Print Issue: October 24, 2002

Preparing To Receive Christ We Offer Our Sacrifices To God

By Father Theodore Book, Commentary

Having expressed and strengthened our Christian unity by the confession of faith, we now arrive at a still moment in the Mass. Ordinary bread and wine are prepared, placed on the altar, accompanied by prayers and perhaps by incense. The stillness is charged with a sense of the divine presence. The priest washes his hands, asking the Lord to cleanse him of his iniquity and sin. He reflects, in a certain way, the Levitical priests, who could not enter into the presence of God without having first carefully purified themselves. Indeed, his role is greater than theirs, for while they would stand in the presence of the living God, the Christian priest stands in His person in such a way that God acts through him, as though God were standing at the altar and not the priest. While the washing of his hands is a prayer and a symbol, the priest has a great need to be free from sin, because to stand in the person of Christ conscious of serious sin would be a great sacrilege indeed.

Having prepared himself and the gifts to be offered, he turns to the faithful and draws them up into the central part of the Mass. Pray, brethren. The Mass is not something performed by the priest while the faithful sit by and watch. No - the faithful, by their prayers, have an important role in the sacrifice of the Mass. For this reason, a priest is strongly discouraged from offering the Mass without at least one other person present. The prayers of the other worshipers join with those of the priest, support the priest at the altar, and rise up to God. Thus the faithful become an integral part in the prayer of the Mass.

In response to the priest's invitation, we pray that his sacrifice and ours might be acceptable to God, the almighty Father. Firstly, this sacrifice is the offering of the bread and wine, and of the body and blood of Christ. Secondly, though, it is also the offering of the lives of those praying. The Christian, in a certain way, consecrates his life to God, and thus everything he does, especially his labor, becomes a sacrifice to God. He represents this consecration and makes it more real by tithing - giving some of the fruits of his work to Christ's Church as an offering. Likewise, whatever sacrifices or penances he has made for God, as well as whatever suffering he has offered to God, are lifted up in this offering. In a certain way, then, the sacrifices of the lives of both the priest and the people are placed on the paten beside the host, and are offered up to God by the priest.

We pray that these sacrifices may be acceptable to God. They are very small things in themselves, but God is pleased with whatever we offer Him truly, from our heart. We offer them first for the praise and glory of His name, which is right, as any Christian should seek first the glory of God, and only secondly his own well being. They are offered for the good of all present, and for the whole Church - thus the mystical unity of the whole Church, united in prayer, is again recalled and invoked. our prayers at the Mass, and our sacrifices, serve not only for our own good, but for that of every member of the Church, throughout the world.

With this prayer, all rise, as they enter into the central part of the Mass. The priest prays over the offerings, according to the words established for that particular day of the year. As he has asked the faithful to pray that the offerings be acceptable, so he also prays, asking God to accept those things that we offer, and praying that this sacrifice may bring us spiritual good. Thus the gifts have been offered up to God, and the Mass prepares to ask God for His graces to come down upon them.

Father Theodore Book, a priest of the Archdiocese of Atlanta, continues his reflections on the Mass in upcoming issues of The Georgia Bulletin.