I think the difference may be more clearly seen with a consideration of what "magic" was believed to be. Modern depictions of witches and wizards like Harry Potter, Wizards of Waverly Place, and the Lord of the Rings makes them humans who have extra inherent abilities beyond the ordinary (admittedly, LOTR has wizards that aren't human, but the extra inherent abilities remain). Essentially, they are superheroes who all happen to have the same general powers. The older understanding however, dealt with sympathetic (and also antipathetic) magic, as was briefly mentioned in class. Essentially, things in the universe are connected to one another by a series of complex relationships that link together stars, animals, plants, minerals, emotions, etc. By combining together objections with positive (sympathetic) relationships, one could "amplify" the associated emotions, attributes, etc.
What was the purpose of this practice and how was it understood to relate to God? In the 16th century Heinrich Agrippa writes in Three Books on Occult Philosophy that,
"Magicians teach that celestial gifts may... be drawn down by opportune influences of the heavens; and so, also, by these celestial gifts, the celestial angels... may be procured and conveyed to us... For this is the harmony of the world, that things supercelestial be drawn down by the celestial, and the supernatural by the natural." [1]This is the central understanding of sympathetic magic, that it is a way by which humans can pull down supernatural beings to do their will and liking. It is an attempt to pull down the heavenly to the earthly.
Contrast this with the Mass. The Mass, as we said, is the way that God becomes visible to mankind and if we remember what St. Anselm wrote about seeing God, "I will never find you unless you show yourself to me," [2] then a major difference becomes unavoidable. The Mass is operating as a way for God to bend down to mankind as he did in the Incarnation because his Incarnate self is becoming present. It is a way for God to bend to man and pull him up rather than a way for the person to pull God (or other celestial beings, like angels) to the human level. Independent of any ideas of whether sympathetic magic truly has effects or whether Christ is bodily present in the Eucharist, the two practitioners are going to be working from different understandings of how they relate to God and this alone differentiates the Mass from magic (it also doesn't hurt that some versions of sympathetic magic are thought to involve the help of demons).
This differentiation is made clear by the idea that it is not chiefly the priest on Earth who is celebrating the Mass but rather is Christ in Heaven, the, "high priest according to the order of Melchisedech." [3] Christ the Eternal Priest acts through the priest as he consecrates the bread and the wine, and Christ the Paschal Lamb is made present in this action. Thus, it is apparent that God is understood to be entirely the one making present and becoming present at the Mass.
Hold on. What's the relationship to the earthly priest? If that priest is conjuring Christ to act in this way, isn't that just a more elaborate form of the same sympathetic magic? Agrippa even says, "the countenance, gesture, motion, setting and figure of the body, being accidental to us, conduce to the receiving of celestial gifts and expose us to the superior bodies, which produce certain effects in us." [4] That sounds an awful lot like the motions of the priest at Mass, producing the effect of Christ acting with him by his gestures. But the account of the Last Supper from the Gospel of John sheds light on this exact question. Immediately before John's brief account of the distribution of the bread, Christ says to the Twelve, "Amen, amen I say to you, he that receiveth whomsoever I send, receiveth me; and he that receiveth me, receiveth him who sent me." [5] Christ then goes on a long discourse after the meal in which he says, "Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abide in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in me." [6] These two passages (in addition to many others throughout John's Gospel) show that Christ is mystically present and acting with the Apostles, and the fact that this occurs around the Last Supper and thus in conjunction with the narratives of the other Gospels shows that these have a special relationship to the Eucharist. Christ goes so far as to say that his Apostles, "cannot bear fruit... unless you abide in me." Thus, the reenactment of the Last Supper in the Mass would not even be possible without the presence of Christ and this presence is one that is promised by Christ of his own freewill. He isn't forced to do anything, he simply promises to do something consistently.
So where does this leave the Mass? It doesn't seem to be using sympathetic magic in an attempt to drag divinity to humanity. Rather, it is a way in which divinity bends down to humanity through its own freewill. Not only that, but it is done so in a promise that humanity may participate, like a parent promising to come to the assistance of a child. There is no coercion or irresistible relationships being invoked, there is only voluntary love. The Mass then is an act in which God chooses to do something spectacular through otherwise ordinary means. The Mass is a miracle.
-Sam Landon (I feel the need to say that the book by Heinrich Agrippa that I cite was required reading for another class I'm currently taking and not something I voluntarily read on my own)
[1] Agrippa, Heinrich Cornelius, and Donald Tyson. Three Books of Occult Philosophy. Minneapolis: Llewellyn Publications, 2018, 121
[2] Anselm, Benedicta Ward, R. W. Southern, and Anselm. The Prayers and Meditations of Saint Anselm. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979, 243
[3] Hebrews 5:10 (Douay-Rheims)
[4] Agrippa, 155
[5] John 13:20 (Douay-Rheims)
[6] John 15:5 (Douay-Rheims)
You are right, we didn't answer the question properly! Agrippa is using exactly the kind of angel magic that the Sworn Book was trying to describe: drawing down the power of the angels so as to give power to the magician. This, as you show, is the literal opposite of the action of the Mass, in which God descends by his own will, not the will of the priest. Perhaps this helps clarify the difference: the priest is surrendering to the action of the Mass, whereas the magician is attempting to control the action of his summoning. The magician is deceived—he cannot control the powers he thinks he can—which is why things typically end badly for those who attempt it. A cautionary tale for prospective wizards! RLFB
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