In Does Hebrews 9:23 support the Mass as a Propitiatory Sacrifice?, I responded to Catholic apologist Robert Sungenis who argued that this verse teaches Christ is offering sacrifices in heaven at this very moment (cf. J. Ramsey Michaels on the use of "sacrifices" in Hebrews 9:23).
Addressing the question of whether Jesus offers sacrifices after the cross, Joseph Pohle writes the following against such a thesis:
Does He continue to offer a true sacrifice for us in Heaven?
Thalhofer answered this question in the affirmative, and his view has been adopted by L. Zill and P. Schoulza. The purpose of these writers in taking the position they do it twofold: (1) to gain a basis for a reasonable explanation of the metaphysical essence of the Sacrifice of the Mass, and (2) to give a tangible content to the Scriptural teaching of Christ’s eternal priesthood
Thalhofer declares the formal element of sacrifice to consist, not in the exterior oblation of the victim, which is in some manner or other transformed, but solely in the interior disposition of the sacrificing priest. But this theory is contrary to the common teaching of Catholic divines and does not square with certain generally admitted facts. Granted that the disposition of the sacrificing priest is the intrinsic and invisible forma, and consequently the most important part of a sacrifice; yet it can never supply the extrinsic physical form. Christ’s constant pointing to His wounds, of which Thalhofer makes so much, is merely a significant gesture which effects no intrinsic transformation of the kind strictly demanded by the notion of sacrifice. Zill attempted to construct a Scriptural basis for Thalhofer’s theory, but his deductions had already been substantially refuted by Tournely in his argument against Faustus Socinus. St. Paul, far from asserting that Christ offers sacrifice in heaven, or that He continues His earthly sacrifice there, expressly declares that our Lord merely asserts ad modum interpellationis and forever the sacrifice He has once for all consummated on the Cross. This interpellation can in no wise be construed as a sacrifice. (Joseph Pohle, Soteriology: A Dogmatic Treatise on the Redemption [St. Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1914], 137-38)
For more articles addressing Sungenis and other Catholic apologists on the Mass, see:
