Seventh Sunday of Year C
February 2007
5) The Mass is our sacrifice
We have seen over the past four weeks various aspects of the Mass.
We saw how the Mass is the Last Supper. The memorial given by Jesus to his followers by which they would remember and celebrate what he had said and done while he was still visibly among them.
How the Mass is Immanuel - God with us. The Mass not only symbolises God's presence with and in us but also brings it about.
How the Mass is the crucifixion - the final and definitive act of a life spent bearing witness to the truth.
How the Mass is the sacrifice that takes away the sin of the world and makes it possible for us to live forever.
All this demands a reaction from me. It demands a response from me. My first response must be one of gratitude. After all, saying thank you, for even a small gift, is just good manners.
Gratitude is shown by a gesture of appreciation or by a material gift. For example gratitude can be shown by a kiss or a hug or by giving a twenty-carat diamond. One can be of greater value than the other or they can be of equal value depending on the attitude of the giver and the recipient.
Any material gift I can give God (like building a basilica in God's honour or lighting a votive candle) can have only a symbolic value to God, as God lacks nothing. Its value rests in the degree to which it is a sign of my love or gratitude.
The only thing I can give God, which God does not already have, is my gratitude, my respect, my love, my obedience, and that is what God prizes above everything else.
Originally the bread and wine used at Mass was physically brought by the people attending Mass. It was their gift, their offering, their sacrifice. The same is true today. It is the money given by you during the collection that is used to buy the bread and wine. So when the bread and wine and the collection are brought to the altar it is your gift, your sacrifice that is brought to the altar.
The value of any sacrifice or gift to God is measured not by the actual value of the gift but by what the giving of the gift stands for or signifies.
As we read in Hosea: 'Faithful love is what pleases me, not sacrifice; knowledge of God, not burnt offerings.'
So when my gift, my sacrifice, is brought to the altar during the offertory procession does it really symbolize my faithful love? Is it backed up by that knowledge of God's goodness, which awakens a sense of gratitude in my heart? Without this, my gift; my sacrifice is an empty symbol.