So we know that the Mass is the unbloody sacrifice of the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ and the offering of the members of His body/Church. My question regards the metaphysics of this sacrifice. There are different theories I've come across as to the metaphysical nature of the sacrifice, such as;
Christ is offered in his risen body/form as if to show His Father His scars.
The Mass is the literal re-presentation of Calvary in the sense that we are witnessing the same moment/moments in time(kind of like traveling in time) because the crucifixion transcends time.
When Christ is offered He is risen as He is in heaven but merely takes on His crucified form/appearance.
*If the veil were lifted from our eyes what would we see? Or is Christ merely offered in all His forms being that He's eternal. We know that many mystics have seen Him as an infant, a child, crucified, risen, etc.
*In traditional art we almost always see Christ crucified during the most Holy Sacrifice.
The following is an excerpt from a Jesuit journal prior to vatican 2;
"Regarding the essence of the sacrifice of the Mass, we may
distinguish two questions: that of the physical essence, i. e. which
part of the Mass is or contains the sacrifice (whether the Consecration, the Offertory, Communion, etc.) and that of its metaphysical essence, i. e., under what aspect such part is formally said to
be a sacrifice (whether because it is merely an oblation of the Body
of Christ, or also a real, although sacramental, immolation, or a
true representation of the oblation and immolation of the Cross).
While the former question has already been quite firmly settled
among modern theologians, who commonly hold that the sacrifice
is performed essentially, in the act of consecration, the latter, abstracting from the close relation between the two, is still adrift on the mare magnum of theological disputes, nor does it seem to be
approaching the secure harbor of a common opinion. It still remains
the vexata quaestio or the crux theologorum."
*I'm still undecided on the conclusions but if you want to read the whole thing google search "metaphysics of the sacrifice mass" and on the first page you should see " ON THE ESSENCE OF THE SACRIFICE OF THE MASS" from ejournals.bc.edu. It's a PDF and I can't seem to figure out how to attach it on here if I can.
What does everyone think?