Er messen et minne om Jesu død eller om hans siste måltid med disiplene?

Jeg snakka nylig med noen mennesker som mente at det absolutt fineste er at presten feirer messen vendt mot folket, for da blir følelsen av fellesskap så tydelig. At messen katolsk forstått er et offer til Gud, tenkte disse katolikkene ikke mye på. Jeg husket denne samtalen da jeg nylig leste hva en katolsk prest i USA skriver om offerets betydning – i messen, og i vårt forhold til Gud.

Offer er sentralt i alle samfunn og i alle religioner, også i jødedommen, men even in the Old Testament God was indicating that this was insufficient. «Do you think I eat the flesh of goats and bullocks?» he asks.

Then he sends his Son as the one, full, final sacrifice. Suddenly all other sacrifices have meaning. They were pointers to this one human sacrifice to end all human sacrifices. The Mass is the proper re-presentation of that one, full, final sacrifice. It brings into the present moment that timeless moment and applies that benefit to one and all.

I messen bæres Kristi fullkomne offer fram for Gud, men for mange katolikker har dette sentrale poenget forsvunnet. For the problem with modern Catholicism is that modern people, thinking that human sacrifice is really rather horrific, and that the wanton, ritualistic slaughter of animals is also rather gruesome, have chucked out the religious concept of sacrifice altogether. The modernists saw it as superstitious, bloodthirsty, primitive and barbaric. The considered themselves to have moved on from such superstitious concepts as placating rather petulant and cruel gods, and wanted a different model for understanding the Mass.

The other model was there. In the Bible we have the Almighty making covenants with his people. The ancients sealed these covenants with a ritual meal. The Jews had lots of ritual meals. The Passover was just one. So this model of covenant, ritual, fellowship meal took precedence in the theology that preceded the Second Vatican Council.

Kan det være rett at nattverdsmåltiden feires for sin egen skyld, for fellesskapets skyld, heller enn som Jesu offer på korset – der måltidet hører med, men da som et offermåltid, som en konklusjon på offeret:

Now the main model for the Mass was the ritual fellowship meal of the people of God. The focus shifted from a memorial of Christ’s death on the cross to a memorial of the Last Supper. The Mass was not so much a re-presentation and application of Christ’s death, but a re-living of the Last Supper, with us as Jesus disciples and the priest as an alter-Christus presiding at the Last Supper.

If this was to be the model, then of course it made sense for the priest to go around to the other side of the altar (now called the Communion Table) and face the people. He was no longer the priest offering the sacrifice with and for the people, but he was the Father presiding at the family meal rather like Daddy standing up to ceremonially carve the roast beef for family dinner.

Svært mye blir forandra i messen når måltidsaspektet overtar så tydelig, og skyver offeraspektet ut i periferien:

In the wake of this theological change everything else changed. Churches became big round meeting halls in which the people met for the fellowship meal. The introit became the ‘gathering song.’ The hymns changed content from worship of God and meditation on the Divine Sacrifice to songs about us and our community and how we felt about God and how we were going to change the world.

When we start to understand the proper place of sacrifice in the whole cosmos, we will start again to understand the sacrifice of the Mass, and when that happens everything else in our liturgy architecture, music, prayer and spirituality should fall back into place.