The Council of Trent, in its Doctrine on the Sacrifice of the Mass (September 17, 1562), authoritatively spelled out the details of this often misunderstood Catholic belief:

Our God and Lord, though He was about to offer Himself once on the altar of the Cross unto God the Father, by means of His death, there to obtain an eternal redemption (Hebrews 9:12 ff.); nevertheless, because that His priesthood was not to be extinguished by His death, in the Last Supper . . . that He might leave, to His own beloved Spouse the Church, a visible sacrifice, such as the nature of man requires, whereby that bloody sacrifice, once to be accomplished on the Cross, might be represented, and the memory thereof remain even unto the end of the world (1 Corinthians 11:24), and its salutary virtue be applied to the remission of those sins which we daily commit, declaring Himself constituted a priest forever, according to the order of Melchisedech (Psalm 110:4), He offered up to God the Father His own Body and Blood under the species of bread and wine . . . and by those words, Do this in commemoration of me, (1 Corinthians 11:24), He commanded them and their successors in the priesthood to offer them . . .

And this is indeed that clean oblation, which cannot be defiled by any unworthiness or malice of those that offer it; which the Lord foretold by Malachi was to be offered in every place, clean to his name (Malachi 1:11) . . . This, in fine, is that oblation which was prefigured by various types of sacrifices (Genesis 4:4, 8:20, etc.), during the period of nature and of the law; inasmuch as it comprises all the good things signified by those sacrifices, as being the consummation and perfection of them all. (1)

If anyone saith that the sacrifice of the Mass is only a sacrifice of praise and of thanksgiving; or that it is a bare commemoration of the sacrifice consummated on the Cross, but not a propitiatory sacrifice; or that it profits him only who receives; and that it ought not to be offered for the living and the dead for sins, pains, satisfactions and other necessities; let him be anathema. (2)

If anyone saith that, by the sacrifice of the Mass, a blasphemy is cast upon the most holy sacrifice of Christ consummated on the Cross; or that it is thereby derogated from; let him be anathema. (3)

Karl Adam, author of the marvelous book The Spirit of Catholicism, remarks upon the transcendent nature of the Mass:

The Sacrifice of Calvary, as a great supra-temporal reality, enters into the immediate present. Space and time are abolished. The same Jesus is here present who died on the Cross. The whole congregation unites itself with His holy sacrificial will, and through Jesus present before it consecrates itself to the heavenly Father as a living oblation. So Holy Mass is a tremendously real experience, the experience of the reality of Golgotha. (4)

It is crucial to understand that the Sacrifice of the Mass is not a "re-sacrifice" of our Lord Jesus, as is the common misconception. Jesus does not die every time a priest offers Mass, since He died once, in history, on the earth. Rather, as Adam notes, the Mass lifts us into heavenly realms where all events are eternally present (as they are with God). The Mass is, therefore, a re-presentation of the one Sacrifice at Calvary in a sacramental, unbloody manner. One may not agree with this belief, but it is only fair that opponents of Catholic doctrine should at least honestly and clearly understand what it is they contest.

Furthermore, in the Mass Jesus Christ ultimately offers the sacrifice of Himself (just as at the Last Supper) - with the priest merely acting in His stead, as a purely secondary, instrumental agent. In no sense, then, is the Mass some sort of magic or "hocus pocus" (this phrase itself is a caricature of the Latin words of consecration, hoc est enim corpus meum). The priest and congregation are willing participants in what is God's supernatural work from beginning to end. This is the furthest thing from sorcery, which is the utilization of either demonic supernatural powers, or those thought to be natural, apart from the originating agency of a personal God (see Acts 8:17-23).

Genesis 14:18 / Psalm 110:4 And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was priest of God Most High. {see also Leviticus 23:13}

The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, "You are a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek."

