13. For next there follows: I will
sacrifice unto Thee freely. The sacrifices of the Law, which
consisted of whole burnt-offerings and oblations of goats and of bulls,
did not involve an expression of free will, because the sentence of a
curse was pronounced on all who broke the Law. Whoever failed to
sacrifice laid himself open to the curse. And it was always
necessary to go through the whole sacrificial action because the
addition of a curse to the commandment forbad any trifling with the
obligation of offering. It was from this curse that our Lord
Jesus Christ redeemed us, when, as the Apostle says: Christ
redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made curse for us, for it
is written: cursed is every one that hangeth on a
tree Gal. iii. 13.. Thus He
offered Himself to the death of the accursed that He might break the
curse of the Law, offering Himself voluntarily a victim to God the
Father, in order that by means of a voluntary victim the curse which
attended the discontinuance of the regular victim might be
removed. Now of this sacrifice mention is made in another passage
of the Psalms:
Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou
prepared for Me Ps. xxxix. (xl.)
7.; that is, by
offering to God the Father, Who refused the legal sacrifices, the
acceptable offering of the body which He received. Of which
offering the holy Apostle thus speaks: For this He did once
for all when He offered Himself up Heb. vii. 27.,
securing complete salvation for the human race by the offering of this
holy, perfect victim.