation was seen as a tabernacle, a temple in which man could correctly worship the Creator.  The entire world and all of the created entities within the world were in harmony with the Almighty.  The seventh day was the day upon which God rested, in hallowing the seventh day God sanctified even time along with the rest of created things.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church states “Creation was fashioned with a view to the Sabbath and therefore for the worship and adoration of God.  Worship is inscribed in the order of creation.”  Thus, creation might be regarded as a temple for worship since God having blessed and hallowed the 7th day, a day in which to rest and rejoice in the beauties of the earth.  Further, the seventh day showed that man was made for more than just earthy things; he was created for eternal worship in eternity.  With an entire day dedicated to rest God showed the world that one is not complete without a time set apart for rest and the contemplation of the Creator.  Creation as a temple also prefigures how Christ came and elevated all of creation and allowed it to once again be offered to God through prayer in correct worship.  Creation moves towards the Sabbath, worship, which is its culmination since a creation that is not tied up with worship is empty. 
One can see the unfallen creation as a temple where man was the high priest and steward over all things.  In this perfect state man could rightly worship God and offer the purity of the earth back to the Creator in the perfect offering.  The first pages of Genesis paint a scene of serenity that is only fulfilled in the Person of Jesus Christ who brings all of creation into union with the Trinitarian life and allows man to finally exist fully and be capable once again of truly worshipping his Maker.  The Catechism expresses the goodness and beauty of creation when it says “the whole earth is sacred and entrusted to the children of men.”   Further, through Christ’s resurrection creation enters into the perpetual rest of the 7th day wherein the entire cosmos is consecrated in an act of unending worship. 
Communion with God must embrace the entirety of life and involves aspects such as law, liturgy and sacrifice which are all seen in man’s return to God from whence he came.  Man’s search for meaning eventually leads him to ponder the question of worship and how one is to venerate a deity.  This quest has been present since the fall of man, partially answered through the Old Testament but was never sufficiently addressed until the coming of Jesus Christ.  It was only through the incarnate God-Man elevating his fallen nature that man becomes once again fully capable of worshipping his Creator.   According to the Catechism, “the desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself.”    Man’s desire to worship involves sacrifice, offering creation back to God, liturgy, the context in which this sacrifice is completed and law, sacrifice was given as a law by God in the Old Testament.  Writing while still Cardinal Ratzinger, Pope Benedict affirms the true nature of worship and how this occurs in history.  Ratzinger states, “Man’s unqualified Yes to God could alone form true worship.  Everything belongs to God, but to man is lent the freedom to say Yes or No, the freedom to love or to reject.”   In sum, each human person since he is made in the image and likeness of God has an intrinsic desire to worship Him in whose image he is made. 
Man’s desire to be united to God through worship fit into a bigger exitus/reditus scheme, the general picture of creation emanating from God’s overflowing Trinitarian love into the created universe and then after the fall the natural progression of things back to God was disrupted and through the entry of sin the world stood in need of a Redeemer.  The exitus part of the scheme presupposes that the world is a free act of creation coming forth from God and that God is all in all.  It is God’s will in bringing forth creation to then bring everything back to Himself.  The finite, created being is good but subsequent to the fall creation in a sense divided into 1,000,000 pieces that needed to be brought back to the Source from which they came.  The reditus then involves establishment of communio, reuniting with the communion of love which is God as Trinity.  Trinitarian love is the reason why beings can be created and be called good since their being comes from the all good God.  With the return of creation in the completion of the exitus-reditus scheme, the many things united by the Trinitarian love are brought into their completion by returning to their source, the life-giving Trinity.
The way in which specifically human creation returns to God through the exitus-reditus scheme is through right worship which is also its culmination in worship of God in spirit and truth throughout all of eternity.  Man is created and goes forth from God in order to enter back into a full relationship with Him.  Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger explains the interconnectedness of the Trinitarian love with human love through worship.  Ratzinger states “Christian worship consists in the absoluteness of love, as it could only be poured out by the one in whom God’s own love had become human love.”   This reditus takes place through worship, which occurs through sacrifice.  This whole experience of man offering sacrifice to become closer to the Creator is first seen with Able, then sacrifice becomes decreed with the Hebrews and from them sacrifice grows to the more universal experience of all humanity entering back into God through the person of Jesus Christ by means of the Church.
The reditus became necessary because of the entry of sin into the world through the fall of man and disrupted the perfect harmony that God had originally created.  Creation fell with man and with it the ability for it to be rightly ordered and used as an instrument to worship God.  With the fall of man also came the promise of redemption though and so man waited expectantly for a Redeemer.  Throughout the entire Old Testament was an attitude of awaiting the coming of something great that would enable the chosen people to form a correct way in which to correctly honor their God.  Christ’s coming was necessitated by this entry of sin into the world and the fall of the first parents which introduced a fallen world and a fallen, wounded human nature that henceforth would sin, suffer and die on account of original sin.  Though many theories abound as to the exact circumstances and nature of the fall, Scripture and Tradition dictate that through the temptation of the devil man fell from a state of sanctifying grace.  Consequently, Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden and their offspring inherited original sin which precluded them from entering eternal glory and called for the coming of a savior.  
