The greatest, most powerful, and most important prayer that the Church undertakes is the Mass, the Holy Sacrifice. Those who attend Mass regularly may take it for granted, but it is not the norm for many who call themselves Christians. Many Protestants merely host memorial services and some gather together without the breaking of bread at all. However, for Catholics, our immediate go-to action of communal prayer (as long as a priest is present) is the Mass.
With Holy Week and Good Friday approaching, it is a good time to reflect on what the Mass truly is and why we celebrate it. If one were to ask a relatively educated Catholic what Mass is, their answer will likely be something similar to, “The Mass is the re-presentation of the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross offered back to the Father in an unbloodied manner.” This definition, while entirely correct, is highly technical, thus it is necessary to unpack and understand it.
The Mass is a true and proper sacrifice offered to God at the hands of a priest. The key difference between a priest and a minister is that a priest offers sacrifices. This differentiation is seen chiefly in the worship of Israel before Christ. Rabbis would teach and instruct on the scriptures and traditions in the synagogues, but the Levite Priests were the ones who offered sacrifices to God in the Temple.
This sacrifice in the Temple was completed and fulfilled by Our Lord who sacrificed himself on the Cross for the sins of the whole world. The Mass, as stated before, is the re-presentation of Christ on the Cross, which is offered at the hands of the Priests of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. We can therefore ask the question: what are the essential parts of the Mass? What makes it the Holy Sacrifice? To answer this question, we have to return to the Temple in Jerusalem and the sacrifices offered to God by his people going all the way back to St. Abel the Just. A sacrifice has three necessary components. The first is an offering of a victim or oblation to God. In the Temple, these were offerings of animals or cereal offerings of bread, which were solemnly offered and set apart for the worship of God and the mighty act that is done for the remission of sins. The second part is the slaying of the victim; in the Temple, this was when the animal was slayed and its blood sprinkled on the altar. The last part was the consumption of the animal either by fire (which is called a holocaust) or by human consumption. In the Mass, these three parts correspond to the offering of bread and wine to God, the consecration of the elements into the Body and Blood of Our Lord which is his death on the Cross, and the consumption of the offering by the Priest which we call Holy Communion.
Because we at Mass use bread and wine for offering and sacrifice to God, there is a temptation to think of it as having the character of a meal as we read the account of the Last Supper. This is not accurate since each time the bread and wine are consecrated, Christ’s death is immediately realized on the altar; this applies even and especially to the Last Supper when Our Lord first instituted this Sacrament. The offering of the Last Supper on Holy Thursday was the true sacrifice that took place the next day on the Cross. Although this may sound strange, it’s for this reason: Christ is the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world, and so from all time his sacrifice on the cross was propitiatory and all the mercies of God the Father that he has ever given has flown through the death of his Son.
This propitiatory sacrifice that we experience at Mass is the same reality as Our Lord suffering on the Cross and is the continuation of the Hebrew Temple Sacrifices. Every Mass bears the weight of the Cross, every Mass we stand before our suffering Lord, and at every Mass the 2000 years between today and Good Friday collapse as we face the reality of what our sins have done and the wounds which we have inflicted upon our God.
Born and Raised to Jewish parents in New York City, Kai Breskin is a recent convert to the Catholic Faith. A member of the Boston College class of 2026, he is studying Political Science, Philosophy, and History. His intellectual passions include Christian theology, history, and liturgical study. His hobbies include sailing, playing the piano, and singing, with a specific focus in Gregorian Chant.
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