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| The Sacrifice of Abraham, 1631/35, by the Flemish painter Cornelis de Vos (1585-1651) |
The current effort to return to liturgical tradition takes, and must take, several forms. There are fraternities of priests who actively run parishes and shepherd souls, and there are contemplative nuns who pray without ceasing from behind cloister walls. There are polemicists on the front lines engaged in apologetics, like the late Michael Davies, and there are artists in music, painting, stained glass, and architecture trying to make churches once again centers of beauty.
And then there are the scholars, researchers who approach their subject in a more detached manner, but with the hope of changing the learned consensus about something. One may be tempted to dismiss this erudite division of the so-called traditionalist movement as so much ivory-tower theorizing, but it must be remembered that we never would have known how much bad scholarship led to the worst of the liturgical reforms had good scholarship not exposed it. And just as bad scholarship helped get us into this mess, good scholarship will help get us out.
One of the most eminent conferences promoting sound scholarship on the traditional liturgy is sponsored by the St. Colman’s Society for Catholic Liturgy in County Cork, Ireland. Named “Fota” after the inland island where the conferences were originally held, the conferences are centered around a different theme each time. The proceedings of the most recent, the Fourteenth Fota International Liturgical Conference in 2023, were edited and published last year under the title The Sacrifice of the Mass (Smenos Publications, 2024).
The volume, which is dedicated to the memory of Cardinal Pell (1941-2023), contains the kind of diversity one would hope to find in such a collection. There are two articles on sacrifice in the Bible, two on Eucharistic sacrifice in the theology of Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, one on the Canon of the Mass, one on the Offertory Rite (which proved invaluable for my own article on the subject in this issue of TLM magazine), one on atonement, one on why the physical presence of the faithful at Mass is required, one on the radical changes the Novus Ordo made to the orationes super oblata or former Secrets, and one on liturgy and ritual process.
Collections of proceedings usually suffer from an uneven quality since it is rare that all contributors are of the same caliber. This volume is a happy exception to this rule. In fact, I found each one to be a page-turner, unfolding a riveting history or theology that was new to me. Two examples will suffice.
In the chapter “Sacrificium Patriarchae nostri Abrahae: The Aqedah in the Bible and the Canon of the Mass,” Fr. Dieter Böhler, S.J. examines the Supra quae propitio:
Upon these [the consecrated Host and Chalice] deign to look with a favorable and serene countenance, and to accept them, as Thou wert graciously pleased to accept the gifts of Thy just servant Abel, and the sacrifice of our patriarch Abraham, and that which Thy high priest Melchizedek offered to Thee, a holy Sacrifice, an unspotted Victim.
Böhler first notices that even though Abel made a genuine sacrifice by immolating a lamb, his offering is called munera (gifts) and not sacrificium. “Abel,” Böhler observes, “is not an Israelite, but a representative of all humanity…. Thus, his sacrifice is an act of natural religion” (25). The Lord accepts Abel’s offerings, even though Abel has acted only in response to a natural impulse rather than any divine revelation.
Melchizedek is not an Israelite either, but even as a pagan he somehow worships the true “God Most High, the Creator of heaven and earth” (Gen. 14, 19). Moreover, he is designated as both a king and a priest, and his offering of bread and wine clearly foreshadows the Eucharist. Hence, even though unbloody offerings in the Old Testament (such as grains and vegetables) are not called sacrifices or victims, the Supra quae propitio elaborately refers to Melchizedek’s offering as “that which he offered to You… a holy sacrifice, an unspotted victim.”
Together, the sacrifices of Abel and Melchizedek point to the Eucharist:
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| Abraham and Melchizedek, anonymous Italo-flemish, late 16th century |
Israel’s liturgy and the aspirations of all human reverence towards the divine are thus taken up and fulfilled in the Eucharistic sacrifice. The sacrificial matter of Abel (the lamb) and of Melchizedek (bread and wine) lend themselves to this interpretation, since the Eucharistic sacrifice of bread and wine makes present the sacrificed Lamb (see Rev. 5, 6) (26).
