Offering a sacrifice at the mass--meaning? one sacrifice

also here from comment 5 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2010/02/lawrence-feingold-on-the-sacrament-of-holy-orders-and-the-ministerial-priesthood/#comment-39778

"Christ’s priesthood on earth would have ended with his death, resurrection, and ascension if there were no means by which, after Calvary, his self-oblation, once-offered, is made efficaciously present on earth. However, because Christ instituted the Eucharist, which is the representation of his sacrifice under the forms of bread and wine, and is efficacious for the forgiveness of sins, his priesthood on earth did not come to an end with his death, but continues sacramentally until the end of time.

from comment 7:

Even as each believer is a visible priest, ordained by Baptism to offer the spiritual sacrifice of their visible bodies (Romans 12:1), each Bishop and Presbyter is a visible priest, ordained by the laying on of hands to offer the visible, sacramental sacrifice of the Mass. Both kinds of priesthood are based upon an oath, that is, upon a sacrament of the New Covenant. This is not a strange mixture, but a blessed fulfillment of the Old Covenant:

For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is great among the nations, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure offering; for my name is great among the nations, says the LORD of hosts. (Malachi 1:11)

Christ is our high priest (Hebrews 4:14) and the shepherd and bishop of our souls (1 Peter 2:25). His priesthood, pastorate, and episcopacy does not exclude other priests / pastors / bishops. Rather, the Christian ministry, both lay and ordained, is a participation in the ministry of Christ himself, in the Church, for the life of the world."

from comment 8:

" The Catholic Church does not teach that there are two distinct kinds of priesthood, she teaches that there is only one kind of priesthood in the Catholic Church – the priesthood of Christ.

Catechism of the Catholic Church

The one priesthood of Christ

1544 Everything that the priesthood of the Old Covenant prefigured finds its fulfillment in Christ Jesus, the “one mediator between God and men.” The Christian tradition considers Melchizedek, “priest of God Most High,” as a prefiguration of the priesthood of Christ, the unique “high priest after the order of Melchizedek”; “holy, blameless, unstained,” “by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified, “that is, by the unique sacrifice of the cross.”

1548 … “Christ is the source of all priesthood: the priest of the old law was a figure of Christ, and the priest of the new law acts in the person of Christ.”

The priest of the new law acts in the person of Christ, and there is, in the Church that Christ personally founded, two participations in the one priesthood of Christ; the participation of the “common priesthood of all the faithful”, and the participation of “the ministerial or hierarchical priesthood of bishops and priests” (i.e. the participation of the ordained priesthood).

For more on this, see Catechism of the Catholic Church 1544-1547.

http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p2s2c3a6.htm#1545 "

from comment 13:(note  anamnesis --in memory)-39778http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2010/02/lawrence-feingold-on-the-sacrament-of-holy-orders-and-the-ministerial-priesthood/#comment-39778

"Christ commanded his Apostles to “do this in memory of Me.” Separating the institution from the celebration of the Eucharist, as if Christ were doing one thing (celebrating the Passover) and giving instructions for another (celebrating the Eucharist) would make it impossible for the Apostles to obey the Lord’s command to “do this.” Rather than introducing this false dichotomy, the anamnesis clause (εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν ἀνάμνησιν) qualifies the manner in which “this” (τοῦτο) is to be done (ποιεῖτε). But the antecedent of the pronoun is the ritual action of Our Lord described in the previous verses; i.e., what he just did, which is what the Apostles are commanded to do. What he did was to re-present his Body and Blood under the forms of bread and wine. This is the kind of sacrifice that one would expect to be offered by a priest according to the order of Melchiziedek (Genesis 14:18). And it is the same sacrifice that is offered by (ordained) Catholic priests when they celebrate the Eucharist.