Worship took many different outward forms during the Old Testament times, though its general aim was always to rectify man’s situation before God.  Sacrifice was continually present in the Chosen People’s worship from the beginning pages of Genesis when Cain and Able offered sacrifices to God to atone for their sins.  Their offering involved both fleshy and grain sacrifices to God to atone for their sins.   A crucial aspect to sacrifice though is also seen in this story because God only accepts the sacrifice of Able, Cain did not apparently offer God a contrite heart as did Able.  Another important instance of sacrifice in the Old Testament was the sacrificial lamb of the Passover, prepared the night before the Hebrews left bondage to begin their journey to the Promised Land.  A spotless lamb was roasted and eaten by the Hebrew families while the angel of death slew the firstborn of all the land, excluding those Hebrews who had marked their doors with the blood of the animal.   The Lord said to the people ‘I shall see the blood, and shall pass over you; and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I strike.’” This sacrifice foreshadows the New Testament and the Lamb of God who gave His Body and Blood in the Eucharist upon the night of another Passover to free man from the bondage of sin.  Sacrifice then was present in the pages of the Old Testament, to atone for sins such as the instance of Cain and Able and also to save from bodily death as seen in the Passover.
God draws His people to Him by successive covenants throughout the Old Testament with each aimed at bringing the hearts of the Hebrews closer to the authentic worship of Yahweh.  With the cosmos originally a temple wherein God was to be worshiped, it follows that creation and all things in it would look towards the covenant which brings earthly things into a greater union with God.   From Adam to Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Moses and David, the multiplicity of God’s covenants does not imply a multitude of salvific plans for man’s redemption but rather they increase the scope of God’s saving plan.  For instance, the covenant with Adam involved a married couple, with Abraham it was a family, Jacob a tribe, Moses a nation and David a kingdom.  The covenants essentially assisted the chosen people to live in accordance with God’s will.  Scott Hahn develops this point and writes that the “covenant laws are not arbitrary stipulations but fixed moral principles which govern the moral order.  Moreover, they reflect the inner life of the Blessed Trinity.”  Though there were numerous covenants in the Old Law, one can see that the processes of creation and salvation history constitute one intention on God’s part, so there is a deep unity between the covenants. 
The covenants throughout the Old Testament are a beautiful sign of God’s unfailing and unending love for His people Israel.  One of the first major covenants, with untold historical significance is with Abram.  God repays Abram’s faithfulness by giving him an unconditional covenant with unconditional promises that will be fulfilled.  These promises include land, progeny and world wide blessing.  God swears this in an oath that involves a smoking fire pot and torch that passed between the pieces of cut up animals.  Here God is saying that if what He promises does not come true then let it be done to Him as it happened to the animals.
God’s covenant with Abram was an unconditional covenant which involved God giving Abram three promises which would come to fruition regardless of man’s actions.  The three promises, recorded in Genesis 12, 15 and 17 involved progeny, or descendants as numerous as the sands of the seashore, land and world wide blessing to come through Abram’s descendants. 
One event in the life of Abraham is especially important in the life of worship of the believer today.  Abraham was blessed by the king of Salem, which means king of peace.  The king, Melchizedek, offered bread and wine in worship to Yahweh and then, as a superior to his lesser, blesses Abraham.  Melchizedek is seen throughout history as a type of Christ since he is without country or lineage and his offerings of bread and wine are the same that Christ employs during the Last Supper.  Father Danielou in his work The Bible and the Liturgy explains “as Melchizedek is a figure of Christ, so his offering is a figure of the oblation of Christ.”  Furthermore, according to the Catechism “the Church sees in the gestures of the king-priest Melchizedek, who ‘brought out bread and wine’ a prefiguring of her own offering.”   Moreover, Abraham gives Melchizedek one-tenth of his possessions showing how in correct worship man is to offer himself back to God.   This incident between Abraham and Melchizedek ties directly into the New Testament and Paul specifically mentions it in the book of Hebrews where he writes of the high priesthood of Jesus Christ.  Melchizedek is a type of Christ being without country or lineage and his offerings of bread and wine are the same that Christ employs during the Last Supper. 
The Old Testament is essentially a story of the Chosen People continually falling into sin, God’s calling them back, often through a prophet, their repentance and God forgiving them and often giving them a new or renewing an old covenant.  For instance, Ezekiel warns the people that Israel played the harlot after being graced by God.  Israel was often seen in the Old Testament as a faithless wife who plays the harlot after false gods and then is subsequently punished by her faithful husband, Yahweh. 
Along with the covenants came the decree from God to sacrifice to help atone for man’s sinfulness.  The concept of sacrifice stems from the fact that man fell from sanctifying grace and stood in a humbled and sinful state before the perfect God.  By man offering things such as animals and grains, he acknowledges his sinfulness while showing his desire to better his relationship with God.  Though it was one man who fell, human nature was wounded and so sacrifices were required as reparation for the sin of the first  parents as well as for personal offenses.  A sacrifice, in general is “the offering of a victim by a priest to God alone, in testimony of His being the Sovereign Lord of all things” and so through sacrificial worship one brought in humility to God an offering in hopes of attaining divine favor, forgiveness of sin and justification.  Further, sacrifice “denotes some kind of ritual action performed in the community and directed towards fGod in the form of intercession, thanksgiving, praise and whatever else may be called worship.   True sacrifice then requires of necessity a contrite heart and an offering to the Lord to atone for wrongdoings.  Sacrifice is the offering of temporal creation to God with a contrite heart in order to achieve atonement and forgiveness of wrongdoings and special favors or blessings from God.  
