I have interacted with some of the best Catholic defences of the nature of the Lord’s Supper and the concept of the Eucharistic Sacrifice of the Catholic Mass. Here is one reason why a proper/correct theology of the Lord’s Supper is essential, as it shows what a bad theology results in:
The supreme power of the priestly office is the power of consecrating. “No act is greater,” says St. Thomas, “than the consecration of the body of Christ.” In this essential phase of the sacred ministry, the power of the priest is not surpassed by that of the bishop, the archbishop, the cardinal or the pope. Indeed, it is equal to that of Jesus Christ. For in this role the priest speaks with the voice and authority of God Himself.
When the priest pronounces the tremendous words of consecration, he reaches up into the heavens, brings Christ down from His throne, and places Him upon our altar to be offered up again as the Victim for the sins of man. It is a power greater than that of monarchs and emperors: it is greater than that of saints and angels, greater than that of Seraphim and Cherubim.
Indeed, it is greater even than the power of the Virgin Mary. While the Blessed Virgin was the human agency by which Christ became incarnate a single time, the priest brings Christ down from heaven and renders Him present on our altar as the eternal Victim for the sins of man—not once but a thousand times! The priest speaks and lo! Christ, the eternal and omnipotent God, bows his head in humble obedience to the priest’s command.
Of what sublime dignity is the office of the Christian priest who is thus privileged to act as the ambassador and the vicegerent of Christ on earth! He continues the essential ministry of Christ: he teaches the faithful with the authority of Christ, he pardons the penitent sinner with the power of Christ, he offers up again the same sacrifice of adoration and atonement which Christ offered up on Calvary. No wonder that the name which spiritual writers are especially fond of applying to the priest is that of “alter Christus.” For the priest is and should be another Christ. (Rev. John A. O’Brien, The Faith of Millions [Huntington, Ind.: Our Sunday Visitor, Inc., 1974], 255-56; italics in original).
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