Sermons in Holy Week
By ✠Jerome OSJV, Primus of the Old Roman Apostolate

I. The Shape of Sacrifice: Offering, Death, and Consumption

In the divine pedagogy of the Old Law, sacrifice was never understood as a single gesture, but as a sacred sequence—a liturgical drama unfolding in three essential acts: immolation, application, and consumption. This triadic structure was not arbitrary. It reflected a divinely revealed anthropology and theology. The offering of sacrifice was the means by which sinful man could be reconciled to the All-Holy God, and also the appointed path through which communion with God could be restored.

The first element, immolation, was the slaying of the victim. It signified that sin demands death, that atonement requires the life-blood of an innocent substitute. But slaying alone was insufficient; death in itself is a curse, not a gift. Hence the second moment: the application of the blood—sprinkled upon the altar, the veil, the people—served to consecrate, to purify, and to mark out those who would benefit from the sacrifice. The blood, as Leviticus tells us, is the life, and this life must be poured out for sin to be remitted.

But there was a third act, the climax without which the entire ritual remained incomplete: the consumption of the victim. This was carried out in one of two ways. Either the flesh of the victim was burned on the altar—a holocaust ascending as a “pleasing aroma to the Lord”—or, in the case of communion sacrifices, it was eaten by the priests and, at times, by the faithful. This final act of eating was never perfunctory. It was the sign of divine acceptance and the means of human participation. To eat of the offering was to share in its sanctity, to receive its fruits, to be united with its purpose.

This is why, in the Levitical priesthood, the priest who offered the sacrifice was required to consume it. “The priest shall eat it in the holy place; it is most holy” (Lev. 6:26). This was more than ritual obligation; it was theological necessity. The priest, as mediator, could not remain outside the mystery he enacted. His reception of the victim was the final seal of the offering—a sacramental affirmation that the worship was completed and the covenant renewed.

The failure to complete this third act rendered the sacrifice defective. It would be akin to lighting the fire without placing the offering, or speaking the words of prayer without lifting the heart. Without communion, the sacrifice was not a relationship—it was a gesture left unfinished, a bridge built only halfway.

This ancient liturgical pattern, enshrined by divine command and upheld with reverent care throughout the centuries of temple worship, was not a dead ritual. It was a living prophecy. In its order and symbolism, it prepared Israel—and through Israel, the nations—for the coming of the true Sacrifice.

In this light, we begin to understand why, at the Last Supper, the Evangelists make no mention of a lamb. The bread and wine are present. The apostles are present. But there is no animal. The reason is staggering in its simplicity: Christ Himself is the Lamb. Not placed on the table, but seated at it. Not slain by another, but self-offered. What was once a ritual shadow now becomes reality in the flesh.

Thus, when Christ our Lord enters the world, He does not come to abolish sacrifice, but to fulfill it—to take all that was prefigured in the Old and bring it to its perfection in the New. He does not negate the threefold structure; He intensifies it. He offers Himself as the immolated Victim, sheds His Blood in a true and eternal application, and completes the sacrifice not in the fire of a temple altar nor in the mouth of another, but in His own glorification, when He rises from the dead and ascends to the Father.

As the Epistle to the Hebrews declares, “When Christ appeared as a High Priest of the good things that have come, He entered once for all into the holy places… by means of His own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption” (Heb. 9:11–12). The ancient pattern has not been set aside. It has been fulfilled in Christ—not by imitation, but by actualization. He is the true Lamb, the true Priest, and the true Altar. In Him, offering, death, and consumption reach their telos.

In the Eucharist and in the liturgy of the Church, this mystery continues to be made present—not as mere remembrance, but as a sacramental participation in that same sacrifice of Calvary.

This is what biblical remembrance—anamnesis—has always meant. For the Jew, Passover was never a mere commemoration of past deliverance, but a real entry into that saving event. “This is what the Lord did for me when He brought me out of Egypt,” each generation was taught to say. So too in the Eucharist: the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ is not repeated, but made present—that every soul might encounter what was accomplished once upon the Cross.