The sacrifices of the Old Testament and the Old Law were however unable to expiate sins and so a perfect sacrifice was needed to again allow man to enjoy a right relationship with Yahweh.  One reason that the sacrifices of the Old Testament were inadequate was the simple fact that it was not the animals that had so gravely offended the Almighty, but it was man who through free will had deviated from the path of holiness.  Further, simply of their very nature the offering of oxen and sheep, some of the Old Testament sacrificial animals, do not yield forgiveness of sins.  Cardinal Ratzinger affirms that “all the sacrificial activity of mankind...were bound to remain useless human work, because God does not see bulls and goats or whatever may be ritually offered to him.”  The sacrifices of the Old Testament, moreover, failed to elevate man’s status as a fallen creature and more and more sacrifices were required as man and his sins multiplied and covered the face of the earth.   The offerings of the old law were altogether insufficient and so the Israelites looked forward to God somehow rectifying their wretched situation. 
One crucial event in the life of the Hebrew people was the exodus from Egypt and specifically the Passover event, which was the beginning of their deliverance from slavery and also a foreshadowing of the true deliverance from the bondage of sin affected in and through Christ.  Moses had repeatedly asked the pharaoh to release the Chosen People from their work so that they could be free to worship Yahweh and sacrifice in the wilderness without hindrance from the Egyptians (Exodus 7-11).  When Pharaoh stubbornly refused, God smote the firstborn of the Egyptians and instructed the Hebrews to prepare a young kid, eat it, sprinkle some of the blood on their lintels and be prepared to go on a long journey.  During the time that the Hebrew people were eating the Passover lamb, the angel of death killed the firstborn Egyptians but passed over the houses of the Chosen People (Exodus 12).  This event of the Passover was thenceforth commemorated each year by the Hebrews in memorial for God delivering their firstborn and for rescuing them out of the land of the Egyptians.
The Passover not only was important in the lives of the Jewish people but it has a great significance in the life of the Christian as well.  It was during the Passover that Christ instituted the Eucharist, showing Himself to be the true Lamb of God that saves the people from the slavery of sin (Exodus 12).  Further, as the Hebrews were eating the Lamb during a meal in preparation for leaving Egypt, so the Eucharist is eaten during a meal that prepares the Christians to go on the journey of life to the Promised Land, Heaven. 
The Passover was only the starting point for the Hebrew’s deliverance and they still had to reach a land where they could rightly worship their God.  Thus, the goal of the exodus was freedom to worship but the Hebrews required a place in which to accomplish this goal.  The land that God was to give the Chosen People then was for the sake of the worship of the one, true God.  Ownership of land implies a way of life and God chose the mountain Sinai to teach His people about an entire code of living seeing as worship allows the growth of a society and it embraces all of life.  As evident from Sinai and the  Ten Commandments, worship and law and morality are all connected.   The central message then of the Sinai covenant, the Exodus and the Old Testament is man’s relationship with God and how through correct worship this relationship becomes more perfect.
Wandering in the desert.  After the Passover, the Hebrews went out into the wilderness in hopes of arriving at a place where they could worship God.  In fact, the goal of the entire Exodus is to find a place where the Chosen People could find a place to worship freely.  In the desert Israel would not keep from sinning and fell into idolatry with the sin of the golden calf.  Because of this, God cursed the people and forbade any of that generation from reaching the Promised Land.  The sin of the second generation of the Hebrews happened at Peor, where they again fell into pagan worship and bowed before the false god Baal. 
Even after the Hebrews finally were given the Promised Land, it would not be until the time of Solomon’s erection of the Temple that they could rightly worship their God.  The Temple of Solomon was a place of sacrifice and prayer that prefigured the temple of the body that would be placed in prominence in the pages of the New Testament.  The Temple was destroyed, though, as a punishment for Israel’s sin and the people were scattered in exile all over the land of the Middle East.  The rebuilding of the Temple came eventually and with much heart-ache.  These people who rebuilt the Temple however, had a new and profound understanding of worship without walls.  They were accustomed to offering their sufferings and toil to God instead of physical sacrifices offered in the temple.  These two ideas, of bloody temple sacrifices and unbloody offerings given to God in spirit and truth were to make up the worship that Christ instituted in the New Covenant. 
Worship overall took different outward forms throughout the Israelite’s history.  For instance, the worship of the people in Egyptian bondage was very different from the worship they could offer God during the time in the Promised Land which again differed from worship during the exile.  Worship during the time in the Promised Land involved bloody sacrifices offered from the steps of the Temple.  Then while the Israelites were in exile, they had to offer their tears and sufferings to God in stead of physical, bodily sacrifice.  The worship during the exile was worship in spirit and truth. 
