The work of our Redemption

For the next few articles I am going to focus on paragraph 2 of Sacrosanctum Concilium, which reads as follows:

2. For the liturgy, "through which the work of our redemption is accomplished," (1) most of all in the divine sacrifice of the eucharist, is the outstanding means whereby the faithful may express in their lives, and manifest to others, the mystery of Christ and the real nature of the true Church. It is of the essence of the Church that she be both human and divine, visible and yet invisibly equipped, eager to act and yet intent on contemplation, present in this world and yet not at home in it; and she is all these things in such wise that in her the human is directed and subordinated to the divine, the visible likewise to the invisible, action to contemplation, and this present world to that city yet to come, which we seek (2). While the liturgy daily builds up those who are within into a holy temple of the Lord, into a dwelling place for God in the Spirit (3), to the mature measure of the fullness of Christ (4), at the same time it marvelously strengthens their power to preach Christ, and thus shows forth the Church to those who are outside as a sign lifted up among the nations (5) under which the scattered children of God may be gathered together (6), until there is one sheepfold and one shepherd (7).

Footnote 1: Secret of the ninth Sunday after Pentecost, which reads "Grant us, we beseech You, O Lord, worthily to frequent these mysteries; since as often as the remembrance of this Victim is celebrated, so often is the work of our Redemption carried on. Through our Lord, etc."

As you can see, there is a lot here! We will need to take it one step at a time. In this article we will focus on the subordinate clause found in the first sentence, which can be re-phrased as follows:

The liturgy is (a/the)* means by which the work of our redemption is accomplished, most of all in the divine sacrifice of the eucharist.

What is this "work of our Redemption"? It is the work of Christ on the cross. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches as much:

601 The Scriptures had foretold this divine plan of salvation through the putting to death of "the righteous one, my Servant" as a mystery of universal redemption, that is, as the ransom that would free men from the slavery of sin. Citing a confession of faith that he himself had "received", St. Paul professes that "Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures." In particular Jesus' redemptive death fulfils Isaiah's prophecy of the suffering Servant. Indeed Jesus himself explained the meaning of his life and death in the light of God's suffering Servant. After his Resurrection he gave this interpretation of the Scriptures to the disciples at Emmaus, and then to the apostles. (paragraph 601)

Christ died "once for all", as Scripture says, so that there is no more sacrifice for sin. If this is true, though, why does the Council say that the liturgy "accomplishes" the work of our Redemption? Wasn't that done already on Calvary?

Well, yes. But there is one small problem, you see: those of us alive today were not yet born. We did not even exist. Jesus therefore chose to establish a mechanism to carry forward the grace of the cross through time, to us. The liturgy is this mechanism. All of the liturgy is part of this transmission of grace, but (as the Council itself points out) how this works is clearest in the liturgy of the Eucharist, as particularly evident in the circumstances surrounding its institution.

Let us recall that Jesus instituted the liturgy during a Passover meal. This was not a neutral choice. The Passover possesses the sense that all who eat the Passover meal pass participate in the redemption of their ancestors from Egypt. Take, for example, this prayer from the haggadah:

Thus how much more so should we be grateful to the Omnipresent One for the doubled and redoubled goodness that He has bestowed upon us; for He has brought us out of Egypt, and carried out judgments against them, and against their idols, and smote their first-born, and gave us their wealth, and split the sea for us, and took us through it on dry land, and drowned our oppressors in it, and supplied our needs in the desert for forty years, and fed us the manna, and gave us the Shabbat, and brought us before Mount Sinai, and gave us the Torah, and brought us into the land of Israel and built for us the Beit Habechirah to atone for all our sins.

Note the use of the present tense! By being part of the liturgical Seder meal the participants become part of the "us" which passed through the Red Sea. This is the Hebrew sense of a "memorial", which is not just a turning towards the past, but a transcending of time so that the fruits of the past become part of our present.

Now think of the words we hear at every Mass:

Take this, all of you, and eat it: this is my body, which will be given up for you.

Take this, all of you, and drink from it: this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for all, so that sins may be forgiven.

Do this in memory of me.

Through these words Jesus is instituting a new liturgical sign of memorial within the context of a rite which is already a memorial, and he directly connects those signs (the bread and wine) to his sacrifice on the cross. In other words, he is telling those gathered at the Last Supper, "When you participate in this new liturgical meal, it is the power of my sacrifice which will now be carried forward in time as the memorial."

So the liturgy *does* "accomplish our Redemption", by connecting us to the saving mystery of Christ, not by doing something apart from Christ, but by "bringing forward" that saving work through time. Each liturgical rite is meant to bring us grace by mysteriously connecting us to Christ, in some aspect of his life and ministry, with each rite doing this in its own way, and with the Eucharist doing it par excellence. Indeed, the Eucharist is the truest form of liturgy, with all the others pointing to it in some manner. All grace flows from Calvary.

Each time we attend Mass we stand at the foot of the cross, taking in the grace of Jesus' sacrifice, and we have this chance thanks to the liturgy he founded. Let's think about that the next time we celebrate Mass — it really does take things to a whole new level.


*You will note that I have not chosen which article ("a" or "the") belongs before the word "means", because the original text of the Constitution is itself ambiguous on this point. I suspect this is by design, and not simply due to the fact that Latin does not have articles. In a sense, both apply: the traditional teaching of the Church is the God saves us first and foremost through the liturgy (particularly the sacraments), but that he is not limited to it. We will explore the connection between liturgical and extra-liturgical means of salvation in a later article.