Sacrifice Unveiled: The True Meaning of Christian Sacrifice [Paperback]

Robert J. Daly (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0567034216 | ISBN-13: 978-0567034212 | Publication Date: June 13, 2009 | Edition: 1

Most ideas of sacrifice, even specifically Christian ideas, as we saw in the Reformation controversies, have something to do with deprivation or destruction. But this is not authentic Christian sacrifice. Authentic Christian sacrifice, and ultimately all true sacrifice (whether one is conscious of it or not) begins with the self-offering of the Father in the gift-sending of the Son, continues with the loving "response" of the Son, in his humanity, and in the Spirit, to the Father and for us, and finally, begins to become real in our world when human beings, in the power of the same Spirit that was in Jesus, respond to love with love, and thus begin to enter into that perfectly loving, totally self-giving relationship that is the life of the triune God.

The origins of this are in the Hebrew Bible, its revelatory high-points in Jesus and Paul, and its working out in the life of the Church, especially its Eucharistic Prayers. Special attention will be paid to the atonement, not just because atonement and sacrifice are often synonymous, but also because traditional atonement theology is the source of distortions that continue to plague Christian thinking about sacrifice.

After exploring the possibility of finding a phenomenology of sacrificial atonement in Girardian mimetic theory, the book will end with some suggestions on how to communicate its findings to people likely to be put off from the outset by the negative connotations associated with "sacrifice."

Editorial Reviews

Review

A substantial critical study of the Christian concept of sacrifice has been sorely lacking for many years. Bob Daly has now more than adequately filled that gap and in a most readable volume successfully achieved his aim of exposing mistaken ideas on the subject by unveiling what that sacrifice it really is -- nothing less than the divine love that lies at the heart of all truly human life. (Paul F. Bradshaw )

'Culling from his previously published books and numerous articles on sacrifice, Daly lays out once again the historical and scriptural groundwork for a comprehensive understanding of sacrifice. But this book is no mere updating of his earlier work. It demonstrates fresh insight and impeccable systematic scholarship as he reverses his starting point and interprets anew. Daly begins by disclosing clearly and succinctly in the opening pages of Sacrifice Unveiled what has now come to be his central point: Christian sacrifice is best understood as a Trinitarian, inter-personal gift-exchange. It is a mutually self-giving event taking place between persons. Christian sacrifice does not begin with us and what we do for God, but begins with God and unfolds in a trinity of "moments." Daly's methodology also marks a reversal, just as his central point turned upside down his approach to sacrifice. Rather than presenting an historical/theological argument from the beginning and concluding by fleshing out his new insight, he reinterprets the data from the purview of his new central point. This book is not just written for theologians; Daly intends it to be for a much wider audience. Composed in an accessible and engaging style, he weaves personal experiences, stories, homiletic challenge, and solid theology together in such a way to be appealing to a broad range of readers. While unabashedly Roman Catholic, this book is sensitive to ecumenical issues and could be an ecumenical dialogue partner in itself. What a gift Robert J. Daly has given to both the Church and the academic community in Sacrifice Unveiled: The True Meaning of Christian Sacrifice with his reinterpretation of Christian sacrifice as Trinitarian gift-exchange! Daly began sharing his new thinking with me several years ago. It is with delight that I read his finished magnum opus. It has already challenged my own teaching (especially for paschal mystery) and reshaped my thinking and way of living. I can only hope it does so for other readers. We owe Bob Daly a great debt of gratitude.' -- Joyce Ann Zimmerman, Institute for Liturgical Ministry, Dayton, Ohio, USA

(Joyce Ann Zimmerman )

"...deserves careful attention, not only from scholars, but from students, and those concerned about how old ideas that have been part of the Christian vocabulary need to be looked at critically."

Church Times, September 2009

"A substantial and valuable study that puts the divine love right at the heart of what sacrifice means." Gerald O'Collins SJ, The Pastoral Review, January/February 2010

Reviewed in Franciscan, Vol. 22, No. 3, September 2010 (UK)

'A gift to anyone with an appetite for reasonable study'

'For this reviewer the opening 25 pages offered a bracing and thought-provoking thesis...I find what he [Daly] affirms a very helpful contribution, and I have already discovered that it preaches well in the midst of congregations who do indeed think of sacrifice as fundamentally a 'giving up'.