The promise of a Savior was in the forefront of the Hebrew’s minds, hearts and worship throughout the remainder of the Old Testament when they fell into a pattern of sin, punishment, repentance.  The continual sinning and subsequent punishment, often enslavement, of the Chosen People bespeaks the question of why did the Savior not come immediately after the fall of the first parents, thus preventing the continual sin that one sees throughout the pages of the Old Testament.  St. Thomas Aquinas suggests that God desired man to come to full awareness of the gravity of his fallen condition and his inability to correct it without divine intervention.  Aquinas states “what first is in the order of the intention is last in the order of operation.”  The Incarnation occurred in the fullness of time when creation was most ready to receive her redeemer and not before.  Also, it is plausible that God wished to show fallen humanity just how grave their situation had become on account of sin and how completely powerless they were to correct the situation without divine assistance.   
The New Testament records the period in which the Savior of humanity comes, redeems the fallen creation and brings the world into a state where one can once again correctly worship the Creator.  Even as an infant, Jesus was refocusing Jewish worship from external practices to worship of the Incarnate God-head.  In the temple for His Circumcision, Christ brought the attention of Simeon and Anna from the external practice of the Jewish faith to worship of the Logos, the Eternal Word.  Then again at the age of twelve, Jesus remained in the Temple to open the Scriptures to the closed, fallen mind of man.  These Scriptures, whose goal was to correctly orient the Chosen People into a correct worship of Yahweh, were only truly brought to life when explained by the true Word of God.  In essence, Christ “gives new meaning to the deeds and signs of the Old Covenant, above all to the Exodus and the Passover, for He, Himself is the meaning of all these signs.”   Further, as an adult, during His public ministry, Jesus often addressed sects such as the Sadducees and Pharisees who had perverted and disordered worship so that Jews were overly concerned over things such as outward appearance and show.  In addition, Jesus condemned the people in the temple for having the wrong kind of worship and turning God’s house into a den of thieves.  This, according to Father Danielou “shows that Jesus is the master of the Temple and Himself the true Temple.”  On the other hand, Jesus taught His disciples how to worship rightly and even gave them their own prayer that brought them into the right mindset for worship.  The Last Supper and Calvary were, of course, the primarily means by which Christ shows Christians the correct form of New Testament worship.  By instituting the Eucharist at the Last Supper, Christ fulfills and surpasses all the Old Testament covenants and sacrifices and gives humanity the ultimate link with divinity.  Moreover, as Cardinal Ratzinger explains in his book Many Religions, One Covenant
“all cultic ordinances of the Old testament are seen to be taken up into His [Christ’s] death and brought to their deepest meaning.  All sacrifices are acts of representation, which, form symbols, in this great act of real representation become reality.”

The cross, moreover, shows the radical dimension of this new form of worship and exhibits the sacrificial character of New Testament worship. 
Jesus fulfilled Temple worship.  With God entering the world at the Incarnation He made the cosmos again a temple truly worthy of being offered back to Him.  In Christ, the Temple worship was fulfilled and exceeded for though “the worship of the Old Testament was localized in on place, the Temple of Jerusalem...the one sanctuary manifesting the one God,” in Christ the temple was abolished and worship was extended to all corners of the world.  Jesus showed His power over the Temple with His prophesy of raising the Temple in three days thus showing that His risen Body “is the spiritual temple from which the source of living water springs forth:  incorporated into Christ by the Holy Spirit, we are the temple of the living God.”   Further, Christ’s death and the tearing of the Temple veil showed how the worship of the Old Law and the sacrifices formally required were superceded by the death of the God-man (Mark 15).  Christ’s fulfillment of the Temple also has an eschatological significance since as written in the book of Revelation the seer noticed “no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.”
The solution to man’s fall and the catalyst for the reditus came ultimately when the Person of Jesus Christ offered one sacrifice for all upon Calvary and allows men to directly benefit from His saving work through reception of the Eucharist.  With the Eucharist, the sacrifices of the Old Law are fulfilled and perfected while being replaced with something new, perfect and everlasting.  For instance, the offering of Cain and Able is completed in Jesus’ offering, though their sacrifice created strive between brothers, the Eucharist makes all men brothers, members of one Body while offering the fruits of the earth to God in perfect sacrifice.  Furthermore, the Passover of the Old Testament is fulfilled and surpassed by the offering of the perfect Lamb of God in the holy and unbloody sacrifice of the Mass.  Just as the Hebrews were delivered from the angel of death that slew all the first-born of the land so at the Last Supper, which took place during the annual Passover celebration of the Jews, Christ instituted the new offering that saves humanity from the death grip of sin.  The curse of death passes over the man who has been bathed in the Blood of the Lamb that he receives in the Eucharist.  Man now is redeemed “with the Precious Blood of Christ, as of a lamb unspotted and undefiled.”   The Catechism affirms that “Jesus gave the Jewish Passover its definitive meaning.  Jesus’ passing over to His Father by His Death and Resurrection, the New Passover...fulfills the Jewish Passover and anticipates the final Passover of the Church in the glory of the kingdom.”   This new Passover of redemption was an endless source of inspiration for the early Church Fathers such as Melito of Sardis.  In a homily regarding the connection between the Passover and the Last Supper, Melito wrote
“the mystery of the Passover is new and old, eternal and involved in time, corruptible and incorruptible, mortal and immortal.  It is old according to the Law, but new according to the Word.  By being figure it is involved in time, but by being grace it is eternal.  As the slaughter of a sheep it is corruptible; as the life of the Lord it is incorruptible...As lamb he is slaughtered, but as God He is risen.”  

