Sacrifice

The purpose of the Eucharist is not just for its recipients to have the Holy Spirit dwelling in them; it is to unite them in the Spirit to Christ in his sacrifice to the Father, and to unite their sacrifices and lives to his own. In De natura et dignitate amoris, William treats the Eucharist during a section in which he constructs a conversation between the persons of the Trinity on the need for redemption of the human race. As “the medium between God and man,”130 Christ addresses humanity and the Father and tells them what he has done for each: “Taking his own Body and Blood in his hand, he said: ‘Eat this! Drink this! And live by it!’ And presenting it to the Father, he says: ‘Behold, Father, the price of my blood. If you require a price for sin, see here is my Blood for it. Lord Father, you have bestowed liberality, and the earth of my Body has produced its fruit. Now righteousness will walk before you and you will set your feet on the path of human salvation. . . .’”131

William goes on to describe the fruits of redemption further as being

reconciliation with God, but also more than reconciliation. Receiving redemption through the Eucharist brings wisdom, for the one who receives well savors what he eats and becomes conformed to the one whom he eats, who is Wisdom itself: “He eats and drinks the Body and Blood of his Redeemer, the heavenly manna, the bread of angels, the bread of wisdom, and while eating it he is transformed into the nature of the food he eats. For to

130 _{“inter Deum et hominem medium se faciens” (Nat am, 35.939–940).}

131 _{“Positoque corpore suo et sanguine in manu eius: Hoc, inquit, manduca, hoc bibe, hinc uiue. Patrique}

eum repraesentans: En, inquit, Pater, sanguinis mei pretium. Si de peccato huius requires, en pro eo meus sanguis. Domine Pater, dedisti benignitatem, et terra corporis mei dedit fructum suum. Iam iustitia ante te ambulabit, et tu pones in via saluationis humanae pedes tuos” (Nat am, 37.1000–1006; 99).

eat the Body of Christ is nothing other than to be made the Body of Christ and the temple of the Holy Spirit.”132

These passages echo many of the themes we have already seen in William’s Eucharistic writings. First, the Eucharist serves as a means of deification whereby the recipient becomes conformed to the one he receives. Rougé identifies this as a

Christological theme, which is true enough.133 But it is even more a Trinitarian theme. For this conformity to the one he receives accompanies an infusion of the Holy Spirit so that the recipient, in sharing the life of the Son, can become part of the offering of the Son to the Father. That offering takes a particular form in the economy of salvation, where the Son assumes human flesh and offers his life on behalf of sinners. But it is part of the eternal exchange of love between the two.

The Eucharist is not only a matter of increasing love, but is also serves as a sacrifice of Christ’s body, offered by Christ to the Father. William describes Christ as the one who blesses the Eucharistic bread and changes it into his body with the words of institution.134 In the Eucharist, Christ bears the flesh that he assumed for us to the Father for our sake.135 William offers an extensive quotation of Chrysosotom’s (cited as

Ambrose’s) homilies on the letter to the Hebrews explaining that the Eucharistic sacrifice is the exemplum of Christ’s self-offering on the cross. The two are always together, so that the Eucharist is completely a sacrifice.136 And both are a sacrifice by which the Son

132 _{“De fructu ergo huius operas satiates homo, mediante sapientia Dei, non solum reconciliatur, sed etiam}

sapiens efficitur. Sapit enim ei quod manduact. Manducat et bibit corpus et sanguimen Redemptoris sui, manna caeleste, panem angelorum, panem sapientiae; et manducans transformatur in naturam cibi quem manducat. Corpus enim Christi manducare nichil est aliud quam corpus Christi effici, et templum Spiritus

sancti” (Nat am, 38.1008–1014; 100). 133 _{Rougé, Doctrine et experience, 30.} 134 _{Sac alt, V.48–52.}

135 _{Sac alt, XI.28–29.} 136 _{Sac alt, XI.35–50.}

incorporates men into his self-offering to the Father. As Rougé puts it, “The glorious Christ offers the flesh that he took from our nature to the Father; we offer this flesh with the same piety when we recognize it as holy and sanctifying and when we recognize that we present it to Him from whom all holiness comes (cf. Heb. 2:11). This is the profound reality of the sacrament of the altar.”137

Two implications arise from this. First, while the Eucharist serves as a memorial, it is also an enactment of the Son’s offering to the Father in heaven now and forever. It points to the present and future as much as the past.138 Second, our offering of the Eucharist is efficacious because it is joined by faith to Christ’s self-offering in heaven.139 William writes:

Indeed we do this humbly here on earth through him, which he does powerfully for us in heaven, as the Son who must be heard on account of his reverence, where he intercedes before the Father as an advocate for us. It is his to intercede for us: to bear the flesh, which he assumed for us and from us, to God the Father in a certain way for our sake. Therefore let us sacrifice the body of Christ, since we believe it to be holy and sanctifying with certain piety of faith, and we offer this faith for his honor, from which, whoever sanctifies and whoever are sanctified, all are from one.140

137 _{“Le Christ glorieux offer au Père pour nous la chair qu’il a prise de notre nature; nous offrons cette chair}

avec la mème piété quand nous la reconnaissons sainte et sanctifiante et que nous la présentons à Celui de qui provient toute sainteté (cf. Heb. 2:11). Voilà la réalité profonde du sacrement de l’autel” (Rougé,

Doctrine et experience, 56. 138 _{Ibid., 178.}

139 _{“Notre sacrifice du corps du Seigneur procède, par la médiation de la foi, du sacrifice que le Christ fait}

lui-même de son propre corps. Ce qui rend notre offrande effective, c’est notre foi en la puissance

sanctifiante de la chair glorifiée de Jésus. Cette foi, vécue dans la célébration du sacrement lui-même, est la mise en oeuvre de la médiation sanctifiante du Fils, à la louange de la gloire du Père. Notre sacrifice est authentique parce que nous croyons à l’unique véritable sacrifice du Fils” (Rougé, Doctrine et experience, 179. Rougé also notes that all of our offerings and sacrifices are only a secondary response to the primary iniative of God, which gives us all we could ever offer back (169).

140 _{“Hoc enim hic per eum humiliter agimus in terris, quod pro nobis ipse potenter, sicut Filius pro sua} reuerentia exaudiendus, agit in caelis, ubi apud Patrem pro nobis quasi aduocatus interuenit. Cui est pro

nobis interuenire: carnem, quam pro nobis et de nobis sumpsit, Deo Patri quodammodo pro nobis ingerere. Sacrificamus ergo corpus Christi, dum certa fidei pietate sanctum illud credimus et sanctificans, et hanc fidem offerimus ad honorem eius, ex quo, qui sanctificat et qui sanctificantur, ex uno omnes” (Sac alt, XI.24–31).

Not only the priest but all those participating in the sacrament become joined to Christ’s offering of himself to the Father. Their deification through the sacrament entails an entrance into that Trinitarian relationship. And, as William’s subsequent quotation of Augustine makes clear, the faithful offer themselves to Christ at the same time as they participate in his self-offering to the Father. They are one with him in his act and make a similar act of their own.Indeed, it is through Christ’s sacrifice to the Father that those united to his body and indeed now its members have the sacrifices of their lives brought into the eternal offering of the Son to the Father in the Spirit.141