There may also be a sense in which the Last Supper itself was celebrated “in memory of me”: According to Numbers 10:10, Israel’s sacrifices were for them a “remembrance” (LXX: anamnesis) of God. But this does not imply that God was not present at the memorial sacrifices, such that those sacrifices only served to call to mind the past, to the exclusion of the present (presence) and future. Rather, theanamnesis seems to bear the sense, along with recollection of past events, of “calling to mind” the God who is present, and who will always be faithful to his people. I agree that the Last Supper was celebrated in “anticipation” of Calvary, in the sense of looking forward to an event yet to take place: “this is my Blood, which will be shed for many….” But this anticipation would seem to fall within the ambit of anamnesis, as just explained."

from comment 25--

 The distinction between the Last Supper and Calvary is a distinction in the time and mode, not the substance, of the sacrifice. The distinction between the Last Supper and the first Eucharist celebrated after Calvary is a distinction in time, not substance or mode. The anamnesis of the Last Supper involved a calling to mind in anticipation of Calvary, while theanamnesis of the first Eucharist celebrated after Calvary, and every subsequent Eucharist, involves a calling to mind in recollection of the Lord’s death.

all the comments here are very helpful in this discussion and as to relates to Hebrews : http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2010/02/lawrence-feingold-on-the-sacrament-of-holy-orders-and-the-ministerial-priesthood/#comment-39778http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2010/02/lawrence-feingold-on-the-sacrament-of-holy-orders-and-the-ministerial-priesthood/#comment-39778

from comment 77 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2010/06/reformed-imputation-and-the-lords-prayer/:

Concerning Hebrews 10: 15-18, Haydock writes:

Now where there is remission of these, there is no more an oblation for sin. That is, there is no need of any other oblation to redeem us from sin, after the price of our redemption from sin is paid. There is no need of any other different oblation; all that is wanting, is the application of the merits and satisfactions of Christ. No need of those sacrifices, which were ordered in the law of Moses. To convince them of this, is the main design of St. Paul in this place. The pretended reformers, from several expressions of St. Paul in this chapter, think they have clear proofs that no sacrifice at all ought to be offered after Christ’s one sacrifice on the cross; and that so many sacrifices and oblations of masses, are both needless and against the doctrine of the apostle, who says, that Christ by one oblation hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. (ver. 14.) And again, that where there is a remission of sins, now there is no more an oblation for sin. This objection, which is obvious enough, was not first invented by the Calvinists against them they nickname Papists: the same is found in the ancient Fathers; and by their answers, and what they have witnessed concerning the daily sacrifice of the mass, they may find their doctrine of a religion without a continued sacrifice evidently against the doctrine and practice of the Catholic Church from the first ages[centuries] of the Christian religion, till they came to be reformers, not of manners, but of the Catholic belief.

Hear St. Chrysostom (Hom. xvii.) in his commentary on this very chapter: “What then, saith he, do not we offer up (or make an oblation) every day? We offer up indeed, but with a remembrance of his death. And this oblation is one, and not many. How is it one, and not many? …because, as he that is offered many times, and in many places, is the same body, not many and different bodies, so is it one sacrifice. He (Christ) is our high priest, who offered this sacrifice, by which we are cleansed: we now offer up the same….He said: Do this in remembrance of me. We do not offer a different sacrifice, but the very same, as then our high priest.” St. Chrysostom here says, and repeats it over and over again, that we offer up a sacrifice. 2. That we offer it up every day. 3. That the sacrifice which we daily offer isone and the same oblation, one and the same sacrifice, which our high priest, Christ, offered. 4. That in offering this sacrifice, which in all places, and at all times, is the same body of Christ, and the same sacrifice, we do, and offer it, as he commanded us at his last supper, with a remembrance of him. Is this the practice, and is this the doctrine of our dear countrymen, the English Protestants? But at least it is the constant doctrine, as well as practice, of the whole Catholic Church.

The council of Trent, as we have already cited the words, (chap. vii.) teacheth the very same as St. Chrysostom who never says, as some one of late hath pretended, that what we offer is a remembrance only. As the sacrament of the Eucharist, according to the words of Christ in the gospel, is to be taken with a remembrance of him, and yet is not a remembrance only, but is his body and blood, so the sacrifice is to be performed with a remembrance of his benefits and sufferings, by his priests and ministers, but at the same time is a true and propitiatory sacrifice, the priests daily sacrifice, and offer up the same sacrifice, the manner only being different. The sacrifice and mass offered by Peter, is not different in the notion of a sacrifice or oblation from that of Paul, though the priests and their particular actions be different: the same sacrifice was offered by the apostles, and in all Christian ages; and the same sacrifice, according to the prophecy of Malachias, (chap. i. ver. 11.) shall be offered in all nations to the end of the world. This doctrine and practice is not only witnessed by St. Chrysostom but generally by the ancient Fathers and interpreters, as we have taken notice in short in the annotations on St. Matthew. See St. Ignatius, in his epistle to the people of Smyrna; St. Justin Martyr, in his dialogue with Tryphon; St. Irenæus, lib. 4. chap. xxxii. and xxxiv.; Tertullian, lib. de Velandis Virg.; Eusebius lib. 1. de demonst. Evang. chap. ult.[last]; St. Jerome, ep. ad Evangelu,; St. Ambrose, in Psalm xxxviii. and on 1 chap. of St. Luke; St. Augustine, lib. 16. de civ. Dei. chap. xxii. lib. cont. Advers. legis chap. 22. and lib. ix. Confess. chap. xii.; St. Chrysostom, hom. lx. ad Pop. Antiochenum. et hom. lxxii. in Matt.; The first general council of Nice[Nicaea].