This analogy between Jesus and the mysterious, majestic priest Melchizedek is made again in Hebrews (5:6,10, 6:20, 7:1-28). The context of the entire Psalm 110 also makes it clear that Christ the Messiah is being referred to. This cross-reference must have some meaning. We know very little about Melchizedek apart from his offering of bread and wine, his acceptance of tithes from Abraham, and his residence in "Salem," which is believed by Bible scholars to be ancient Jerusalem, as determined by verses such as Psalm 76:2. He was at once king and priest, like Christ, and unlike the practice of ancient Israel.

Judging from this scant information, Jesus must, it seems, make an offering of bread and wine, for ever. This is obviously not identical with the Sacrifice at Calvary, yet it seems to carry some profound significance. Since Christ did make this offering at the Last Supper (significantly, at the feast of Passover: see 1 Corinthians 5:7) and commanded His followers to perpetuate it, it is quite reasonable to regard the Mass as the sacramental, supernatural continuance of Christ's own self-sacrifice.

Malachi 1:11 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. {see also Isaiah 66:18,21}

God here foretells a universally-offered sacrifice which expands upon the Jewish Levitical priesthood, after the arrival of the Messiah (see, for example, Psalm 22;27-31, Isaiah 49:6). This cannot be a reference to the Sacrifice of the Cross, which occurred in one location only. Malachi speaks of a universal pure offering (singular rather than plural), precisely as in Catholic teaching.

Therefore, the Mass is the straightforward fulfillment of this prophecy. Protestants, to the contrary, can only surmise that this offering is merely metaphorical - with no particular justification from the text of Malachi itself. The context of this passage, both before and after, clearly has to do with actual, physical offerings, as all would agree.

The theme of the Epistle to the Hebrews is Christ as our High Priest. As such, the "priestly" verses are very numerous (for example, 2:17, 3:1, 4:14-16, 5:1-10, 6:20, 7:1-28, 8:1-6, 9:11-15,24-28, 10:19-22). The teaching here acquires much more meaning within Catholic Eucharistic theology, whereas, in evangelical, non-sacramental Protestant interpretation, it is necessarily "spiritualized" away. For nearly all Protestants, Jesus Christ is a Priest only insofar as He dies sacrificially as the "Lamb" and does away with the Old Testament notion of animal sacrifice. This is not false but it is a partial truth. Generally speaking, for the Catholic, there is much more of a sense of the ever-present Sacrifice of Calvary, due to the nature of the Mass, rather than considering the Cross a past event alone.

In light of the repeated references in Hebrews to Melchizedek as the prototype of Christ's priesthood (5:6,10, 6:20, 7:1-3,17,20), it follows that this priesthood is perpetual (for ever), not one-time only. For no one would say, for example, that Christ is King (present tense) if in fact He were only King for a short while in the past. This (Catholic) interpretation is borne out by explicit evidence in Hebrews 7:24-25:

He holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues for ever. Consequently he is able for all time to save those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

If Jesus perpetually intercedes for us, why should He not also permanently present Himself as Sacrifice to His Father? The connecting word, consequently would appear to affirm this scenario. The very notion, fundamental to all strains of Christian theology, that the Cross and the Blood are efficacious here and now for the redemption of sinners, presupposes a dimension of "presentness" to the Atonement of Christ for all mankind.

Granting that premise, it only remains to deny that God could, would, or should truly and actually re-present this one Sacrifice in the Mass. God certainly can do this, since He is omnipotent. He wills to do this because Jesus commanded the observance of the Lord's Supper (Luke 22:19). Lastly, one can convincingly contend that He should do this in order to graphically "bring home" to Christians His Passion, Crucifixion, and Resurrection, and to impart grace in a real and profound way in Communion. The One Propitiatory Atonement of Calvary is a past event, but the appropriation of its spiritual benefits to Christians is an ongoing process, in which the Mass plays a central role.

The Sacrifice of the Mass, like the Real Presence in the Eucharist, is an extension of the Incarnation. Accordingly, there is no rational a priori objection (under monotheistic premises) to the concept of God transcending time and space in order to present Himself to His disciples. Nor is there any denying that the Sacrifice of Calvary is always present to God the Father and to Jesus Christ, God the Son. How then, can anyone deny that God could make the Cross sacramentally present to us as well?

