During the mass, Catholics believe that Jesus' sacrifice is re-presented, or made present, and offered to the Father again for the forgiveness of sins. We believe that by going to mass and receiving the Eucharist, the merits of Christ's sacrifice on Calvary 2,000 years ago are applied to us today.
"For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is great among the nations, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure offering; for my name is great among the nations, says the Lord of Hosts." - Malachi 1:11
Here, Malachi prophesizes about "a pure offering" that will be given to God "in every place." This could not have been referring to Malachi's own time because the Jewish priests were offering impure sacrifices (1:6-14). In fact, it could not be referring to the Jews at all because they have never been "in every place." Plus, it is implied that these offerings will be done in every culture when God says, "My name is great among the nations." Therefore, it could only be referring to the New Covenant. It could not be referring to Jesus' sacrifice on the cross (the Protestant understanding that does not believe the mass is the same sacrifice) because that only happened in one place. It can only be referring to the mass for a few reasons:
1) Jesus is offered at the mass. You can't get any more pure that Him.
2) The mass is offered EVERYWHERE by Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians.
3) Malachi says "a pure offering," which is singular, not "pure offerings," which is plural. The mass is the same sacrifice everywhere, making it singular.
"See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight--indeed, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the LORD in righteousness." - Malachi 3:1-3
Here, Malachi prophesizes about priests in the New Covenant. We know he is speaking about the New Covenant because Matthew 11:10 identifies the first messenger as John the Baptist, and the second messenger can only refer to Jesus. The Levites were the Jewish priests, and they were to be purified by Jesus in the future, which means that they could only be New Covenant priests (being referred to figuratively as Levites). The function of a priest is to offer sacrifice, which means that there IS sacrifice offered to God in the New Covenant. It makes sense that the prophecies about the New Covenant in the book of Malachi would go together, which means that the sacrifice offered by the New Covenant Levites is the one in Malachi 1:11, which is the mass.
While Malachi 1:11 is the most widely-known Old Testament prophecy of the mass, there are other passages which foresee sacrifice and priests in the New Covenant.
"For I know their works and their thoughts, and I am coming to gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come and shall see my glory. And I will also take some of them as priests and as Levites, says the LORD." - Isaiah 66:18, 21
Here, God specifies that He's talking about the New Covenant by saying, "I am coming to gather all nations and tongues," and He shows that only SOME will be priests (not the Protestant idea of a universal priesthood).
"The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David�David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel, and the levitical priests shall never lack a man in my presence to offer burnt offerings, to make grain offerings, and to make sacrifices for all time�Just as the host of heaven cannot be numbered and the sands of the sea cannot be measured, so I will increase the offspring of my servant David, and the Levites who minister to me." - Jeremiah 33:14-22
Here we see that in the New Covenant ("when I fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah"), priests will offer sacrifices to God.
"On that day there shall be inscribed on the bells of the horses, 'Holy to the LORD.' And the cooking-pots in the house of the LORD shall be as holy as the bowls in front of the altar; and every cooking-pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be sacred to the LORD of hosts, so that all who sacrifice may come and use them to boil the flesh of the sacrifice. And there shall no longer be traders in the house of the LORD of hosts on that day." - Zechariah 14:20-21
Again we see that God's people will offer sacrifices to God in the New Covenant.
"Furthermore, the former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office; but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues for ever. Consequently he is able for all time to save those who approach God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them." - Hebrews 7:23-25
The key phrase here is "he always lives to make intercession for them," and Catholics interpret this as a reference to Jesus' ongoing work of continually offering His sacrifice to the Father. This interpretation is supported by the text for a few reasons:
1) The passage is talking about Jesus' role as a priest and intercessor (or, more accurately, a priest who uses His priestly role to intercede for us), and priests offer
sacrifices. So, He must intercede for us by continually offering His sacrifice to the Father.
2) Jesus is able to save because He CONSTANTLY intercedes, not because He interceded once 2,000 years ago.
3) If Jesus' saving work on the cross were complete, sufficient, and not to be re-offered to the Father, why would He continue to intercede for us?
4) Jesus' saving work was His death on the cross, which happened once. However, He saves us BECAUSE HE INTERCEDES FOR US; He continually offers up
His saving work to the Father.
"Thus it was necessary for the sketches of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves need better sacrifices than these. For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made by human hands, a mere copy of the true one, but he entered into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf." - Hebrews 9:23-24
The key here is that the heavenly things are purified with sacrifices, plural, not just one sacrifice, singular. We know that these sacrifices are referring to Jesus' sacrifice on the cross (which is offered to the Father again and again) because it says that Christ was sacrificed because the heavenly things need better sacrifices than the copies. The sacrifices that Paul (traditionally noted as the author of Hebrews, even though the letter itself does not mention the author's name) speaks of are Christ's sacrifice, but there's more than one! He goes on in verses 25-28 (which I will explain a bit later) to say that Christ's sacrifice was once and for all, so he seems to contradict himself. The best explanation is the Catholic explanation: Jesus was sacrificed once and for all, but that sacrificed is continually re-offered to the Father in the mass.