Melito of Sardis goes on in the same homily to assert that “For in place of the lamb, God appeared, and in place of the sheep a human being, and within the human being, the Christ...the figure became reality, and the lamb became the Son and the human being became God.”   The Lamb of God became the final sacrifice and reconciliation of man with God who, in the Person of Jesus Christ, true God and true man, offered in perfect obedience to His Father His very lifeblood and thus gave to the human race a means for forgiveness and redemption.  Saint Paul writes in Hebrews of the necessity of blood for the remission of sins.  He asserts “almost all things, according to the law, are cleansed with blood: and without shedding of blood there is no remission.”   Vatican II highlights the importance and primacy of the Eucharist in the life of Christ and in the pages of the Old Testament when the authors write, “the Eucharist shows itself to be the source and the apex of the whole work of preaching the gospel.”   Thus, the Gospel would be incomplete without the Eucharist since, according to the Second Vatican Council, it is the culmination of Christ’s preaching throughout the New Testament.  Furthermore, Pope Benedict XVI, while still Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, elucidates in his work God is Near Us the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist and its connection to the worship of the Old Testament.
“‘This is my Body, this is my Blood’: these are expressions taken from the Israelite language of sacrifice, which designates the gifts offered in sacrifice to God in the Temple.  If Jesus makes use of these words, then He is designating Himself as the true and ultimate sacrifice, in whom all these unsuccessful strivings of the Old Testament are fulfilled.  

Ratzinger is essentially teaching that Christ is the ultimate sacrifice and thus nothing further is required beyond the once and for all sacrifice of Christ’s passion and death.
The sacrifice of Christ upon the cross though it of necessity involves death, it’s primary importance is to impart life.  Eternal life is given through the sacrifice of Calvary which is applied to mankind through the sacrifice of the Mass and specifically the Holy Eucharist.  The Israelites saw the life as in the blood so it logically follows that Christ would use similar language to illustrate the need for reception of the Eucharist.  Christ emphasized the life-giving nature of His Body and Blood poured out for all upon the hill of Golgotha in John 6 when He assured the people that “except you eat the Flesh of the Son of man, and drink His Blood, you shall not have life in you.  He that eateth my Flesh and drinketh my Blood hath everlasting life and I will raise him up in the last day.”   St. Augustine writes that “All who wish to have life are exhorted to drink the Blood of the Sacrifice.”   Pope St. Gregory the Great stresses the importance of reception of Communion to avoid spiritual death when he writes, “this Sacrifice alone has the power of saving souls from eternal death...where His Body is eaten, there is His Flesh distributed among the people for their salvation.” The blood of the cross therefore has a life-giving characteristic that is necessary if one wishes to inherit eternal life. 
One of the primary reasons that the Eucharist has a sacrificial nature is because of its intimate relationship with the cross and Calvary, making it the one and the same sacrifice of Christ.  John Paul II’s encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia explains the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist when the former pontiff writes, “by virtue of its close relationship to the sacrifice of Golgotha, the Eucharist is a sacrifice in the strict sense.”   In addition, clarification about the relationship between the cross and the Eucharist is elucidated in Drs. Dauphinais and Levering’s book Knowing the Love of Christ where they draw the reading into the true meaning of the Eucharistic sacrifice. 
“The Eucharist is thus a ‘sacrifice,’...not merely because it re-presents Christ’s sacrifice, but also because it brings about our fullest sharing in the power of Christ’s sacrifice.  It is both a sacrifice and a meal, a sacrificial meal in which those who eat enter into the sacrifice...it enables us to share in Christ’s perfect sacrifice.” 

St. Paul himself speaks of the connection between the bread broken in the Mass and the sacrifice upon Golgatha when he writes to the Hebrews.  Paul affirms his discourse that “In Christ was offered up a sacrifice capable of giving eternal salvation; what then do we do?  Do we not offer it up every day in memory of His death?”   Further, according to the late John Paul II “The Eucharist is indelibly marked by the event of the Lord’s passion and death, of which it is not only a reminder but the sacramental re-presentation.  It is the sacrifice of the Cross perpetuated down the ages.”   The late pope continues along the same vein further in the same encyclical when he asserts “the sacrificial nature of the Eucharistic mystery cannot therefore be understood as something separate, independent of the Cross or only indirectly referring to the sacrifice of Calvary.”   Moreover, Dauphinais and Levering bring out this theme of the Eucharistic sacrifice and Calvary when they write “Each celebration of the Eucharist enables us to enter into the eternal offering of the Son to the Father...By sharing in His sacrifice...we share in the forgiveness of sins and outpouring of the Holy Spirit that His sacrificial love brought about for humankind.”   John Paul II’s writings express the same theme in his encyclical on the Eucharist when he affirms “Jesus did not simply state that what He was giving them to eat and drink was His Body and His Blood; He also expressed its sacrificial meaning and made sacramentally present His sacrifice which would soon be offered on the Cross for the salvation of all.”   The Eucharistic of necessity has some semblance of a meal, but, as John Paul II’s encyclical letter stresses, that “the ‘banquet’ always remains a sacrificial banquet marked by the Blood shed on Golgotha.”  St. Thomas Aquinas also stresses the importance of the Eucharistic sacrifice when he writes in his Summa Theologica that “the celebration of this Sacrament Body and Blood is an image representing Christ’s Passion, which is His true sacrifice.  Accordingly the celebration of this sacrament is called Christ’s sacrifice.”   Vatican II echoes Aquinas’s remarks when it sets forth the statement in its Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests that “by the celebration of the Mass, men offer sacramentally the sacrifice of Christ.”   In sum, though the Eucharist was instituted during a meal, the entire context of the Last Supper and the institution of the Eucharist was surrounded by the reality of sacrifice, without with the Eucharist is incomplete.  