To the objection that Scripture does not teach this, therefore it should not be believed, we reply that the scriptural data already presented, and the evidence below is sufficiently conclusive.

It is very interesting to note that the Book of Revelation (also known by Catholics as the Apocalypse) describes an altar in heaven (6:9, 8:3,5, 9:13, 11:1, 14:18, 16:7). This is curious if Protestantism is correct about the need for altars being abolished with the death of Christ and the complete abolition of the Jewish priestly system of the Old Covenant (the events in the book of Revelation all occur after Jesus' Resurrection and Ascension). In actuality, Scripture forms a continuous whole from beginning to end. There is no radical discontinuity between the Old and New Testaments, or between law and grace, as many Protestants are wont to believe.

Some verses in Revelation state that the prayers of the saints are being offered at the altar in the form of incense (8:3-4; cf. 5:8-9). But the climactic scene of this entire glorious portrayal of heaven occurs in Rev 5:1-7. Verse 6 describes a Lamb standing as though it had been slain. Since the Lamb (Jesus, of course) is revealed as sitting in the midst of God's throne (5:6, 7:17, 22:1,3; cf. Matthew 19:28, 25:31, Hebrews 1:8), which is in front of the golden altar (8:3), then it appears that the presentation of Christ to the Father as a Sacrifice is an ongoing (from God's perspective, timeless) occurrence, precisely as in Catholic teaching. Thus the Mass is no more than what occurs in heaven, according to the clear revealed word of Scripture. When Hebrews speaks of a sacrifice made once (7:27), this is from a purely human, historical perspective (which Catholicism acknowledges in holding that the Mass is a "re-presentation" of the one sacrifice at Calvary). However, there is a transcendent aspect of the Sacrifice as well.

Jesus is referred to as the Lamb 28 times throughout Revelation (compared to four times in the rest of the New Testament: John 1:29,36, Acts 8:32, 1 Peter 1:19). Why, in Revelation of all places, if the Crucifixion is a past event, and the Christian's emphasis ought to be on the resurrected, glorious, kingly Jesus, as is stressed in Protestantism (as evidenced by a widespread disdain for, or at least absence of, crucifixes)? Obviously, the heavenly emphasis is on Jesus' Sacrifice, which is communicated by God to John as present and "now" (5:6; cf. Hebrews 7:24). The very notion of lamb possesses inherent sacrificial and priestly connotations in the Bible.

If this aspect is of such paramount importance even in the afterlife, then certainly it should be just as real and significant to us. The Sacrifice of the Mass bridges all the gaps of space and time between our Crucified Savior on the Cross and ourselves. Therefore, nothing at all in the Mass is improper, implausible, or unscriptural, which is why this doctrine was always accepted until the 16th century, when it was rejected by the Protestant Reformers.

In conclusion, it is, I think, evident that the Book of Hebrews and the scenes in heaven in the Book of Revelation are suffused with a worldview which is very "Catholic". The realms here depicted are suffused with "Catholic air," so to speak. The Mass, rightly understood, fulfills every aspect of the above passages, most particularly in the sense of Christ as the ultimate Priest for whom the earthly priest "stands in," and in the timeless and transcendent character of the Sacrifice "made present" at Mass, but never deemed to be an addition to, or duplication of, the one bloody Sacrifice of our Lord at Calvary.