But from this one oblation on the cross and remission of sins, obtained by our Saviour Christ, will our adversaries pretend insisting on the bare letter, that Christ has done all for us, and that we need do nothing, unless perhaps endeavour to catch hold of the justifying cloak of Christ’s justice by faith only? At this rate the love of God and of our neighbour, a life of self-denials, such as Christ preached to every one in the gospel, the practices of prayer, fastings, almsdeeds, and all good works, the sacraments instituted by our Saviour Christ may be all safely laid aside; and we may conclude from hence, that all men’s sins are remitted before they are committed. Into what extravagances do men run, when their private spirit pretends to follow the letter of the Holy Scriptures, and when they make their private judgment the supreme guide in matter of divine faith? It is very true, that Christ hath paid the ransom of all our sins, and his satisfactions are infinite; but to partake of the benefit of this general redemption, the merits and satisfaction of Christ are to be applied to our souls, and this by the order of Providence is to be done not only by faith but by other virtues, by good works, by the sacraments, and by repeating the oblation and the same sacrifice, the manner only being different, according to the doctrine and practice of the Catholic Church form the apostle’s time.

In short, in the first part of 10:14 the author of Hebrews is talking about redemption, not the application of redemption. The “being sanctified” part of the verse is the application of Christ’s redemptive work.

There is a good article here---http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2010/05/holy-orders-and-the-priesthood/#proofofsacrificialpriesthood
good to read all of it.  But part e is this one---and then he goes into objections--I am going to give e in full:

"The vocabulary of the Christian Church has developed over the generations with ‘presbyter’ and ‘bishop;’ it was no different with sacrificial language. The universality of terminological agreement was solidified first with the ‘presbyter’/'bishop’ distinction, and next with the sacrificial language. Interestingly, it was only after these two concepts were universally understood that the Church finally solidified her Trinitarian language. That is, the Church spoke consistently of the clergy and of the sacrifice of the mass before she could speak as we do today about the Trinity.¹⁶⁰

Over the centuries, the word ‘presbyter’ was invested with sacrificial meaning by virtue of the action that presbyters performed, namely the sacrifice of the Eucharist. Eventually the word itself evolved into the English word ‘priest.’ So whatever investment we have in that English word is actually derived from the meanings invested into the word ‘presbyter’ by the Church. Furthermore, it is true that the original meaning of the word was “elder,” but even in the New Testament period this word was already being invested with priestly significance. For example, we see presbyters acting as priests in the New Testament. Revelation 5:8 has presbyters (elders) offering up the prayers of the saints, and St. Paul describes his duty as “priestly” (hierourgeo) in Romans 15:16.

If the Church fell into error regarding the sacrificial priesthood, as Protestants claim, it would be an enormous error. The immediate and universal acceptance of the sacrificial priesthood without contention or debate is solid evidence that it is not an error but belongs to the Apostolic Tradition. The early Church Fathers consistently bear witness to the sacrificial nature of the priesthood.¹⁶¹ The Didache, one of the earliest Christian texts outside of the New Testament, says:

And on the Lord’s own day gather yourselves together and break bread and give thanks, first confessing your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure. And let no man, having his dispute with his fellow, join your assembly until they have been reconciled, that your sacrifice may not be defiled; for this sacrifice it is that was spoken of by the Lord; {In every place and at every time offer Me a pure sacrifice; for I am a great king, saith the Lord and My name is wonderful among the nations.}¹⁶²

St. Clement of Rome writes in the first century:

Our sin will not be small if we eject from the episcopate those who blamelessly and holily have offered its Sacrifices [προσενεγκόντας].¹⁶³

St. Justin Martyr writes around the middle of the second century:

God speaks through Malachias, one of the twelve, [minor prophets] as follows: ‘I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord; and I will not accept your sacrifices from your hands; for from the rising of the sun until its setting, my name has been glorified among the gentiles; and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a clean offering: for great is my name among the gentiles, says the Lord; but you profane it.’¹⁶⁴ It is of the sacrifices offered to Him in every place by us, the gentiles, that is, of the Bread of the Eucharist and likewise of the cup of the Eucharist, that He speaks at that time; and He says that we glorify His name, while you profane it. ¹⁶⁵

St. Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus, writes to St. Victor, Bishop of Rome, in the year A.D. 190, about ninety years after the Apostle John died:

Again there is John, who leant back on the Lord’s breast, and who became a sacrificing priest wearing the mitre, a martyr and a teacher; he too sleeps in Ephesus.¹⁶⁶

St. Irenaeus, bishop of Lyon, writes toward the end of the second century:

Again, giving directions to His disciples to offer to God the first-fruits of His own, created things— not as if He stood in need of them, but that they might be themselves neither unfruitful nor ungrateful— He took that created thing, bread, and gave thanks, and said, This is My body. Matthew 26:26, etc. And the cup likewise, which is part of that creation to which we belong, He confessed to be His blood, and taught the new oblation of the new covenant; which the Church receiving from the apostles, offers to God throughout all the world, to Him who gives us as the means of subsistence the first-fruits of His own gifts in the New Testament, concerning which Malachi, among the twelve prophets, thus spoke beforehand: I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord Omnipotent, and I will not accept sacrifice at your hands. For from the rising of the sun, unto the going down [of the same], My name is glorified among the Gentiles, and in every place incense is offered to My name, and a pure sacrifice; for great is My name among the Gentiles, says the Lord Omnipotent; Malachi 1:10-11 — indicating in the plainest manner, by these words, that the former people [the Jews] shall indeed cease to make offerings to God, but that in every place sacrifice shall be offered to Him, and that a pure one; and His name is glorified among the Gentiles.¹⁶⁷

So we can see the concept present from the earliest writings of the Church. But as always, the terminology and doctrine (teaching) would take some time to gain universal consistency. St. Cyprian of Carthage in the middle of the third century would explicitly speak of the sacrifice. He records the following miraculous occurrence:

And another woman, when she tried with unworthy hands to open her box, in which was the holy (body) of the Lord, was deterred by fire rising from it from daring to touch it. And when one, who himself was defiled, dared with the rest to receive secretly a part of the sacrifice celebrated by the priest; he could not eat nor handle the holy of the Lord, but found in his hands when opened that he had a cinder.¹⁶⁸

St. Augustine mentions the Eucharistic sacrifice without argument:

he asked our presbyters, during my absence, that one of them would go with him and banish the spirits by his prayers. One went, offered there the sacrifice of the body of Christ, praying with all his might that that vexation might cease.¹⁶⁹

And elsewhere he writes:

The fact that our fathers of old offered sacrifices with beasts for victims, which the present-day people of God read about but do not do, is to be understood in no way but this: that those things signified the things that we do in order to draw near to God and to recommend to our neighbor the same purpose. A visible sacrifice, therefore, is the sacrament, that is to say, the sacred sign, of an invisible sacrifice. . . . Christ is both the Priest, offering Himself, and Himself the Victim. He willed that the sacramental sign of this should be the daily sacrifice of the Church, who, since the Church is His body and He the Head, learns to offer herself through Him.¹⁷⁰

St. John Chrysostom compares the priest’s sacrifice at the altar to the prophetic and priestly prayer of Elijah on Mount Carmel:

The priest stands there to cause not fire, but the Holy Spirit, to descend. He prays at length, not so that fire falling from on high may consume the offerings, but that grace, descending on the Host, may reach men’s souls and make them brighter than silver that is tried by fire.^171"

also http://www.ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/REALLYSC.HTM  this deals with the subject of the mass as sacrifice

here is a bit from it:

Please note that in no way do we as Catholics believe that Christ continues to be crucified physically or die a physical death in heaven over and over again. However, we do believe that the Mass does participate in the everlasting sacrifice of Christ.