(Ecclesiology )

'I consider this book to be one of the five most significant books dealing with liturgy in our baptismal life, mission and witness published in the last ten years. It is a magisterial treatment of a central insight in that, as Bob Daly never tires of saying, is essential to our everyday Christian living.'

(Liturgy News )

A substantial critical study of the Christian concept of sacrifice has been sorely lacking for many years. Bob Daly has now more than adequately filled that gap and in a most readable volume successfully achieved his aim of exposing mistaken ideas on the subject by unveiling what that sacrifice it really is – nothing less than the divine love that lies at the heart of all truly human life. (, )

'Culling from his previously published books and numerous articles on sacrifice, Daly lays out once again the historical and scriptural groundwork for a comprehensive understanding of sacrifice. But this book is no mere updating of his earlier work. It demonstrates fresh insight and impeccable systematic scholarship as he reverses his starting point and interprets anew. Daly begins by disclosing clearly and succinctly in the opening pages of Sacrifice Unveiled what has now come to be his central point: Christian sacrifice is best understood as a Trinitarian, inter-personal gift-exchange. It is a mutually self-giving event taking place between persons. Christian sacrifice does not begin with us and what we do for God, but begins with God and unfolds in a trinity of “moments.” Daly’s methodology also marks a reversal, just as his central point turned upside down his approach to sacrifice. Rather than presenting an historical/theological argument from the beginning and concluding by fleshing out his new insight, he reinterprets the data from the purview of his new central point. This book is not just written for theologians; Daly intends it to be for a much wider audience. Composed in an accessible and engaging style, he weaves personal experiences, stories, homiletic challenge, and solid theology together in such a way to be appealing to a broad range of readers. While unabashedly Roman Catholic, this book is sensitive to ecumenical issues and could be an ecumenical dialogue partner in itself. What a gift Robert J. Daly has given to both the Church and the academic community in Sacrifice Unveiled: The True Meaning of Christian Sacrifice with his reinterpretation of Christian sacrifice as Trinitarian gift-exchange! Daly began sharing his new thinking with me several years ago. It is with delight that I read his finished magnum opus. It has already challenged my own teaching (especially for paschal mystery) and reshaped my thinking and way of living. I can only hope it does so for other readers. We owe Bob Daly a great debt of gratitude.’ – Joyce Ann Zimmerman, Institute for Liturgical Ministry, Dayton, Ohio, USA

(, )

"…deserves careful attention, not only from scholars, but from students, and those concerned about how old ideas that have been part of the Christian vocabulary need to be looked at critically."

Church Times, September 2009

Reviewed in Franciscan, Vol. 22, No. 3, September 2010 (UK)

'A gift to anyone with an appetite for reasonable study’

'For this reviewer the opening 25 pages offered a bracing and thought-provoking thesis…I find what he [Daly] affirms a very helpful contribution, and I have already discovered that it preaches well in the midst of congregations who do indeed think of sacrifice as fundamentally a 'giving up’.

(, )

'I consider this book to be one of the five most significant books dealing with liturgy in our baptismal life, mission and witness published in the last ten years. It is a magisterial treatment of a central insight in that, as Bob Daly never tires of saying, is essential to our everyday Christian living.’

(, )

This work is astounding in its breadth… remarkably accessible, and will serve specialists and non-specialists alike. I highly recommend this new work and imagine that it will be an important work for a long time to come. (, )

About the Author

Robert J. Daly, S.J., Emeritus Professor of Theology at Boston College, is the author of Christian Sacrifice and The Origins of the Christian Doctrine of Sacrifice. His recent articles, mostly in Theological Studies, have focused on Eucharist, sacrifice, and atonement.

Product Details

• Paperback: 280 pages
• Publisher: T&T Clark Int'l; 1 edition (June 13, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0567034216
• ISBN-13: 978-0567034212
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #729,601 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Some very good insights but tone and argumentation is problematic from perspective of Catholic orthodoxy, June 21, 2009

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Aquinas "summa" (celestial heights, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sacrifice Unveiled: The True Meaning of Christian Sacrifice (Paperback)

This book has some valuable insights into sacrifice. However, Catholics who wish to continue thinking with the mind of the Church should note that the tone and some of Daly's arguments are not in harmony with the teaching of the Catholic Church.
Daly's book on sacrifice is the fruit of a lifetime's thinking on the issue of what precisely is the function of sacrifice in Christianity. The first point to note is that Daly subscribes to Rene Girard's anthropology. Girard's theory is that the sacrifice of the Cross unmasks what has been going on since the foundation of the world, namely that the cornerstone of all cultures rests on the blood of a scapegoat who has been ritually murdered to bring about peace within the community. Far from being an atoning sacrifice, Christ's death reveals this mechanism and neutralizes it. Girard's theory is decidedly unsympathetic to Anselm's theory of atonement. Nonetheless, its an interesting theory and Daly has assimilated it.

Daly is right in detecting that in Judaism, there is a spiritualizing process when it comes to cultic sacrifices. For Daly, Christianity brings cultic sacrifices to an end. Building on the work of Kilmartin, Daly shows that true sacrifice for Christians takes on the dynamic life of the Trinity, a self-offering with Jesus in the Spirit to the Father in a life of service to others. This is all well and good and Daly's analysis is commendable.

There are however some serious problems with the work. For a Catholic priest, Daly is decidedly low Church to use Anglican terminology. For example, his theology of the Eucharist (page 2 and 182) is not only not Catholic, it does not stack up philosophically. For Daly, there is no Eucharist if there is no concomitant transformation of the assembly. That sounds like a marvelous insight - one can see a bunch of people at one of Daly's talks nodding enthusiastically. But, how does this work in practice. An average assembly at Mass will be made up of people of varying degrees of commitment. Some will be there simply because they want their children to be taught at the local Catholic School, whose results, let us says, are top notch. Some will be there because they like the sense of community. Husbands may be there because of the nagging of the wives. And, some may be there because their hearts are on fire for the love of Christ and want to be there at the sacramental representation of His giving Himself for the life of the World.

So, how do we apply Daly's theory to this assembly? Do we have a partial Eucharist or a Eucharist for some and not for others? And, what about the sick old lady who has not been present at the Mass but is brought communion by a lay minister of Holy Communion? Does she have to ask: "my dear, can you tell me before I bow down my head before the Divine Master hidden under the Eucharistic species whether the assembly was transformed"? This is not even Lutheranism. For Luther, as I understand it, the Eucharist is present for me if I believe in Christ's presence in the bread and wine - a kind of cartesian subjectivism. For the Catholic Church, the issue is whether the person consecrating the elements has been ordained and whether he intends to offer the Mass. If so, Christ is present regardless of the effect on the assembly. Both Lutheranism and Catholicism have an intrinsic logic but Daly's theory is simply unworkable - its really the beginning of a journey where no Real presence is recognized at all.

Another problem with Daly's work is that he has a real problem with what he sees as the institutionalization trend in the Church. So much so, that he dectect a deformation beginning in the New Testament. On page 101, he quotes Finlan (presumably approvingly): "One can see this deformation already beginning to take place as early as the pastoral Epistles and Duetero-Pauline letters where fidelity to right doctrine was increasingly seen as the sign of a true Christian". I am no fundamentalist - I can see that the hand of Man as well as the hand of God is present in the Scriptures. Otherwise, how can we possibly make sense of all the violence attributed to God, when the Christian message in Jesus is clearly about mercy and forgiveness? But, Daly seems to be saying that the hand of Man intrudes even into the New Testament. Is he suggesting a kind of Canon within a Canon? Should we then cleanse the text of Man's input to arrive at the True Canon. This seems quite dangerous.
This leads on, as far as I can tell, to a kind of suspicion of Holy Orders. One begins to wonder after a while: why is Daly a Catholic, leaving aside the bigger question: why is he a Catholic Priest? His analysis of Eucharistic prayers is valuable but I detect a suspicion of the Roman Canon (as properly translated) particularly when augmented by the Tridentine rubrics. His dislike of the sacrificial element is palatable. But, there seems to be a bigger issue lurking under all of this. What is Daly's sacramental theology particularly vis a vis the Eucharist? If the Eucharist is all about transformation of us, where does sacramental representation come in as a preliminary step to transforming us? Daly is right, of course, that the sacraments are for us - they don't exist for their own sake. They will come to an end when all things are gathered unto the Lord at the end of time. But, I can't help feeling that sacramental representation is lost in Daly's theology. I think it is a question of philosophy more than theology (JP II's Ratio et Fides encyclical refers) - we cant' do theology without proper philosophical foundations.

Daly ends his book quite beautifully and humbly and even though I took issue with a number of points in his book, I felt my heart warming to him. Daly's excitement and commitment to his topic is palpable.