Immolation?

A reader writes:

Quick question.  I am a recent convert from Evangelical Protestantism (4 years) and my 17 year old son is the first in the family to decide to follow me across the Tiber.  However, he is still attending an Evangelical High School and is getting quite a bit of propaganda from one particular teacher.  I am confident Stephen can hold his own but he got hit with something I had not seen before and thought you could help.  He was confronted with the following:

"You are clearly mistaken when you claim that the Catholic Church does not teach that Jesus is killed over and over again at every Mass.  The fact is, the Vatican II documents state on the bottom of page 102 that Jesus is immolated at the point of consecration.  The definition of Immolated according to the Webster Dictionary is, To kill as a sacrifice; To kill (oneself) by fire.  To destroy.  Sorry, there is no way around it."

This is a good example of why you can’t do theology by reading a standard, secular dictionary.

In theology certain words are used as terms of art, which means that they have a special, technical meaning that is not always reflected in popular usage.

The phenomenon is not limited to Catholics. A number of years ago I read a book (Chosen by God) in which the Presbyterian theologian R. C. Sproul complained that a secular dictionary (Webster’s, if I remember correctly) had a Lutheran-based definition of a particular term ("predestination" or "elect" or something like that).

Though not limited to Catholics, the problem does affect Catholics in a particular way since the use of terms among Catholic theologians is often determined by what it means in another language: especially Latin.

The writers of secular English dictionaries, not being Catholic theologians (or any theologians), are focused on words’ meanings in colloquial English and often are simply unaware of the technical meaning that the term has among theologians.

This is what is happening with immolation.

It comes from Latin. (Surprise!) It is based on in + mola. In is a preposition with a fairly wide range of meaning. It can mean in, on, at, into, and other things. Mola refers to ground grain (i.e., flour), particularly when mixed with salt.

In ancient times it was customary to sprinkle mola on a sacrifice, and this was referred to with the words in and mola, which became inmolatio, which became immolatio, which became immolation.

According to its word origins, immolation meant "to sprinkle with mola (flour mixed with salt)" according to the ancient custom. It then came to mean "to offer in sacrifice" and, since most (not all) sacrifices were killed, it came to mean "to kill," "to destroy."

Having said that, the Catholic Church does not teach that Jesus is killed anew in the Mass. His sufferings on the Cross have nothing added to them in th Mass.

There are two explanations for this that you will encounter in Catholic circles.

(First, though, let me complain about the fact that the person who put this objection to your son apparently cited a page number in a particular edition of the Vatican II documents–as if all editions shared the same pagination! What we really need to track this down is a document name, such as Sacrosacntum Concilium, with a section or "paragraph" number.)

First, some individuals have a kind of "time warp" theory, according to which the Mass warps the events of Calvary into the present. Jesus thus does not suffer and die again, but his suffering and dying in the first few decades of the first century is made present today.

A careful reading of Church documents, however, suggests that this is not what happens during Mass. For example, the Credo of the People of God (issued by Paul VI in 1968, just after Vatican II) states:

We believe that as the bread and wine consecrated by the Lord at the Last Supper were changed into His body and His blood which were to be offered for us on the cross, likewise the bread and wine consecrated by the priest are changed into the body and blood of Christ enthroned gloriously in heaven, and we believe that the mysterious presence of the Lord, under what continues to appear to our senses as before, is a true, real and substantial presence. . . .

The unique and indivisible existence of the Lord glorious in heaven is not multiplied, but is rendered present by the sacrament in the many places on earth where Mass is celebrated. And this existence [i.e., the glorious, heavenly existence] remains present, after the sacrifice, in the Blessed Sacrament which is, in the tabernacle, the living heart of each of our churches. And it is our very sweet duty to honor and adore in the blessed Host which our eyes see, the Incarnate Word whom they cannot see, and who, without leaving heaven, is made present before us.

This makes it sound as if the Eucharistic sacrifice involves the Christ of the present, enthroned in heaven and not (currently) suffering on the Cross. The sacrifice is the same in the sense that the priest is the same (Christ) and the offering is the same (Christ) and the purpose is the same (our salvation), but the mode of offering is different: As other Church documents stress, the Eucharist is an "unbloody" sacrifice (one in which his blood is not shed) but in which he (as high priest) offers himself to God for our benefit, in view of his work on the Cross.

Whichever way you go–the "time warp" theory or the "heavenly existence" theory–Jesus does not suffer and die again in the Mass. One makes present old sufferings. The other doesn’t involve suffering at all but an offering of himself as he is in the present. Both involve only death and suffering in the "once for all" sacrifice in the first century.

So sorry.

Christ doesn’t suffer or die a second (or further) time in the Mass.

Just doesn’t happen.