• 1. Chapter 1: On the Institution of the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Trent citations from Dogmatic Canons and Decrees, Rockford, IL: TAN Books and Publishers, 1977 (orig. 1912). See also Catechism of the Catholic Church, (CCC), Liguori, MO: Liguori Publications, 1994, #1330, 1333, 1341, 1350, 1356-1357, 1362, 1366, 1368, 1372, 1383, 1410-1411; Hardon, John A., The Catholic Catechism, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1975, pp.465-71.
• 2. Trent, ibid., chapter 9: Canons on the Sacrifice of the Mass, Canon 3. See also CCC, #1363, 1365, 1370-1371, 1414.
• 3. Trent, ibid., Canon 4. See also CCC, #1364, 1367, 1382. The vivid Greek term anathema, meaning "accursed," is directed by the Council of Trent primarily towards doctrines, rather than persons, based on the ancient practice in the Church of condemning heretical teachings - a procedure itself derived biblically from passages such as Galatians 1:8-9 and 1 Corinthians 16:22. There is nothing improper whatsoever in defining correct doctrine and rejecting contrary notions. St. Paul does this constantly. The Catholic Church, however, makes no presumption as to the eternal destiny of any individual whatsoever (not even Luther!). Most emphatically: neither anathema nor excommunication means "proclaimed damned (by the Church)," as many Protestants mistakenly suppose. The more literal meanings are "out of the Church" (in the sense of divergence from its doctrines) or "out of communion" (with the sacraments and the Christian fellowship of believers). Excommunication is perfectly in accord with Pauline practices and teachings as expounded in, e.g., 1 Corinthians 5:3-5, 2 Thessalonians 3:6, 1 Timothy 1:19-20, 2 Timothy 2:14-19, 4:14-15, as well as our Lord's express injunction in Matthew 18:15-18.
• 4. Adam, Karl, The Spirit of Catholicism, tr. Dom Justin McCann, Garden City, NY: Doubleday Image, 1954 (orig. 1924 in German), p.197.

Revelation is a book rich in OT symbolism. The "altar" in Revelation, like the "tree of life" (Rev. 22:2) SYMBOLIZES NT realities.

So God's throne is only "symbolic" too? Or the prayers of those in heaven? Are you saying "the souls under the altar" weren't real, just as the altar wasn't? The New Heavens and Earth certainly aren't symbolic. Some of this portrays literal realities, in my opinion. But even if it were symbolic, this would still be portraying an entity which Protestants say should be abolished after Christ's death - which would be, in effect, a lie and misleading on God's part - or at the least, exceedingly strange.

The whole book of revelation is steeped in symbolism! How can you have a problem with an altar being symbolic?

You aren't interacting with what I am saying here. Even if it is indeed symbolic, it would still be an inappropriate figure of speech to use if the need for altars was completely abolished after Christ. Even you said it "symbolizes NT realities." E.g., Revelation doesn't talk about sacrificing bulls and goats, does it? That's because those things were done away with after Christ. But altars (i.e., in connection with the one sacrifice of Christ on Calvary) weren't.

I have already anticipated your response. But note that the souls of those who had been slaughtered for the word of God . . . were under the altar (Rev 6:9). As these souls were definitely real and not symbolic, it stands to reason that the altar is real as well. Furthermore, in Rev 21, the New Heaven and New Earth are described. These are quite real and literal (I don't think any Christian would deny that). The city of heaven has gates and walls (Rev 21:12-15). It is 1500 miles long and wide (21:16). The walls are about 225 feet high, and made of jasper (21:17-18). Various jewels in the city are described (21:18-21). This is all real stuff. There is no temple there (21:22), but there is a throne of God (22:1,3). It stands to reason that this is actual, also.

Now, the altar in heaven is described as before the throne (8:3) and before God (9:13); also an angel came out from it (14:18).

Since the throne is real (as just indicated), and so are God and angels, it stands to reason that this altar is, too. And that makes no sense in Protestant theology, as most Protestant churches have no altar, and don't believe in priests. Nor does it make sense from the perspective of Protestant theology that Jesus (some 60-70 years after His Resurrection and Ascension) is seen as a Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered (Rev 5:6). That was supposed to be a one-time event (we are told), and then Jesus was resurrected and glorified, and that was enough of that gory stuff about the Cross. Crucifixes are morbid and improper for the Christian, now, etc. (which is why Protestants prefer bare crosses).