Man is brought into a right relationship with God through Jesus Christ, who by His cross, hands everything back to the Father creating the perfect act of worship that allows for fallen humanity also to partake in that sacrifice.  Though the covenant was continually broken in the Old Testament, Jesus perfectly lives out the Law, entirely handing Himself back to the Father, through the entire gift of the self by His earthly life and offering upon the Cross.  As the Chosen People were bound to God at the Sinai covenant with the blood of the bulls thrown on them, in New Covenant believers are bound to God through the blood of Christ.  Christ who fulfills the law binds us in His blood the obedience is already fulfilled as seen in His words “This is my blood...of the everlasting covenant” (Mark 14).  In the New Covenant there is formed a new kind of communion with God that also involves blood.  Jesus brings us to the Father, blood brotherhood, communion with God and man.  The Last Supper could be seen as what founded the Church, fulfillment of Sinai, a communion in blood between God and man.  The Church is communion with God through the Eucharist.  The Last Supper and the cross remedies the situation of Israel since as seen in to enter into a blood relationship is to in some way relate as equals.  In Christ this veil that was on Moses’ face is removed, we see the reality of the law.  In Christ living the commandments we see most fully what the law is.  Christ as perfect obedience we can see great continuity from the Old Testament to the New Testament.  This is the new Covenant in My Blood (Mark 14). 
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World-wide covenant.  Christ makes what is particular to the Jews and opens  sacrifice up to the whole world, no longer limited to the temple, one people, so that the entire world can partake in His Sacrifice.  Christ’s whole Being is a Being “for” others as seen especially through the blood and water pouring out on the cross for humanity’s salvation.  The fullness of Christ’s obedience takes the form of the radical gift of self, handed over on the cross and continually given out in the Eucharist.  In essence, the fullness of the presence of God as brought about through worship is to what the heart of man tends.
Worship since the Pascal mystery, the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ has brought together elements of Jewish worship along with the components brought to man’s worship by Christ’s salvific role.  The Church, established by Jesus Christ continues her role in the drama of man’s salvation and allows man to draw close to the wellspring of eternity through her celebration of the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist.    The worship instituted by Christ however does not negate the previous 1000’s of years of worship but rather continues and affirms Israel’s worship. The Catechism explains that “since Christ’s Church was prepared in marvelous fashion in the history of the people of Israel and in the Old Covenant, the Church’s liturgy has retained certain elements of the worship of the Old Covenant as  integral and irreplaceable, adopting them as her own.”  
The Mass is the culmination of all the previous worship in the Old Testament and Jewish worship.  The Mass brings together the Jewish Scriptures with the words of Christ and the New Covenant made in Christ’s Blood.  According to the Catechism, the Sacrifice of the Mass “completes and surpasses all the sacrifices of the Old Covenant.”   Mass is the perfect form of worship that allows man to fully adore the Lord and come into communion with divinity.  For it is in the liturgy that “the divine blessing is fully revealed and communicated.  The Father is acknowledged and adored as the source and end of all the blessings of creation and salvation...Through His Word, He pours into our hearts the Gift that contains all gifts, the Holy Spirit.” Specifically, the Eucharist makes us “sharers in the sacrificial worship of the fulfilled temple.”  Moreover, the worshipper is blessed to partake in the heavenly mysteries since, as the Catechism puts it, “in the earthly liturgy we share in a foretaste of that heavenly liturgy which is celebrated in the Holy City of Jerusalem.”   For “at the center of this worship is the priestly action of Christ in His Passion and His Resurrection.  It is this priestly action which, abstracted from time and place, constitutes the heart of the heavenly liturgy and which is rendered present sacramentally by the Eucharist.”  It is “by the Eucharistic celebration we already unite ourselves with the heavenly liturgy and anticipate eternal life, when God will be all in all.”  
The Mass is comprised of two main parts, the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist.  The Liturgy of the Word hearkens back to the liturgy of the Chosen People when they would read aloud the Scriptures in the Temple.  The Liturgy of the Eucharist duplicates the Last Supper when Christ gave His Body to His apostles and told them to “do this in memory of me.” By instituting the Eucharist at the Last Supper, Christ fulfills and surpasses all the Old Testament covenants and sacrifices and gives humanity the ultimate link with Divinity while providing the means of salvation for humanity.  In essence, the Mass is “the liturgy in which the mystery of salvation is accomplished.”   Indeed, it is the Mass that “is at the same time, and inseparably, the sacrificial memorial in which the Sacrifice of the Cross is perpetuated and the sacred banquet of communion with the Lord’s Body and Blood.”   The Cross moreover shows the radical dimension of this new form of worship and exhibits the sacrificial character of New Testament worship.  Worship in the Old and New Testaments shows how the Mass fulfils each and yet goes beyond the ancient rites of the Jewish faith.  