Fortunately, some contemporary English dictionaries acknowledge the history of the word immolation such that it doesn’t always require the deah of the offering. For example, Merriam-Webster’s says:

Main Entry: im·mo·late
Pronunciation: 'i-m&-"lAt
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): -lat·ed; -lat·ing
Etymology: Latin immolatus, past participle of immolare, from in- + mola spelt grits; from the custom of sprinkling victims with sacrificial meal; akin to Latin molere to grind — more at MEAL
1 : to offer in sacrifice; especially : to kill as a sacrificial victim
2 : to kill or destroy often by fire
im·mo·la·tor /-"lA-t&r/ noun

The qualifier "especially : to kill as a sacrificial victim" indicates that the term does not always require the death of the offering. It can simply mean "to offer in sacrifice."

And thus Christ does not suffer or die anew in the Mass.

Them’s the facts.

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

9 thoughts on “Immolation?”

  1. The fact is, the Vatican II documents state on the bottom of page 102 that Jesus is immolated at the point of consecration. 

    As Jimmy said, there’s your first clue that this teacher doesn’t have any real familiarity with Catholic teaching. No one referencing a Vatican II document would say “The Vatican II documents state on the bottom of page 102.” They would say “Lumen Gentium §16 says…” or whatever.
    This dope probably doesn’t even know that the collected edition he’s reading out of contains both conciliar and post-conciliar documents ranging from very authoritative to not authoritative at all, and probably has no idea what he’s really quoting from in the first place.
    The only thing I would add to Jimmy’s answer is an authoritative text you can use to SHOW this teacher that Jesus isn’t re-killed or even re-sacrificed. From Pope John Paul II’s encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia (italics in original; bold is my emphasis):
    “This sacrifice [i.e., of the cross] is so decisive for the salvation of the human race that Jesus Christ offered it and returned to the Father only after he had left us a means of sharing in it as if we had been present there. Each member of the faithful can thus take part in it and inexhaustibly gain its fruits…
    “This aspect of the universal charity of the Eucharistic Sacrifice is based on the words of the Saviour himself. In instituting it, he did not merely say: ‘This is my body’, ‘this is my blood’, but went on to add: ‘which is given for you’, ‘which is poured out for you’ (Lk 22:19-20). 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 Mass 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’.13 
    “The Church constantly draws her life from the redeeming sacrifice; she approaches it not only through faith-filled remembrance, but also through a real contact, since this sacrifice is made present ever anew, sacramentally perpetuated, in every community which offers it at the hands of the consecrated minister. The Eucharist thus applies to men and women today the reconciliation won once for all by Christ for mankind in every age. ‘The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice’. Saint John Chrysostom put it well: ‘We always offer the same Lamb, not one today and another tomorrow, but always the same one. For this reason the sacrifice is always only one… Even now we offer that victim who was once offered and who will never be consumed’.
    “The Mass makes present the sacrifice of the Cross; it does not add to that sacrifice nor does it multiply it. What is repeated is its memorial celebration
    , its ‘commemorative representation’ (memorialis demonstratio), which makes Christ’s one, definitive redemptive sacrifice always present in time. 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.”
    Hope that helps!

  2. The Catholic and Orthodox understanding of the nature of the Eucharistic sacrifice flows from the Hypostatic Union of Christ’s two natures. Because of this, there is in metaphysical reality but one Divine Liturgy, attended to outside time and space by the heavenly court (the introduction to the Sanctus in the Roman ritual alludes to this, btw) in the eternal Now, and the individual Masses re-present and participate with that liturgy within time and space.
    Btw, this also flows from the Jewish understanding of zikkaron, by which for example all Jews participating in the Pesach seder are understood to be participating more specifically in the original Passover. And in the Sinai experiences. Et cet.
    Jesus would have understood this. Perfectly, of course.

  3. parallel thought…
    Christ died for our sins, (all of mankind’s sins from Adam and Eve until HE comes again, through one single act which transcends all time). This act was/is as timeless for us as it will be for our children’s, children’s…. ad infinitum and for our Grandparent’s Grandparents,….ad infinitum.
    This single act is timelessly present for all for both our sins and our grace and His presence in the Eucharist. All intertwined, all inseparable all present for all of humanity.
    It is all or nothing !! They can’t have it both ways!

  4. Carl Olson asked his Baptist mechanic once if when he was saved he was washed by the blood of Christ. When the mechanic answered in the affirmitive, Olson asked if that meant that every time someone is saved, Jesus is crucified again and again in order to pay for their sins.
    I had never thought of that before, and thought it fits here.

  5. The “time warp” manner of speaking is really confusing. How is the best way to understand how the mass “makes present the Sacrifice of the Cross”?
    Such as when Cardinal Arinze states that, “It follows that the sacrifice of the cross and the eucharistic sacrifice are one single sacrifice, because says the same council [Trent]: “The victim is one and the same; the thing offered now through the ministry of priests who then offered Himself on the cross, only the manner of offering is different.” So that those who go to Mass are like those who went to Mount Calvary on Good Friday, the same priest Christ, the same victim Christ. Difference? At the altar, Jesus does not shed blood, and He uses the ministry of the ordained priest. But it is the same sacrifice of Calvary, now celebrated sacramentally on our altars.”
    If the Sacrifice of the Mass and that of the Cross are one in the same, how is this not a union of time and space?

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