And so, the logic of the ancient rite lives on: the one who offers must also receive; the one who confects must consume. For in Christ, and in His Church, the sacrifice is never simply offered—it is received, embraced, and lived.

II. Christ the High Priest and the Paschal Victim

It is a foundational dogma of the Catholic faith that Jesus Christ is both the true High Priest and the spotless Victim of the New and Eternal Covenant. As the Epistle to the Hebrews teaches with singular clarity: “He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself” (Heb. 9:26). Unlike the Levitical priests, who offered animals not their own and blood that was not theirs, Christ offers Himself—body, blood, soul, and divinity. The One who offers is the One who is offered. The altar is sanctified by the Victim who is also the Priest.

This unity—of offerer and offering—is utterly singular in the history of salvation. No prophet, no patriarch, no priest of the old dispensation could approach such a role. Abraham did not offer Isaac, but a ram caught in a thicket. Aaron offered bulls and goats. Christ alone could offer Himself without blemish to God, in the fullness of liberty, charity, and obedience. This is not mere rhetoric—it is the fulfillment of every type, the summit of every prophecy, the very form of worship in spirit and truth.

Yet this singular sacrifice cannot be confined to the physical moment of His death. While Calvary is the apex, it is not the whole. The Cross is the oblation—there, the Victim is slain. But in the divine liturgy of salvation, the sacrifice has a consummation: in the Resurrection and in the Ascension. For the purpose of sacrifice is not death alone, but life through death. It is not the extinguishing of the offering, but its transfiguration.

The consumption of the ancient sacrifices signified both the completion of the offering and communion with it. But who shall consume the slain and risen Christ? Not the priest, for Christ is the priest. Not the fire of an altar, for He is the altar. The answer is more profound: the sacrifice is consumed by glorification. Christ rises not as a ghost or a memory, but as the same Victim who was slain—now glorified. He ascends into heaven not to abandon His people, but to present His own Blood before the Father, bearing the marks of His Passion into the heavenly sanctuary.

In the words of the Roman Canon, He ascends “to Thy altar on high,” bearing not a symbol, but His real, risen Body—pierced, transfigured, and glorified. The Father receives the Son not as a memory, but as a living Host, a perpetual offering. The Ascension is thus not a postscript to the Cross, but its liturgical fulfillment. It is the eternal Amen of the Father to the Son’s Consummatum est—“It is finished.”

Christ, then, is the glorified Host, the Victim who lives forever, continually offered and eternally received. He is both the Sacrament and the Altar, both the Priest and the Temple. This is why the Eucharistic sacrifice is not a mere repetition, but a real re-presentation of this mystery. In every Mass, what was offered once on Calvary and consummated in heaven is made present under the veil of sacrament, that the Church might be united to her Spouse through the Victim who now reigns.

In this we see the radiant logic of the Incarnation. The Son became man not only to die, but to be received. He took on flesh not only to shed His Blood, but to take that Blood into the sanctuary not made with hands. And in so doing, He shows us that true sacrifice ends not in destruction, but in glory.

III. The Priest Must Consume the Offering

In every true sacrifice, as shaped by divine institution and tradition, the act of consuming the victim is not an optional or decorative appendage, but a theological necessity. It signifies both the completion of the offering and the communion between God and man that the sacrifice is intended to establish. To slay the victim and pour out its blood, yet never receive it, would be to halt the liturgy midstream—to suspend the act of worship before it reaches its proper consummation.

This liturgical and spiritual logic is carried forward into the New Covenant, where the priest does not offer the blood of goats or bulls, but offers Christ Himself, truly present under the sacramental signs. The Mass is not merely a ritual reenactment or an abstract commemoration. It is a true re-presentation of the Sacrifice of Calvary, sacramentally enacted in time. And just as Christ, in offering Himself, enters wholly into the mystery of His oblation, so too must the priest who acts in persona Christi.