First, one must not separate the sacrifice of our Lord on the cross from the events which surround it. The sacrifice of our Lord is inseparably linked to the Last Supper. Here Jesus took bread and wine. Looking to St. Matthew's text (26:26ff), He said over the bread, "Take this and eat it. This is My body"; and over the cup of wine, "This is My blood, the blood of the covenant, to be poured out on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins."

The next day, on Good Friday, our Lord's body hung on the altar of the cross and His precious blood was spilt to wash away our sins and seal the everlasting, perfect covenant. The divine life our Lord offered and shared for our salvation in the sacrifice of Good Friday is the same offered and shared at the Last Supper. The Last Supper, the sacrifice of Good Friday and the Resurrection on Easter form one saving event.

Second, one must have a nuanced understanding of time. One must distinguish chronological time from kairotic time, as found in sacred Scripture. In the Bible, <chronos> refers to chronological time—past, present and future—specific deeds which have an end point. <Kairos>, or kairotic time, refers to God's eternal time, time of the present moment which recapitulates the entire past as well as contains the entire future. Therefore, while our Lord's saving event occurred chronologically around the year AD 30-33, in the kairotic sense of time it is an ever-present reality which touches our lives here and now. In the same sense, this is why through baptism we share now in the mystery of Christ's passion, death and resurrection, a chronological event that happened almost 1,965 years ago, but is still efficacious for us today.

With this in mind, we also remember that our Lord commanded, as recorded in the Gospel of St. Luke (22:14ff) and St. Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians (11:23ff), "Do this in remembrance of Me." Clearly our Lord wanted the faithful to repeat, to participate in and to share in this sacramental mystery. The Last Supper, which is inseparably linked to Good Friday (and the Resurrection), is perpetuated in the holy Mass for time eternal.

The Mass therefore is a memorial. In each of the Eucharistic prayers, the <anamnesis>, or memorial, follows the consecration, whereby we call to mind the passion, death, resurrection and ascension of our Lord. However, this memorial is not simply a recollection of past history in chronological time, but rather a liturgical proclamation of living history, of an event that continues to live and touch our lives now in that sense of kairotic time.

...................................The sacrifice which Christ made for our salvation remains an ever-present reality: "As often as the sacrifice of the cross by which 'Christ our Pasch is sacrificed' is celebrated on the altar, the work of our redemption is carried out" ("Lumen Gentium," No. 3). Therefore, the <Catechism asserts>, "The Eucharist is thus a sacrifice because it re-presents (makes present) the sacrifice of the cross, because it is a memorial and because it applies its fruit" (No. 1366).

Therefore, the actual sacrifice of Christ on the cross and the sacrifice of the Mass are inseparably united as one single sacrifice. The Council of Trent in response to Protestant objections decreed, "The victim is one and the same: the same now offers through the ministry of priests, who then offered Himself on the cross; only the manner of offering is different," and "In this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the Mass, the same Christ who offered Himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross is contained and is offered in an unbloody manner." For this reason, just as Christ washed away our sins with his blood on the altar of the cross, the sacrifice of the Mass is also truly propitiatory. The Lord grants grace and the gift of repentance. He pardons wrong-doings and sins. (cf. Council of Trent, "Doctrine on the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass")

Moreover, the Mass involves the sacrifice of the whole Church. Together we offer our prayers, praise, thanksgiving, work, sufferings to our Lord and thereby join ourselves to His offering. The whole Church is united with the offering of Christ. This is why in the Eucharistic Prayers we remember the pope, the vicar of Christ; the bishop, shepherd of the local diocese; the clergy who minister <in persona Christi> to the faithful; the faithful living now, the deceased and the saints.

The "Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy" of the Second Vatican Council summed it up well: "At the Last Supper, on the night He was betrayed, our Savior instituted the Eucharistic sacrifice of His Body and Blood. This He did in order to perpetuate the sacrifice on the cross through the ages until He should come again, and so to entrust to His beloved spouse, the Church, a memorial of His death and resurrection: a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a paschal banquet in which Christ is consumed, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us" (No. 47).

and https://www.ewtn.com/faith/teachings/euchb1.htm


The Council of Trent taught that the Mass is the same as Calvary, "only the manner of offering being changed" from bloody to unbloody. Similarly Vatican II (On the Liturgy #10) said that the Mass is the renewal of the new covenant.

