Two Paradigms on the Eucharist as Sacrifice: Scheeben and Journet in Dialogue

Introduction

The aim of this essay is to set into dialogue and, ultimately, synthesize two different approaches to the perennial question of the sacrificial character of the Mass, those of Matthias J. Scheeben (1835–1888) and Charles Journet (1891–1975). I have chosen Scheeben and Journet precisely because they approach this question from opposite directions, both of which deserve retrieval in certain ways today. Scheeben is heir to post-Tridentine speculation on the Mass that focuses on the Church's new act of offering sacrifice. For Scheeben, the Mass is a sacrifice of the Church precisely because her gifts are transubstantiated into the body and blood of the glorified Christ, whence her members partake of the fruits of his Passion. Journet, on the other hand, emphasizes the numerical unity of the Church's offering with Christ's Passion. The Mass is a sacrifice because, in it, Christ's Passion is sacramentally re-presented and is, therefore, made present in power. At bottom, these positions represent different ways of accessing the texts of St. Thomas, as we shall see.

By placing Scheeben and Journet in dialogue, I hope to show that their approaches can, if taken noncompetitively, mutually inform one another, producing a resultant position that is stronger than either taken individually. I will anticipate my conclusion here by saying that, although I consider Journet's position to be stronger taken in itself (it foregrounds what is of primary importance), nevertheless, I also think Scheeben's position provides a necessary counterpoint to Journet's, since it illumines other aspects of the tradition that Journet, for the most part, leaves undeveloped. In so doing, I hope to contribute to the ongoing recovery of the Eucharist's properly sacrificial dimension in contemporary Catholic theology.

This essay will proceed in three parts. In the first, I will set forth Scheeben's theory of Eucharistic sacrifice. In the second, I will examine Journet's counter-proposal. In the last, I will set the positions in dialogue, showing how their different approaches are nevertheless able to mutually inform one another.

Scheeben on the Eucharistic Sacrifice

In order to understand Scheeben's (initially counterintuitive) position on Eucharistic sacrifice, it is necessary to first set forth some of the defining features of his sacrificial theology in general. To this end, I will first examine his take on the requisite alteration or immutatio needed to distinguish a sacrifice from a mere oblation: is it, he asks, an exclusively destructive action? In this connection, I will also discuss Scheeben's position on what this alteration—or series of alterations—is intended to express in terms of a human being's relationship to God. By first surveying these two topics, we will be better positioned to understand the particulars of his theory of Eucharistic sacrifice.

Scheeben begins his detailed treatment of sacrifice in volume 5/2 of his Handbuch with a discussion of the narrowing of its meaning and external form in the post-Tridentine period, next to which he presents his own position as the recovery of a broader (Augustini-an-Thomistic) perspective. The meaning of sacrifice is narrowed, Scheeben tells us, when the "vantage point under which God should be specifically honored by sacrifice" is taken in too restricted a fashion or when the goal for which it is offered is likewise truncated.¹ Its meaning is narrowed when latreutic sacrifice, the highest form of sacrifice, is offered to God only for the recognition of God's majesty, next to which creaturely being is nothing.² The goal for which sacrifice is offered is truncated when its latreutic aims are subordinated to "the expiation to be performed for sin," which is now taken as the "primary aim of sacrifice."³ Against these truncations of the scope of its meaning and aim, Scheeben sets forth his own position by referring back to the broader conceptions of Augustine and Thomas.

With Augustine, Scheeben affirms that sacrifice is the highest expression of religion: it orders the creature to God "for his honor and glorification" through the ordering of the creature...