Therefore, it is not enough that the priest speak the words of consecration. He must also receive what he has consecrated. The Eucharist is not a thing to be created and admired from afar. It is a gift to be consumed—first and foremost by the one who has offered it. This consumption is not merely a pious privilege. It is part of the essence of the sacrificial action. The priest must not only say, Hoc est enim Corpus meum; he must, with Christ, offer and receive the same Body, given up for the salvation of the world.

To omit this final act would rupture the very structure of the Mass. For while the faithful’s reception of Holy Communion is a great good and a spiritual nourishment, it is not necessary for the completion of the sacrifice. Only the celebrant’s communion is strictly required, for it is he who stands at the altar not merely as a participant, but as the ministerial presence of Christ Himself.

This is why, in the rubrics of the traditional Roman rite—as codified in the Missale Romanum and faithfully preserved until modern interventions—the priest is bound to consume both Species. He must receive the Body and the Blood, so that the full reality of the sacrifice is enacted: the Body separated from the Blood, representing death; then reunited in the living recipient, representing glorified life.

It is also for this reason that the celebrant’s communion is not a private moment of devotion, but a liturgical act, governed by its own prayers and integrated seamlessly into the order of the Mass. The Domine, non sum dignus, the Quid retribuam, and the careful reception at the altar—each of these shows that the priest’s communion is part of the sacred drama, not a break from it.

Here we see that the celebrant’s communion is not simply an individual’s encounter with Christ, but the sacramental completion of the very oblation he has made present. He who confects must consume. He who offers must receive. He who brings Christ down to the altar must, in obedience and humility, receive Him in return.

And in this, the priest enters into the very mystery of Christ’s own self-offering. For Christ did not merely give Himself to others. He gave Himself completely—to the Father, and even to Himself, in perfect unity of will and being. He held nothing back. The priest, too, must offer himself with Christ and for Christ, and he must receive the sacramental Victim as a sign that he has given all.

Only then is the Sacrifice completed—not just on the altar, but in the soul of the priest who offers it.

IV. The Unique Silence of Good Friday

Among the most profound liturgical expressions of the Church’s theology of sacrifice is found not in what is done, but in what is not done on Good Friday. The liturgy of this day, as preserved in the traditional Roman Rite before the reforms of 1955, is unique in all the Church’s calendar. It is called the Mass of the Presanctified—a term that strikes modern ears as paradoxical, perhaps even oxymoronic. How can there be a Mass where the Eucharist is not consecrated?

The answer leads us deep into the heart of the Paschal Mystery and reveals with stunning clarity the Church’s belief in the singularity and sufficiency of Christ’s Sacrifice. On this day, the Church does not confect the Eucharist anew, because Christ is not sacrificed again. Rather, the Host consecrated on Holy Thursday is brought forth with solemn reverence, processed in silence, and received by the priest alone. There is no Consecration. There is no elevation. There is no Ite, missa est. Instead, there is stillness, veneration, and awe.

This silence is not emptiness. It is fullness made manifest by restraint. It is the Church standing at the foot of the Cross, in tears, in mourning, in sacred dread. The Mass of the Presanctified declares by its very structure: “Today, Christ alone acts. We are here not to replicate, but to adore.”

Why does the priest alone consume the Host? Because today, he is not functioning in the ordinary rhythm of sacramental mediation. He does not say, Hoc est enim Corpus meum. He does not bring Christ to the altar by his words. Instead, he receives the pre-consecrated Host—Christ already present, already offered—and does so alone, in the name of the Church. Just as on Calvary, only one could bear the Cross, only one could say, Consummatum est, so now only one receives the Fruit of that Tree.

This is no liturgical minimalism. It is maximal realism. The priest alone receives the Host because he is configured to the One who, on this day, offered Himself alone. The solitude of the celebrant is a sacramental icon of the solitude of Christ—abandoned by His disciples, silent before His accusers, pierced and poured out in the sight of the world.

