The Bloodless Calvary, by Aaron Kheriaty, MD

In this series I have introduced the brief prayer, doce me passionem Tuam—teach me Your suffering—a simple aspiration we can pray many times a day. This prayer is lived most deeply when we participate in the Church’s liturgy, especially in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the bloodless Calvary. The Mass is a weekly—or better, a daily—invitation to enter into Our Lord’s suffering, endured for love of us.

The Mass is more than just a reenactment of the Last Supper. As Pope Benedict XVI, citing Josef Andreas Jungmann, explains in Jesus of Nazareth: “What the Church celebrates at Mass is not the Last Supper; no, it is what the Lord instituted in the course of the Last Supper and entrusted to the Church: the memorial of his sacrificial death.” “Memorial” here does not just mean recalling something from the past, but actually making that event present in the here-and-now. The Mass is the Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ offered on our altars under the appearances of bread and wine—a sacramental re-presentation of the Sacrifice of the Cross. This is not just symbolic: although Jesus does not suffer the pains of His Passion again during the Mass, His blood still flows, and His flesh is still made a living sacrifice for us on the altar. …

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