Monday, January 9, 2012

We truly teach the doctrine of Eucharistic sacrifice . . .


St Magnus the Martyr, London Bridge

From SAEPIUS OFFICIO, the joint declaration of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York in 1897 to Pope Leo XIII defending the validity of Anglican Orders, stating definitively what they believed to be the Biblical and Anglican teaching concerning Eucharistic sacrifice:

We truly teach the doctrine of Eucharistic sacrifice and do not believe it to be a “nude commemoration of the Sacrifice of the Cross” . . . But we think it sufficient in the Liturgy which we use in celebrating the holy Eucharist,—while lifting up our hearts to the Lord, and when now consecrating the gifts already offered that they may become to us the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ,—to signify the sacrifice which is offered at that point of the service in such terms as these. We continue a perpetual memory of the precious death of Christ, who is our Advocate with the Father and the propitiation for our sins, according to His precept, until His coming again.

For first we offer the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving;

then next we plead and represent before the Father the sacrifice of the cross, and by it we confidently entreat remission of sins and all other benefits of the Lord’s Passion for all the whole Church;

and lastly we offer the sacrifice of ourselves to the Creator of all things which we have already signified by the oblations of His creatures.

This whole action, in which the people has necessarily to take its part with the Priest, we are accustomed to call the Eucharistic sacrifice.

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