The faithful, too, enter into this mystery not by taking, but by beholding. The act of adoration replaces reception. The veiled crucifix is unveiled. The people kneel thrice in veneration. The sacred ministers prostrate. All eyes are on the Cross—and through the Cross, on the Host reserved, the Body broken, the Lamb once slain.

In this way, the traditional Good Friday liturgy teaches us the utter uniqueness of Christ’s priesthood. No other priest can offer what He offers. No other man can stand where He stood. The Sacrifice is complete. It is perfect. It is once for all. And on this day, the Church dares not imitate, but only enter into that one Sacrifice by awe and by love.

What emerges is a liturgical paradox that only tradition dares to hold: the greatest act of divine love is marked not by multiplicity of action, but by reduction, even deprivation. There is no Gloria. No bells. No candles on the altar. No full Mass. The Church is stripped as Christ was stripped—her liturgy conformed to His Passion.
And yet, precisely in this starkness, the fullness of the mystery shines. The priest’s solitary communion is not a restriction—it is a theological statement. It says to the world: Only Christ could do this.
And He has done it.
Once. For all. Forever.

V. The Resurrection: Not the Undoing, but the Fulfillment

There is a grave and persistent error, often whispered subtly in modern catechesis, that the Resurrection somehow cancels the Cross—that Easter reverses Good Friday, that the joy of life eclipses the sorrow of death. But this is not the teaching of the Church. The Resurrection is not the undoing of the Sacrifice—it is its fulfillment. It is not the negation of the Cross, but its vindication, consummation, and eternal exaltation.

St. Paul declares: “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is in vain” (1 Cor. 15:17). But why? Not because the Resurrection adds something entirely separate from the Cross, but because it completes what the Cross begins. The death of Christ is the oblation—the perfect self-offering of the Lamb of God. But the purpose of sacrifice is not death for its own sake; it is communion, glorification, peace. A burnt offering that remained in ashes without being taken up would be a sacrifice without answer. A lamb slain but never consumed would be a ritual incomplete.

The Fathers of the Church grasped this instinctively. For them, the Resurrection was the divine receipt—proof that the Father had accepted the offering of the Son. It was the evidence that the sacrifice had been efficacious. Christ did not merely die. He died for us—and rose for us, that we might not only be cleansed of sin, but raised to life. As the prophet Hosea foretold, “He will revive us after two days; on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live before Him” (Hos. 6:2).

In the Old Law, the consumption of the victim by fire or by the priest signified that the sacrifice had reached its goal. In the New Covenant, the glorification of Christ’s Body in the Resurrection is the sacramental reality to which those earlier signs pointed. No longer destroyed, the Victim is transfigured. No longer dead, the Lamb now lives to intercede. As the Exsultet proclaims on Easter night: “Christ, your Son, who, coming back from death’s domain, has shed His peaceful light on humanity, and lives and reigns forever and ever.”

This glorified life is not disconnected from the Passion. The Risen Christ is still the Crucified One. His wounds are not erased, but glorified. His Body is not replaced, but transformed. The Victim remains the same—only now He reigns, enthroned in glory, offering Himself perpetually before the Father. He is, in the language of the Roman Canon, “Hostiam puram, hostiam sanctam, hostiam immaculatam”—a pure, holy, and spotless Victim, not once offered and forgotten, but once offered and forever present.

Thus, the Resurrection is not a separate mystery, but the completion of the one Mystery of Christ. Calvary without Easter would be a noble death, a martyrdom perhaps—but not a redemptive act with cosmic consequences. Easter without Calvary would be triumph without cause, glory without sacrifice. But together, the Cross and the Resurrection form the indivisible unity of the Paschal Mystery, the center of our faith, the font of all grace.

