That the Passion of Christ Was Wrought by Way of Sacrifice

Taken from Medulla S. Thomae Aquinatis which arranges various short texts from St. Thomas Aquinas' corpus based on the liturgical year. I will be posting the day's meditation each day and will be bringing it into print once I'm through it.

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Thursday after the Second Sunday of Lent

That the Passion of Christ Was Wrought by Way of Sacrifice

I. A sacrifice properly so called is something done for that honor which is properly due to God, in order to appease Him: and hence it is that Augustine says: A true sacrifice is every good work done in order that we may cling to God in holy fellowship, yet referred to that consummation of happiness wherein we can be truly blessed. But, as is added in the same place, Christ offered Himself up for us in the Passion: and this voluntary enduring of the Passion was most acceptable to God, as coming from charity. Therefore it is manifest that Christ’s Passion was a true sacrifice. Moreover, as Augustine says farther on in the same book, the primitive sacrifices of the holy Fathers were many and various signs of this true sacrifice, one being prefigured by many, in the same way as a single concept of thought is expressed in many words, in order to commend it without tediousness: and, as Augustine observes, since there are four things to be noted in every sacrifice—to wit, to whom it is offered, by whom it is offered, what is offered, and for whom it is offered—that the same one true Mediator reconciling us with God through the peace-sacrifice might continue to be one with Him to whom He offered it, might be one with them for whom He offered it, and might Himself be the offerer and what He offered.

II. - Human flesh was never offered up in the sacrifices of the Old Law, which were figures of Christ; but from this it does not follow that the Passion of Christ was not a sacrifice. Although the truth answers to the figure in some respects, yet it does not in all, since the truth must go beyond the figure. Therefore the figure of this sacrifice, in which Christ’s flesh is offered, was flesh right fittingly, not the flesh of men, but of animals, as denoting Christ’s. And this is a most perfect sacrifice.

1° Being flesh of human nature, it is fittingly offered for men, and is partaken of by them under the Sacrament.

2° Being passible and mortal, it was fit for immolation.

3° Being sinless, it had virtue to cleanse from sins.

4° Being the offerer’s own flesh, it was acceptable to God on account of His charity in offering up His own flesh. Hence it is that Augustine says: What else could be so fittingly partaken of by men, or offered up for men, as human flesh? What else could be so appropriate for this immolation as mortal flesh? What else is there so clean for cleansing mortals as the flesh born in the womb without fleshly concupiscence, and coming from a virginal womb? What could be so favorably offered and accepted as the flesh of our sacrifice, which was made the body of our Priest?

(STIII.Q48.A3.)