REDISCOVERING OLD TESTAMENT SACRIFICES AND THE OLD TESTAMENT PRIESTHOOD AS THE ANTECEDENT TO THE NEW TESTAMENT UN-BLOODY SACRIFICE AND NEW TESTAMENT ORDAINED PRIESTHOOD

The Old Testament priesthood was not a calling, but came from priestly families, it was inherited. The Old Testament priesthood offered animal sacrifices in the temple by entering the Holy of Holies and sacrificing the animal, a variety of which could be sacrificed, first by killing the animal and bleeding it, and then ultimately cooking its flesh and then consuming it. In all cases, what was left over was given as food to the people outside of the temple's holy of holies.

In the East, the holy of holies of the Christian temple was the presbytery or what we in the Latin Rite call the sanctuary. It was cordoned off by an iconostasis, or screen and the priest entered it with his back to the congregation to offer the One Sacrifice of Christ, re-presented in an unbloody way at the altar. Afterward, to complete this sacrifice the Christian priest took and ate and drank the Body and Blood of the Risen Lord, but not a dead sacrifice, but the Living, Glorified, Risen Lord.

The same developed in the Western Church and thus the Latin Rite, our Rite. But rather than an iconostasis, there developed a "rood screen or wall" to demarcate the "holy of holies" where the ordained Christian priest entered to offer the unbloody, one Sacrifice of Christ re-presented on our Chritian altar and to do the same as the Eastern Rite priests do.

Eventually the rood screen or wall was removed or modified into an altar railing from which the laity would receive the Body and Blood of Christ kneeling. In fact the altar railing simply became an extension of the altar-table for the laity as they approached the "table of the Lord" to receive Holy Communion.

The post-Vatican II era blurred the holy of holies in our Christian temples and also the unique role of the ordained Christian priest to offer sacrfice to God on behalf of the mystical Body of Christ. The distinction between the two was diminished and to the detriment of both.

For example the altar was thrust into the center of the nave, often priests were encouraged by so-called liturgist, not the rubrics, to receive Holy Communion last, after the laity had completed Holy Communion as a sign of "hospitality!"

All of this a breach not only with our pre-Vatican II heritage, but also with the Old Testament antecedents to the Mass and Catholic Priesthood, the Old Testament priesthood and bloody sacrifices they offered except for Melchizedek who "sacrificed" and offered bread and wine.

This is a comment I made to Carol about this from the last post I made:

Carol you are correct, but in establishing the sacraments or anything that gives the apostles authority it all has to do with leading the adopted children of God through Holy Baptism to the Kingdom of God and the "Christification" of the world. The ordained priest differs in degree or character from the baptismal, general priesthood of the laity, but both lay and clergy share in the one priesthood of Christ in differing degrees. So, the priest who celebrates the Mass must "take and eat, take and drink" the Bread and Wine, the Body and Blood of Christ, to complete the Sacrifice of the Mass--this is not required of the laity, they simply share in the fruits of the Sacrifice by receiving our Lord after the priest has completed the sacrifice.
What I have just described would have been very clear to the pre-Vatican II Catholic but has be obfuscated in the post-Vatican II era by progressive Catholics who do not want the ordained priesthood to have a unique status and to differ in degree from the laity's baptismal priesthood. This is symbolized in the manner in which the Mass is celebrated and the architecture of modern or redesigned churches.