This is why the traditional liturgy moves from Holy Saturday into Easter with such reverent gravity. The Church does not leap from the tomb in haste, but waits in silence until the light breaks forth. The fire is blessed. The candle is lit. The Exsultet is chanted. Baptismal water flows. And finally, the Alleluia is sung—not as a spontaneous reaction, but as a liturgical declaration: the Sacrifice has been accepted, and the Victim now lives.

In the Mass, this unity is preserved. The Host consecrated on the altar is the same Christ who died and rose. The priest consumes not a fragment of the past, but the living Body of the risen Lord. Every Eucharist is a participation in the same Sacrifice that was consummated on Easter morning and now ascends into eternity. As the Church sings in the Paschal Preface: “By the oblation of His Body, He brought the sacrifices of old to fulfillment in the reality of the Cross, and by commending Himself to You for our salvation, showed Himself to be the Priest, the Altar, and the Lamb of sacrifice.”

In Christ’s Resurrection, therefore, the sacrifice is not reversed—it is received, glorified, eternalized.
What was offered in time is now presented in eternity.
What was slain is now alive.
What was veiled in suffering is now radiant in light.
The Victim has become the Host.
The Priest has entered the sanctuary not made by hands. And the Church now feeds upon the Fruit of the Tree of Life.

Conclusion

The mystery of Christ’s priesthood cannot be understood apart from His victimhood, nor can His sacrifice be rightly grasped without seeing its consummation in glory.

The Incarnate Word came into the world not only to teach, not only to die, but to offer Himself—freely, fully, finally—and to unite the world to God through that offering. The Cross is the altar; His Body, the Victim; His Soul, the Priest. And in His Resurrection and Ascension, the same Victim is received by the Father, exalted above the heavens, and made perpetually present to the Church in the Most Holy Eucharist.

Herein lies the greatness of the Catholic priesthood: not in the exercise of ecclesiastical power, but in the priest’s share in this ineffable mystery. The priest is not his own. He is ordained to act in persona Christi—to say not, “This is Christ’s Body,” but “This is My Body.” He is conformed to the One who offered Himself, and so must himself offer and be offered.

This is why the priest must consume what he consecrates. He cannot remain outside the sacrifice he makes present. He must enter into it. He must receive the Victim so that the action he performs is not an empty shell, but a living act. This communion is not optional, not devotional, but essential to the liturgical consummation of the Sacrifice.

And this is why, on Good Friday, the Church in her traditional rite makes a profound and deliberate exception. There, at the altar stripped of ornament, with no consecration, no Mass in the full sense, the priest alone receives the pre-consecrated Host. Not because others are unworthy—but because today Christ alone offers, Christ alone dies, and Christ alone is received. The Church enters into her Lord’s Passion not as imitator but as witness, in silence, in reverence, in awe.

The logic of divine worship is not egalitarian. It is not performative. It is sacrificial. And sacrifice demands not only offering, but also consummation—completion, communion, and ultimately, glorification. In Christ’s death and Resurrection, all three are fulfilled. And in the traditional liturgy of the Church, all three are confessed—not merely in doctrine, but in gesture, word, and silence.

Thus the Church lives out the words of St. Paul: “Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us; therefore let us keep the feast” (1 Cor. 5:7–8). The feast is not a denial of the sacrifice, but its fruit. The glory of Easter does not replace Good Friday—it arises from it, as light from darkness, as life from death, as glory from the Cross.

And so, every time the priest ascends the altar, he carries with him the entire mystery: Calvary, the tomb, the empty garden, the Mount of Ascension. He speaks Christ’s words, he offers Christ’s Body, he receives Christ’s Flesh—and by that reception, he completes what Christ Himself completed: the one eternal sacrifice, offered once and for all, but present in every age.

To believe this is to be Catholic.
To celebrate this is to be liturgical.
To enter into this is to be united with Christ the Priest and the Victim, the Lamb slain, the Lord glorified.
To Him be honor and glory forever. Amen.

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Lent Conferences 2025

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