A sacrifice as Catholics understand it (in contrast to some pagan concepts) has two elements: the outward sign and the interior dispositions. The outward sign is there to express and perhaps promote the interior. Without the interior it would be worthless. Hence God once complained through Isaiah 29:13: "This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me." We need to take care that we too do not descend into mere externalism, thinking it enough to just make the responses and sing etc.

t the Last Supper, the outward sign was the seeming separation of body and blood, with the two species. This was a dramatized way of saying to the Father: "I know the command you have given me, I am to die tomorrow. Very good, I turn myself over to death - expressed by the seeming separation - I accept, I obey." On the next day He did as He pledged, but then the outward sign was the physical separation of body and blood, while the interior remained the same. In the Mass, by the agency of a human priest who acts "in the person of Christ" (Vatican II, LG # 10) Christ continues and repeats His offering. The external sign is multiplied as many times as there are Masses. But the interior disposition of Christ is not multiplied, it is continued from that with which He died. For death makes permanent the attitude of will with which one leaves this world.

Since the Mass has the same external sign, and the same interior dispositions on the part of Christ, we rightly call it a sacrifice, the continuation of Calvary. It does not need to earn redemption all over - that was done once for all (Hebrews 9:28) by His death. But since the Holiness of God loves everything that is good, and in good order, it pleases Him to have titles or reasons in place for what He will give (cf. Summa I. 19. 5. c). So it pleases Him to have the Mass provide the title for the distribution of what was once for all earned on Calvary.

........................................
At the Last Supper He ordered, "Do this in memory of me". Since we were not there, He wants us to join our dispositions to His. The great Liturgy Encyclical of Pius XII, Mediator Dei, explains well that the people can be said to exercise their royal priesthood, to offer the Mass with the priest: first, "from the fact that the priest at the altar in offering a sacrifice in the name of all His members, does so in the person of Christ," whose members they are. (Since only the ordained priest acts "in the person of Christ" Vatican II says [LG #10] that the ordained priesthood differs from that of the laity in essence, and not only in degree).

Secondly the people can be said to offer since: "The people join their hearts in praise, petition, expiation and thanksgiving with the prayers or intention of the priest, in fact, of the High Priest Himself, so that in the one and same of offering of the Victim... they may be presented to God the Father "(Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 39:556). Vatican II explains (LG # 10) that this is what it means for them to "offer spiritual sacrifices".

These spiritual sacrifices consist of their obedience to the will of the Father, already carried out, and planned for the future (Cf. LG #34). This includes their works, their bearing the troubles of life, their prayers, their apostolic efforts, their living out the duties of their state in life, even their relaxation of body and mind if all these things are done as part of the Father's plan, to enable them to serve Him better. Jesus Himself spent about 30 out of 33 years in family life, to show how greatly the Father values this if done precisely because it part of His plan. No wonder Paul VI, on Feb. 12, 1966, told the 13th National Congress of the Italian Feminine Center that "marriage is a long road towards sanctification", that is, if one takes everything in it as part of the Father's plan. (To be explained more fully in our section on the Sacrament of Matrimony).
We can call this a royal priesthood, since to live this way is to reign, instead of being a slave to vices ( 2 Peter 2:19). St. Augustine explains this well in his exegesis of Revelation/Apocalypse 20:5-6 (City of God 20:7-9) which tells how the holy ones rise from sin - which is the first resurrection, and reign, by being their own masters, by not consenting to the works of the Beast, the Antichrist and his minions, "but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and will reign with Him for that thousand years", i.e., all the time from His ascension to His return at the end.

It would be good to take a moment before each Mass to see what one has to join with the obedience of Christ, soon to be offered on the altar. Then Mass cannot be without meaning; rather, it dominates all of life, for we should bring our past obediences, and look ahead to the obedience of the near future.

................................
The Mass brings forgiveness for venial sins for which there is sorrow, and for temporal punishment commonly left over after forgiveness of sins.

Mass may be offered for the living or the dead. Its general benefits go to the whole Church, living and dead. Special benefits are for the priest who offers, and those for whom a Mass is specially offered, and for those who actively participate at the Mass....................................

see also http://www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2015/09/dialogue-with-lutheran-pastor-on.html