Christ's Two Modes of Existence

[Peace]

This is from a book called "The Latin Mass Explained" by MSGR. George J. Moorman.  I am pretty certain that it is out of copyright (written around 1920), which is why I am copying it below. The first section of the book has a great explanation about sacrifice in the OT and the Sacrifice of the Mass.

Here is a partthat  I found interesting, but I would recommend the entire book:

Christ's Two Modes of Existence

When we meditate upon Christ's presence in the Eucharist, the question arises within our minds: How can Christ be present in Heaven and upon thousands of altars throughout the world?

Christ has His natural mode of existence in Heaven. Here all the features and faculties of His sacred body and soul are manifestly glorified in the sight of the Angels and Saints. Such is the indescribable light of glory that flows from the Sacred Humanity that the Heavenly City has no need of the sun to give it light, for the Lamb is the lamp thereof. (Apoc. 21). To gaze on Him in His glory, to speak with Him, to be united to Him is to be blessed:

"Joy past compare; gladness unutterable; Imperishable life and peace and love, Exhaustless riches and immeasurable bliss" -- Dante

But besides this natural mode of existence, Our Lord has another, invented by the exhaustless resources of His love at the Last Supper. It is called His sacramental mode of existence. At the Last Supper the Apostles beheld Christ both in His natural mode of existence and in His sacramental mode of existence. In His sacramental manner of existence Christ deigns to dwell in our midst not in the form of man, but under the humble appearances of bread and wine.

Christ does not multiply His body as many times as there are sacred Hosts. Christ is not multiplied, but the presence of Christ is multiplied, that is, His relation to the various Hosts and to their particles.

In nature we find certain objects which astonish us by transgressing almost all the limits of space. Take, for instance, light. Scientists tell us that light moves with a velocity of 186,000 miles per second. In one moment, therefore, light travels a distance more than six times the circumference of the globe. Think of the telegraph and reflect that in a single second the electric current flashes through nearly 300,000 miles of space, ten times the distance around the world. If in the forces of inanimate nature we behold such remarkable phenomena, what may we not expect as possible with regards to the glorified body of Christ? There is absolutely no limit of space or distance for the sacred body of Our Lord. It is present wheresoever the Devine Will decrees.

The presence of Christ's glorified body in so many Hosts is not unlike that of a thought or idea, which, as soon as it has been expressed by the mouth of a speaker, is instantly in the minds and hearts of his hearers.

Therefore we hold: One and the same undivided and not multiplied sacred Body of Our Lord is present under all these forms of bread (that is, those many Hosts) into which it has been called by the all-powerful words of Consecration. And as long as the appearances of bread remain, so long does Christ remain present.

This sacramental mode of existence reminds us most forcibly of the Incarnation. By the Incarnation, the Son, "being in the form of God . . . emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and in habit found as a man," and in this condition, without abdicating His Divinity or suffering any loss or diminution of His heavenly glory, humbled Himself to the Sacrifice of the Cross. (Phil. 2:6-7). And in like manner every day in Mass, though being in the form of perfect God and perfect Man and living forever in the infinite bliss of Heaven, without loss or diminution of glory or happiness in either His divine or human natures, He empties Himself under the appearances of bread and wine, and humbles Himself as a Victim to a mystical death on the altar. There is no more astounding miracle than this in the world -- and who could believe in it but they who believe in the Incarnation?

The Difference between the Sacrifice of the Cross and the Sacrifice of the Mass

The Sacrifice of the Mass is, under a twofold aspect, identical with the Sacrifice of the Cross. In both sacrifices we have the same Victim, Christ Himself, Who is sacrificed. In both it is the same Priest Who sacrifices. For it is Christ, the High Priest of the Sacrifice of the Cross, Who likewise offers the Sacrifice of the Mass through the priest, His representative. The Sacrifice of the Mass differs from the Sacrifice of the Cross in the manner of offering.

On the Cross the blood of Christ was really shed, He really died; while in Mass there is no real shedding of blood, no real death, but only a mystical shedding of blood, a mystical death.

If Jesus were to die again in Mass, the Sacrifice of the Cross and the Sacrifice of the Mass would not be one sacrifice, but two sacrifices, and we have seen that there is but one sacrifice in the New Law. Besides, Jesus can die no more. His blood was shed on the Cross; it was then really separated from His body. A real separation of the Precious Blood from Christ's Sacred Body is no more possible, but sacramentally it takes place also on the altar.

In the Mass Jesus is present under the separated appearances of bread and wine. It is true that Jesus is entirely -- Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity -- in the Host as well as in the Chalice, but the appearance of bread, which is solid, represents the Body; and the appearance of wine, which is liquid, represents not the body, but the Blood of Christ. The Sacred Host, therefore, represents to us Christ's body, and the Chalice with the consecrated "wine" represents His blood -- consequently, blood separated from the body. But where were body and blood separated? At Christ's bloody death on the Cross. Hence the separated appearances represent the body of and blood of Jesus as they were on the Cross when He suffered the bloody death. Christ, then, is present on the altar with the same body that died on the Cross, with the same blood that was shed on the Cross. He is present under the emblems of the bloody death, that is, represented as He died on the Cross, when His blood was separated from His body. The Mass is therefore really what Christ intended it to be, a commemoration of Him (c.f. Luke 22:19), the showing of the death of the Lord (c.f. 1 Cor. 11:26).

Being present on the altar in the manner described above, Christ really and truly offers Himself to His Heavenly Father. For in the Mass He is present in the same manner as at the Last Supper, under the appearance of bread and wine. And there Christ offered Himself in sacrifice, as we learn from the words: "This is My body, which is given for you" (Luke 22:19); "This is the chalice, the new testament in My Blood, which shall be shed for you." (Luke, 22:20). In Scriptural usage, the words "given for you," "shed for you" are the same as "offered in sacrifice for you."

The Immolation in the Mass

The Mass, therefore, is not only a commemoration but also a real immolation. How is this immolation effected? By the consecrating words: "This is My Body" and "This is the chalice of My Blood . . ." The people see that by the "sword-stroke" of the consecrating words, which are sense-perceptible, Christ is "reduced" from glorious human form to the condition of inanimate matter. There is a vast difference between the appearance of Christ present in His natural form and present under the form of bread and wine. St. John the Apostle describes a vision of Christ in His glory. "I saw," says St. John, "in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks, one like to the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the feet, and girt around the paps with a golden girdle. And his head and his hairs were white, as white wool, and as snow, and his eyes were as a flame of fire, and his feet like fine brass, as in a burning furnace. And his voice as the sound of many waters." (Apoc. 1:12-15). With this vision before their minds, the worshippers hearing the words of Consecration, "This is My Body" look at the altar, but the vision is not there; they behold Christ stripped of all beauty and comeliness, of all the appearances of a human being, reduced to the form of bread and wine.

This external change in Christ's mode of existence expresses the signification of a true sacrifice, namely, that God's rule over the human race is so absolute that He deserves that, to satisfy His justice for man's sins, not only the whole race should die, but that even the Divine substitute of infinite dignity should be reduced to inanimate matter.

[MarysLittleFlower]

Really interesting this idea of the Holy Mass as Sacrifice is really not emphasised enough today.

We can say though that Christ is present physically in Heaven and in the Eucharist yes? Even though in different ways.