A reader asked about our article on the Catholic Mass, saying: “Where did the idea that Jesus is re-crucified in the Mass come from?  I recently read on Catholicanswers.com a statement from Vatican II that says Mass is not a re crucifixion/sacrifice.”

Pat, a cradle Catholic until she gave her life to the Lord in 1981, answers in detail……

Our reader said the Catholic statement “made it sound like Mass is
basically a reenactment of the Last Supper ceremony” instead of a re-sacrifice of Jesus.   

Pat answered: Hello, Alan passed this email on to me, since I was raised Catholic.  You are really digging deep!

In the Catholic schools I attended they called it the 'sacrifice of the  mass'.  What or who was sacrificed?  Jesus was  'mystically' sacrificed because the priest said the words over the wafer and the wine ('This is my body.  This is my blood.') and those words supposedly changed the substance of the bread and wine into the mystical body and blood of Jesus. 

The wafer  and wine looked the same, but the very substance of the material was changed 'mystically' into the body and blood.  That is what was sacrificed - a  mystical Jesus. As for where this all came from, ultimately Babylon, but the Lord Jesus warned of wolves in sheep's clothing in Matthew 7:15.

Paul warned in Galatians of false teachers; also Jude warned of 'certain men creeping in unawares' in verse 4 of his little but powerful letter.  So Christians  should have all along been watching for sneaky people joining churches and bringing in false teaching that led the people away from the truth of God's Word.

In religion class we learned about 'the elements and the substance' and I think it came from Augustine.  We were told that the elements did not change, but the substance of the bread and wine changed when the magic words were pronounced, but they had to be uttered by the priest, not just any old believer.

So we still have the wolves in sheep's clothing and the false teachers teaching false doctrine today.  So sad.  I love John 6:47-48, 'Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on Me has everlasting life.  I am that bread of life.'

So clearly, all we have to do is believe, not DO anything, not go anywhere or get some special class of person to say magical words over anything.
Just believe the gospel.  So simple, so profound, so available to every
person everywhere.

What strikes me now about this is that you can only spot the counterfeit when you are very familiar with the real thing.  If you stay close to the
Lord and study the Bible, the wolves in sheep's clothing should not be hard to spot. 

We are supposed to study; that is what disciples do.  If we don't,
we could fall prey to the wolves who look so much like gentle little sheep.
We never studied the Bible in the Catholic church; we looked down on
anything to do with the Bible or anyone who talked about the Bible.

I am just so glad that the Lord saved me, also my sisters and my best friend in America, who also came out of the Catholic church when she learned the truth.  What joy when people find the truth.  What joy when the shackles are broken and people are free.

Anyway, I hope this helps.  I tend to think that Augustine has a lot of answering to do.  I have a big question mark over him, but have never taken the time to really look into this.  He is the one who brought Roman ways to Britain, which I believe was already Christian when he got here, but that he imposed Rome on the believers. 

I am not 100% sure of this, but have just pieced it together from various things. Maybe you could do the research? I think Britain was probably evangelized very early on, and I suspect it was a dark day when Augustine and his crowd arrived.

So, thank you for writing and may God richly bless your efforts to
understand.

Love in the Lord from Pat.