Eucharistic Sacrifice- East and West, Ancient and Modern

East-- St John Chrysostom "Homily 17 on Hebrews" Late 300's
Entire Text: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf114.v.xxi.html

"Do we not offer sacrifice daily? We do indeed, but as a memorial of his death and this oblation is single and not manifold. But how can it be one and not many? Because it has been offered once for all, as was the ancient sacrifice in the holy of holies. This is the figure of that ancient sacrifice, as indeed it was of this one; for it is the same Jesus Christ we offer always, not now one victim and later another. The victim is always the same, so that the sacrifice is one. Are we going to say that because Christ is offered in many places, there are many Christs? Of course not. It is one and the same Christ everywhere; he is here in his entirety, and there in his entirety, one unique body. Just as he is one body, not many bodies, although offered in many places, so the sacrifice is one and the same. Our high-priest is the very same Christ who has offered the sacrifice which cleanses us. The victim who was offered then, who cannot be consumed, is the self-same victim we offer now. “What we do is done as a memorial of what was done then.” We do not offer a different sacrifice, but always the same one 'or rather we accomplish the memorial of it.'"


West-- John Paul II "ECCLESIA DE EUCHARISTIA" 2003
Entire Text: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/special_features/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_20030417_ecclesia_eucharistia_en.html

12. "This aspect of the universal charity of the Eucharistic Sacrifice is based on the words of the Saviour himself. In instituting it, he did not merely say: “This is my body”, “this is my blood”, but went on to add: “which is given for you”, “which is poured out for you” (Lk 22:19-20). Jesus did not simply state that what he was giving them to eat and drink was his body and his blood; he also expressed its sacrificial meaning and made sacramentally present his sacrifice which would soon be offered on the Cross for the salvation of all. “The Mass is at the same time, and inseparably, the sacrificial memorial in which the sacrifice of the Cross is perpetuated and the sacred banquet of communion with the Lord’s body and blood”.

The Church constantly draws her life from the redeeming sacrifice; she approaches it not only through faith-filled remembrance, but also through a real contact, since this sacrifice is made present ever anew, sacramentally perpetuated, in every community which offers it at the hands of the consecrated minister. The Eucharist thus applies to men and women today the reconciliation won once for all by Christ for mankind in every age. “The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice”. Saint John Chrysostom put it well: “We always offer the same Lamb, not one today and another tomorrow, but always the same one. For this reason the sacrifice is always only one... Even now we offer that victim who was once offered and who will never be consumed”.

The Mass makes present the sacrifice of the Cross; it does not add to that sacrifice nor does it multiply it. What is repeated is its memorial celebration, its “commemorative representation” (memorialis demonstratio), which makes Christ's one, definitive redemptive sacrifice always present in time. The sacrificial nature of the Eucharistic mystery cannot therefore be understood as something separate, independent of the Cross or only indirectly referring to the sacrifice of Calvary."