Yes, this blog post is entitled “Papal Funeral Mass and the Real Issue with Roman Theology”, and the word “Real” is pun-intended.
I obviously know the Anglican liturgies very well (especially those in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer), having used some of them weekly (or even more often) for many, many years. They are words of prayer that score deep into your soul, and that is the point. When Thomas Cranmer wrote the 1549 prayer book, he did not do so in a vacuum, but started with the pre-existing and widely used Sarum Rite. This is why Communion liturgies have many similarities across a range of denominations. When you know something well, details that are not what you’d expect stand out for attention. Reading through the liturgy for today’s funeral mass for Pope Francis, I was struck by two key differences.
The key thing to notice is that transubstantiation is a problem, but is not the big one.
(As an aside, this is why liturgy – the words we pray during our corporate worship – matters; liturgy conveys theology, and wires us to believe those truths quite deeply.)
Transubstantiation
Today's funeral service includes the following sentence:
“Therefore, O Lord, we humbly implore you: by the same Spirit graciously make holy these gifts we have brought to you for consecration, that they may become the Body and Blood of your Son our Lord Jesus Christ, at whose command we celebrate these mysteries.”
This comes immediately before the section that quotes from 1 Corinthians 11, “on the night that he was betrayed, etc.”. Contrast the 1662 BCP at the same point in the service:
“Hear us, O merciful Father, we most humbly beseech thee; and grant that we receiving these thy creatures of bread and wine, according to thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ’s holy institution, in remembrance of his death and passion, may be partakers of his most blessed Body and Blood.”
It's a prayer for “we receiving these thy creatures”, that we “may be partakers”, rather than a prayer for the “gifts” of bread and wine themselves. They don't “become” anything.
The modern-day Church of England service of Common Worship follows the same track as the BCP, albeit with slightly more ambiguity. Here's the equivalent line from Eucharistic Prayer A:
“Grant that by the power of your Holy Spirit these gifts of bread and wine may be to us his body and his blood.”
They don't change. They change “to us”.
Prayer B does the same thing; prayer C follows the BCP’s wording; prayer D doesn't contain an equivalent clause; prayer E is nearly the same (“be for us”). F, G and H either read “for us” or “to us”, although shift it to after the 1 Corinthians 11 quotation.
The “slightly more ambiguity” comes from the fact that Common Worship has moved the BCP’s prayer for us, into a prayer for the elements to be something to us. But that's still very different from today’s Roman Catholic funeral rite, where the prayer is for the elements themselves to become something.
However, as I say, this is not the real (sic.) problem here. The problem is why it matters in the Roman rite that the bread and wine become Jesus’ body and blood.
Re-presentation
After proclaiming “the mystery of faith”, the funeral service continues:
“Therefore, O Lord, as we celebrate the memorial of the saving Passion of your Son, his wondrous Resurrection and Ascension into heaven, and as we look forward to his second coming, we offer you in thanksgiving this holy and living sacrifice.”
The bread and wine have become the body and blood of Jesus, so now “we offer” “this holy and living sacrifice”. The person leading the service is offering Jesus, as a living sacrifice to God. Jesus, present in the bread and wine, is offered to God for fresh acceptance. It's unclear from this alone if he is seen as being sacrificed again, or if the sacrifice being offered is his one on the cross 2,000 years ago.
The contrast with the BCP could not be starker. Significantly, the Roman service does not contain the word “once” anywhere. The BCP Prayer of Consecration contains this line:
“who made there (by his one oblation of himself once offered) a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world”
So where is the BCP equivalent to the Roman line about thanksgiving leading to a living sacrifice? It comes after the bread and the wine have been taken and eaten / drunk.
“O Lord and heavenly Father, we thy humble servants entirely desire thy fatherly goodness mercifully to accept this our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. … And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice unto thee.”
Having been partakers of Christ (who died a sufficient death, once for all), by eating bread which remains bread, we come to God in thanksgiving and offer a “holy and living sacrifice” to him. That sacrifice is not Jesus, but us. We are the living sacrifices.
Transubstantiation is a problem. But the reason it's a problem is not because of that teaching in itself. The problem is that transubstantiation turns the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, so that he can be offered up to God for fresh acceptance. The Communion elements become a living sacrifice, undermining Jesus’ once for all ”one oblation of himself once offered, a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world.”
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