Page:Complete ascetical works of St Alphonsus v6.djvu/23

Rh

The Sacrifice of our Lord, as we have said, was a perfect sacrifice, of which those sacrifices of the Old Law were but signs, imperfect figures, and what the Apostle calls weak and needy elements. The sacrifice offered by Jesus Christ really fulfilled all the conditions mentioned above. The first condition, which is the sanctification, or the consecration of the victim, was accomplished in the Incarnation of the Word by God the Father himself, as is mentioned in the Gospel of St. John: Whom the Father hath sanctified. Likewise, when announcing to the Blessed Virgin that she was chosen to be the Mother of the Son of God, the Angel said: The Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. Thus this divine victim, who was to be sacrificed for the salvation of the world, had already been sanctified by God, when he was born of Mary. From the first moment in which the Eternal Word took a human body, he was consecrated to God to be the victim of the great sacrifice that was to be accomplished on the Cross for the salvation of men. In regard to this our Lord said to his Father: But a body Thou hast fitted to me … that I should do Thy will, O God.

The second condition, or the oblation, was also fulfilled at the moment of the Incarnation, when Jesus Christ voluntarily offered himself to atone for the sins of men. Knowing that divine justice could not be satisfied by all