Tom Nash serves as senior information specialist for the Steuben-ville, Ohio-based apostolate Catholics United for the Faith. There, he researches and provides answers to callers’ questions about the faith.

Nash has published the book Worthy is the Lamb: The Biblical Roots of the Mass (Ignatius Press). He is also a co-author of Catholic for a Reason III: Scripture and the Mystery of the Mass (Emmaus Road Publishing).

This is the first of a series of occasional interviews by Register staff writer Tim Drake with people who are promoting the four things Pope John Paul II asks Catholics to promote in his 2001 apostolic letter Novo Millennio Ineunte (At the Beginning of the New Millennium).

Tell me a little about your family. Have you always been Catholic?

Yes, I'm a cradle Catholic. I'm very blessed to have faithful, loving parents: Joseph and Genevieve Nash. And, as a beneficiary of infant baptism, I can remember being attracted to the sacred as a little boy. My parents cultivated that, but I know that God's grace was very operative in the process. While I've never fallen away from the faith, I have grown in my faith over the years, benefiting a lot from the sacrament of Reconciliation and the Eucharist along the way.

I was born and raised in Detroit. I'm the seventh of eight living children. I had an older sister who died shortly after birth and three siblings who were miscarried. We moved as a family from Detroit to Ann Arbor in 1976. Most of my siblings are in the Detroit area.

Is there a favorite story that people tell about your family?

The old marriage rite had a great line: “Sacrifice is usually difficult and irksome. Only love can make it easy. Perfect love can make it a joy.” In my family, I observed and experienced perfect love on a regular basis. In terms of my observation, my parents’ love for my youngest sister, Mary, stands out. Mary has Down syndrome and also various physical ailments. The doctors didn't think she would live weeks, let alone months or years. But my parents viewed Mary as she really is, a gift from God, and that God would help them raise her, along with the assistance of Mary's brothers and sisters.

As a result, Mary is now 38 and still living at home with my parents. Mom is now 80, and Dad will turn 80 in October. In our culture of death, in which many children diagnosed with Down syndrome do not survive the womb, my parents’ love for Mary serves as an eloquent witness. Mom and Dad's example has inspired others to love similarly, and they particularly get support with Mary from my sister Rosemary and her daughters, who live nearby.

What led you to explore the biblical roots of the Mass?

Because the Mass is so fundamental to the Catholic faith and because I didn't see any book that cultivated a thorough biblical overview of the Mass on a popular, yet scholarly level. Different authors affirmed my conclusion.

When I say “the Mass,” I refer to the heart of the Mass — the sacramental re-presentation of Christ's one sacrifice of Calvary. Regarding its biblical roots, how was Christ's sacrifice prefigured in Old Testament offerings and fulfilled in the New Testament, not only in Christ's living out his self-offering initially, but also continuing it in the heavenly sanctuary and through the Mass? While many apologetics books had made worthwhile, New Testament-based arguments for the Eucharist, I didn't see one that cultivated the Mass’ Old Testament roots and tied the Old and New Testaments together regarding this paramount matter of the faith.

The Mass is also misunderstood both by many Catholics and Protestants, with Catholics often vulnerable to biblical arguments against the Mass. So I wanted to write a book that could serve as an apologetics/ evangelistic/catechetical tool.

In doing your research, were there any surprises for you?

I would say breakthroughs more than surprises. Breakthroughs in making more accessible the sacrifice of the Mass and the nature of the Eucharist. For example, explaining how Christ's sacrifice of Calvary did not begin and end on Calvary 2,000 years ago. While Christ's suffering ended on the cross, his sacrifice — that is, his self-gift to the Father on our behalf — continues forever.

The biblical analogy of the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) sacrifices proved very helpful here. In the old covenant, a goat and bull were first slaughtered in the temple courtyard; then, the high priest would offer their blood to God in the temple sanctuary. Similarly, there are two phases to Christ's sacrifice, which fulfills the Day of Atonement. He suffers, dies and rises in the earthly phase of his sacrifice, and then he ascends into the heavenly sanctuary, where his sacrifice culminates in everlasting glory, as Hebrews 9:24-25 implies.

Scripture affirms that Jesus continues to serve in the heavenly sanctuary as a priest and that a priest's prime function is to offer sacrifices, as conveyed in Hebrews 8:1-3. Because Hebrews 7:27 and 9:27-28 proclaim that Jesus’ sacrifice is once-for-all, and because Jesus continues to serve as a high priest in heaven, our Lord must somehow continue to offer his one and only sacrifice in the heavenly sanctuary. In the Mass, of course, what is celebrated in heaven becomes present on earth.

Did your research impact your own approach to the Mass?

I have an even better appreciation of the profundity and truly sublime nature of the sacrifice of the Mass in general and the Eucharist in particular. Because I participate in Mass several times a week, often at the end of a busy workday, I can sometimes be not as attentive as I should be during the liturgy. When needed, my research and writing helps me refocus, particularly at the time of the consecration, reminding me of the solemnity of the Mass, how the Lord is being made present and how I am participating in the re-presentation of his sacrifice with the Church triumphant in heaven. There is no greater blessing we can have on Earth than participating in the Mass.

What do you think has led to the lack of appreciation for the Mass by many modern-day Catholics?

The general societal decline we've experienced in the last four decades or so has undermined people's appreciation of that which is truly sacred and moral. In the process, we've seen a slide in catechesis — in the home, at Catholic schools and CCD programs, and in homi-lies — although I definitely think things have improved in the last two decades. In general, Catholics are not as well-formed as they could be to appreciate and participate in the Mass. Some blame Vatican II and the Mass rite promulgated by Pope Paul VI, but it's been misrepresentations of both that have actually done damage.

In addition, had we never had a Vatican II or a new Mass rite, the Church would still have had some serious challenges, given the general societal decline, particularly in the West. As good as things were for the Church in the 1940s to the early 1960s, it's evident that Church leaders and rank-and-file Catholics were not, in general, well-prepared to withstand the cultural broadside that began to really kick in during the 1960s.

The timing of your book is most appropriate given all of the discussion regarding pro-abortion politicians and Communion and the Holy Father announcing Year of the Eucharist. What's at the heart of this focus on the Eucharist?

Yes, the timing of my book is particularly blessed by the Holy Father's announcement of the Year of the Eucharist. At the center of our faith is the person of Jesus Christ and his paschal mystery, i.e., his sacrifice of Calvary. Thus when the Pope exhorts us to “start afresh from Christ” in preparing for and celebrating this special year, he calls us to consider and enter more deeply into our Lord's Eucharistic sacrifice. It is the “source” of the Christian life because without Christ's sacrifice, there would be no redemption, no Church, no sacraments. It is the summit because we partake of the Son and are offered with him to the Father.

Because the Mass is so central to our lives as Catholics, and because we intimately receive God himself in the Eucharist, only Catholics in (the state of grace) are to receive the Blessed Sacrament, because only such Catholics are fit to become one in Christ, not only via their individual reception but collectively as members of the mystical body of Christ.

Regarding pro-abortion politicians, there's an increasing awareness that politicians who defend the killing of unborn children are not spiritually fit to receive the one who died so that we all may live. Their continued reception of Holy Communion trivializes the truly awesome reality of the Eucharist, as well as the general mission of the Church, both to Catholics and non-Catholics. Telling such politicians not to receive Communion and even banning them from doing so are acts of charity; the politicians are directed not to eat and drink a judgment upon themselves by profaning our Lord's body and blood (see 1 Corinthians 11:27-30), and the faithful and the world are soberly reminded that the Eucharist is indeed what the Church teaches it is.

Tim Drake writes from St. Cloud, Minnesota.