But the real mystery is the sacrifice of Abraham. Böhler first establishes that the sacrifice of Isaac was designed by God to be a test not of Abraham’s obedience, but of his faith. Specifically, Abraham had to have faith that God would fulfill His promise to make Abraham’s descendants a great nation through Isaac even though Isaac was to be killed before he could sire any offspring. This meant only one thing: Abraham had to believe in the resurrection of the dead, in this case, the resurrection of his ostensibly-soon-to-be dead son Isaac. That is why Abraham remains our Patriarch, even if we do not share his bloodline; he is a towering figure of great faith in the key doctrine of Christianity.
And his sacrifice? It was not Isaac, who was spared. And for Böhler, it was not really the ram that Abraham substituted for Isaac. Böhler notes that rams had only one meaning in the Levitical sacrifices: “they were the classic sacrificial animal of cult inauguration” (34), such as initiating priestly ordination. The cult inauguration here on Mount Moriah is an anticipation of the cult that David and Solomon would inaugurate centuries later in the same location (later renamed Mount Zion) and the new cultus that Our Lord would inaugurate again in the same location in the Upper Room on Holy Thursday. Rather, for Böhler, “The sacrifice of Abraham was a sacrifice of himself by himself. He surrendered himself will all his hopes, his love, his faith, into the dark night of God’s will. It was a self-offering” (32). It is indeed fitting that this knight of Faith be remembered in the Canon. In the chapter “Why does the Participation of the Faithful in the Eucharist Require Their Physical Presence (during Mass)?” Michael Stickelbroeck responds to the public lockdowns during Covidtide and the eager collaboration of some bishops to suppress Mass attendance and encourage livestreaming of the Mass instead. To analyze this decision, Stickelbroeck draws from other scholars to contrast two encounters with the world. The first is one built upon social media and digital communication. This “virtual world” abstracts from place and time; indeed, it “rejoices in a bodyless corporality” (108) that enables anyone to enjoy anything anywhere, and to rewind or fast forward at will. Instead of being grounded in the real, the virtual world is grounded in a simulation of the real. “What is real,” Stickelbroeck concludes, “has been converted to a satellite that moves around its own image, the simulacrum” (106).
The danger of this worldview is that it weakens our ties to the world that is. “The more people immerse themselves in the virtual worlds of technology, the more the empirical and substantial reality of things dissolves” (107). Unlike the limitlessness of virtual worlds, “the substantial real is always at a determinate place and temporal nunc, which marks—in the flow of time—a limit between prior and posterior.”
One of Stickelbroeck’s more interesting sources is the German essayist and playwright Botho Strauss, who argues that thanks to our cyberlives, we are no longer attuned to real, physical presences, and this loss affects everything from our social interactions to our understanding of the sacramental order. Strauss’s solution is the liberation of art and symbol from what he calls the “dictatorship of secondary discourses” and a rediscovery of art’s “theophanic glory, its transcendental proximity” (108). Although Strauss does not say so explicitly, there is obviously no better way for this liberation to occur than through sacred art, and no better place for it to happen than in a church. And given that young people are especially beholden to this “dictatorship,” they more than any other generation are in a need of churches that reintroduce them to the wonder of low-tech, real presences that prepares them for the Real Presence in the Eucharist.
It is not difficult to see upon which worldview the Catholic Church depends. As an incarnational religion that worships a God who became flesh and dwelt among us and who is really present in the Eucharist, Christianity does not and cannot abstract from space and time, at least not in the administration of its sacraments, which are material conduits of spiritual grace. Hence, just as one cannot abstract from space and go to confession via telephone, one cannot abstract from space and be physically absent from Mass. Stickelbroeck modestly concludes that any arrangements that suggest the contrary “must be vigorously challenged” (115).
The other eight chapters in Sacrifice of the Mass are just as thought-provoking as the two I have surveyed. Editor Matthew Hazell is to be commended for producing an outstanding contribution to our study of the sacred liturgy.
Many thanks to the editors of The Latin Mass magazine 34:3 for allowing this publication to appear here (Fall 2025, 76-77).