Some claim that Catholics put an undue emphasis upon the sacrificial aspect of the Eucharist and others go so far as to say that Catholics believe they are re-sacrificing Christ when they celebrate this great Sacrament.  On the contrary, the Eucharist is not a re-sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross but it is the same Sacrifice re-presented, or made present by the priest at the altar during the Consecration.  The Eucharist as a sacrifice is also not a mere memory but a remembrance in the sense of making something active that took place in a specific time and date in history.  The priest and the congregation enter into a sort of timeless worship through the Mass that transcends the barriers of time and space and brings the faithful into a timeless embrace with eternity and into the very scene of Calvary where the God-man became the perfect Victim sacrificed for an imperfect humanity.  The Catechism teaches that “when the Church celebrates the Eucharist, She commemorates Christ’s Passover, and it is made present: the Sacrifice Christ offered once for all on the Cross remains ever present.”   The Catechism further teaches that “the Sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single Sacrifice.”   The Catechism also explains that the Eucharist can be a sacrifice
“because it is the memorial of Christ’s Passover, the Eucharist is also a sacrifice.  The sacrificial character of the Eucharist is manifested in the very words of instituion: ‘This is My Body which is given for you’ and ‘This is the cup which is poured out for you is the New Covenant in My Blood.”  CCC 1365

The offering of Christ upon Calvary has an intrinsic relation to the Eucharist the Catechism goes on to say since it is “the heart and the summit of the Church’s life, for in it Christ associates His Church...with His sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving offered once for all on the Cross to His Father.   The Eucharist further has a timeless character since it is at the focal point of the Pascal mystery and it is “at the center of this worship is the priestly action of Christ in His Passion and His Resurrection.  It is this priestly action which, abstracted from time and place, constitutes the heart of the heavenly liturgy and which is rendered present sacramentally by the Eucharist.”   Furthermore, the Eucharistic link to Christ’s passion is expressed eloquently by Danielou when he writes “what is rendered present on the altar is not only the Body and Blood of Christ, it is His Sacrifice itself, that is to say, the mystery of His Passion, His Resurrection and His Ascension.”   It is only because of the Eucharist being the same Sacrifice as Calvary that the benefits can be applied today to the believer.  Moreover, the sSacrifice of the Eucharist cannot be thought of apart from Christ and His salvific action because the “Sacrifice offered is not a new sacrifice, but the one Sacrifice of Christ rendered present.”
The cross becomes close to man and the fruits of Christ’s saving work become applied to the Christian through the Eucharist on account of the Eucharist re-presenting the Sacrifice of Calvary.  Father Danielou explains that “The Mass is a sacramental representation of the Sacrifice of the Cross, the Mass is a sacramental participation in the heavenly liturgy.”   The Catechism clearly states that “In the Eucharist the Sacrifice of Christ becomes also the sacrifice of the members of His Body...Christ’s sacrifice present on the Altar makes it possible for all generations of Christians to be united with His offering.”   The Eucharist then is the one and the same action as Calvary when by the power of the Almighty space and time disintegrate and man becomes a participant in the great work of redemption upon Golgotha. 
Because the Eucharist is such a great gift there are many potential misuses and even abuses that can occur when the sacrificial element is taken away or forgotten in the Eucharistic celebration. One might for instance, inquire how the Eucharist can exactly be a sacrifice, since it could perhaps seem that it was instituted to be merely a remembrance, a memorial, or even a simple meal commemorating Christ’s Last Supper and subsequent Death upon the cross.  For since the Eucharist was instituted during a meal, not a bloody sacrifice it might seem as if Christ merely wished Himself to be remembered during a fraternal gathering.  To the contrary, John Paul II in his encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia referred to the Eucharistic abuse of reducing the Eucharist to a simple fraternal meal.  He writes that when the Eucharist is “stripped of its sacrificial meaning, it is celebrated as if it were simply a fraternal banquet.”   Celebrating the Eucharist as merely a meal creates an attitude of apathy towards the Eucharist and tends towards a view that forgets the sacrificial character and soon altogether ignores the fact that Calvary is in a way present upon the Altar of the Mass.  Even the pages of the New Testament remind us of this when St. Paul writes “for as often as you shall eat this Bread and drink the Chalice, you shall show the Death of the Lord, until He come.”   When this happens, faith erodes, Mass attendance decreases and the wonder and awe of the sacrament fades into the background to be gradually replaced by indifference and even unbelief in the Sacrament of the real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.  In response to this assertion, the Catholic Church unyieldingly defends the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist and even deems it primary to the aspect of the Eucharist as Sacrifice.  The recent Catechism of the Catholic Church for instance is firm in defending the Eucharist as Sacrifice and explains the connection by asserting that “The Eucharist is thus a Sacrifice because it represents (makes present) the Sacrifice of the Cross, because it is its memorial and because it applies its fruit.”   Therefore, according to the Catechism, one cannot as a Catholic set forth the position that the Eucharist is simply a meal in memory of a past event since it, as the Catechism defines, makes present the sacrifice of Calvary.  