"Then I saw between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders a Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth." - Revelation 6:5
Here, John talks of a vision of Jesus (we know the Lamb is Jesus because in verse 9, the twenty-four elders say that He was slaughtered and ransomed "saints from every tribe and language and people and nation") appearing as a Lamb that has been slaughtered. Now, Jesus was the sacrificial Lamb who died to take away our sins, but He is risen, so why would He still appear as if He had been slaughtered? Because His sacrifice is still being offered to the Father at every mass, He still appears as if He has been slain.
"When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slaughtered for the word of God and for the testimony they had given" - Revelation 6:9
(See also 6:9; 8:3-5; 9:13; 11:1; 14:18; and 16:7)
If there is no more need for sacrifice in the New Covenant, why does John see visions of altars in heaven? An altar is a place from which you offer sacrifice, meaning that there are still sacrifices going on in heaven! If Jesus' sacrifice is the only sacrifice in the New Covenant, and it is not to be repeated, then the only sacrifice that Revelation can allude to is the mass!
"When Jesus had received the wine, he said, 'It is finished.' Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit." - John 19:30
Protestants use this verse to show that Jesus' sacrifice was once-for-all and is complete. They say that because Jesus' sacrifice was completed 2,000 years ago, the Catholic mass is unnecessary and therefore blasphemous. However, we Catholics agree that Jesus' sacrifice is finished! At the mass, God (who transcends time) brings the completed sacrifice of Calvary into the present, and we offer it to Him again; we don't re-sacrifice Jesus. His passion and death is complete, but we still offer His completed sacrifice to the Father again and again at every mass.
"Nor was it to offer himself again and again, as the high priest enters the Holy Place year after year with blood that is not his own; for then he would have had to suffer again and again since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the age to remove sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for mortals to die once, and after that the judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him." - Hebrews 9:25-28
Protestants will say that since Jesus does not "offer himself again and again" and was "offered once to bear the sins of many," His sacrifice cannot be offered again to the Father, but that's a misreading of the text. Paul's point, as noted in verse 26, was that Jesus suffered and died once; He does not have to "suffer again and again." There is a difference between re-sacrificing Jesus and re-offering His completed sacrifice to the father.
"For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified." - Hebrews 10:14
Protestants use this verse to try and show that since Jesus' sacrifice on the cross has perfected us (by this they mean that all our sins, past, present, and future, have been forgiven), its merits do not have to be applied to us again and again at mass. The problem with this is that it ignores all of the warnings in Hebrews about falling from grace.
"For we have become partners of Christ, if only we hold our first confidence firm to the end." - Hebrews 3:14
"Christ, however, was faithful over God's house as a son, and we are his house if we hold firm the confidence and the pride that belong to hope." - Hebrews 6:3
"For if we willfully persist in sin after having received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful prospect of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has violated the law of Moses dies without mercy 'on the testimony of two or three witnesses.' How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by those who have spurned the Son of God, profaned the blood of the covenant by which they were sanctified, and outraged the Spirit of grace? For we know the one who said, 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay.' And again, 'The Lord will judge his people.' It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." - Hebrews 10:26-31
Those are just some of the warnings in Hebrews about falling away. If we can fall away and fall from grace, then Christ's one sacrifice doesn't make us perfect forever (it doesn't forgive all our sins, past, present, and future) at one point in time. So, what did Paul mean in Hebrews 10:14? Jesus' sacrifice perfects us by completely forgiving our PAST sins (also see 2 Peter 1:9), something the Old Covenant sacrifices could never do. We are perfected for all time because are past sins are COMPLETELY forgiven, as opposed to being temporarily forgiven by the Old Covenant sacrifices.
This then leads us into another common Protestant objection to the mass. They say that since the fruit of Christ's sacrifice is salvation, how can a Catholic go to mass and have the merits of the cross applied to him but then go commit a mortal sin and go to hell? Well, the fruit of Christ's sacrifice is NOT salvation. Well, not directly, at least. The fruit of Christ's sacrifice is forgiveness of our past sins (how can you forgive a sin that hasn't been committed yet?), which leads to salvation. So, even though you may have your past sins forgiven, you can still sin more. Plus, the letter to the Hebrews specifically says that you can have the merits of Christ's sacrifice applied to you yet still go to hell.
"For if we willfully persist in sin after having received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful prospect of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries." - Hebrews 10:26
Here we see that there WAS a sacrifice for sins; the merits of the cross WERE applied. However, by committing a mortal sin, this person lost justification.