Further, the mention by Christ of Him giving His Body and Blood denotes sacrifice since in the Old Testament animal sacrifices of necessity involve offerings of blood.  The Catechism brings this also out and states the Eucharist of necessity involves the element of sacrifice because of Christ’s very words of institution “This is the cup which is poured out for you is the New Covenant in My Blood.”   St. Paul also seems to assert that the Eucharist is much more than a meal in his words, “is not the cup of blessing we bless a sharing the in the Blood of Christ?  And is not the bread we break a sharing in the Body of Christ?”   Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, affirms in line with orthodox Catholic teaching that “The Eucharist is a sacrifice, the presentation of Jesus Christ’s Sacrifice on the Cross.”   Ratzinger goes on to emphasize later in his same work that “the sacrificial element that has ever and always been characteristic of the Eucharist.”   Vatican II, though heralded by some as a means by which to dispense with ancient Catholic dogma, is clear in teaching of the connection between Eucharist and sacrifice and in its dogmatic constitution Lumen Gentium writes “the Eucharistic Sacrifice is “the source and summit of the Christian life.”   It is then clear that one cannot have any sort of Eucharistic celebration apart from the sacrificial aspect and to do so not only negates the entire meaning of the Eucharist but renders it fruitless and stops the Eucharist from being a source of grace and redemption.
The Eucharist also has the important quality of bringing about the forgiveness of sins, not only forgiving general sins but also absolving the recipient.  The Catechism states “the Eucharist strengthens our charity, which tends to be weakened in daily life; and this living charity wipes away venial sins.”   In addition, “as sacrifice, the Eucharist is also offered in reparation for the sins of the living and the dead and to obtain spiritual or temporal benefits from God.”    Further, St. John writes that “the Blood of Jesus Christ...cleanseth us from all sin.”   It would therefore follow that a person “cannot drink the Chalice of the Lord, and the chalice of the devils: you cannot be partakers of the table of the Lord, and of the table of devils” since receiving communion presupposes that you are repentant of sin and wish to receive forgiveness.  If however, one goes from the Eucharist to sinful behavior one seems to despise the very grace and nature of the Sacrament just received.  In essence, the Eucharist is such a wonderful gift and grace that it not only imparts the ability to live a holy life to the recipient but even forgives their non-mortal sins. 
The wonder of the Eucharist should inspire greater reverence and piety since it is nothing but the very Sacrifice of Calvary where the graces of Redemption overflow for the salvation of humanity.  Vatican II reaffirmed the importance of the Eucharist when in the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy the authors wrote:
“The renewal in the Eucharist of the covenant between the Lord and man draws the faithful into the compelling love of Christ and sets them afire.  From the liturgy, therefore, and especially from the Eucharist, as a fountain, grace is channeled into us; and the sanctification of men in Christ and the glorification of God.”  

The grace of the Sacrament of the Eucharist does not simply end with man becoming closer to God but of necessity it brings man closer to his fellow men and together they comprise the Body of Christ.  St. Paul explains this concept in his letter to the Corinthians when he states “for we, being many, are one bread, one body, all that partake of one bread.”   Vatican II teaches that through “Truly partaking of the Body of the Lord in the breaking of the Eucharistic Bread, we are taken up into communion with Him and with one another.”   According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church “the Eucharistic Sacrifice is wholly directed toward the intimate union of the faithful with Christ through communion.   Furthermore, the Catechism also teaches that “the Eucharist makes the Church.  Those who receive the Eucharist are united more closely to Christ.  Through it Christ unites them to all the faithful in one Body-the Church.”
Through Christ’s Life, Death and Resurrection He brought His followers the ability to worship God in and through their corporal bodies.  St. Paul writes that the Christian’s bodies are Temples of the Holy Spirit (I Corinthians 6).  Christians become Temples of the Holy Spirit through membership Christ’s Mystical Body and specifically through the reception of the Sacraments especially Baptism and the Eucharist.  The Church, established by Christ to affect man’s salvation brings man 2000 years after Christ’s death into right worship with God through the Sacraments and offering a life of grace.
            In essence, salvation history brings man from the depths of the darkness of sin into the light of the worship of the one, true, eternal God Who enters into history to give man the means to enter into authentic worship of God leading to beatitude.  Though sin ruptured the intimate connection between man and his Maker, God led His Chosen People through the pages of the Old Testament into greater knowledge and love of Him so that they would be ready for the coming of the Son, Jesus Christ.  Covenants were broken, man fell away from the worship of the true God but Yahweh refused to abandon His people and in the fullness of time send the Redeemer of mankind to give the world a reason to rejoice, a new way in which to worship and a manner in which to be saved.  The New Testament brings to life the times of Jesus Christ and the method by which He redeemed fallen humanity by the Pascal Mystery.  The Church, instituted by Christ and enlivened by the Holy Spirit allows men since the death of the Savior to worship Him in spirit and truth and enjoy the fruits of redemption. 

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