Gifts are brought
PART IV
LITURGY OF THE EUCHARIST
As Christ commanded in the Upper Room
In the Last Supper, our Lord Jesus Christ, anticipating the sacrifice of the cross, gave us the blueprint of the Mass. An early account by St Paul tells us how Christ’s command to perpetuate the sacrifice was done by the first Christians:
For this is what I received from the Lord, and in turn passed on to you: that on the same night that he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took some bread, and thanked God for it and broke it, and he said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this as a memorial of me.” In the same way he took the chalice after supper, and said, “This chalice is the new covenant in my blood. Whenever you drink it, do this as a memorial of me.” Until the Lord comes, therefore, every time you eat this bread and drink this chalice, you are proclaiming his death (1 Cor 11:23‑26).
And this is precisely what takes place during the liturgy of the Eucharist.[1] The sacrifice of the cross is continuously present in the Church when the priest, representing Christ the Lord, carries out what the Lord did and commanded his disciples to do in his memory. We can identify three steps in the liturgy of the Eucharist:
• The Presentation and Preparation of the Gifts. The bread and wine with water, the elements that Christ used, are brought to the altar.
• The Eucharistic Prayer. The Church gives thanks to God for the whole work of salvation and the gifts of bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ.
• The Rite of Communion. Through the breaking of the Bread, the unity of the faithful is expressed; and through Communion, they receive the Lord’s body and blood in the same way that the apostles received Communion from Christ’s own hands.[2]
A. THE PRESENTATION AND PREPARATION OF THE GIFTS
Gifts are brought
May the contrite soul, the humbled spirit be as acceptable to you as holocausts of rams and bullocks, as thousands of fattened lambs: such let our sacrifice be to you today, and may it be your will that we follow you wholeheartedly, since those who put their trust in you will not be disappointed (Dan 3:39‑40).
* * *
At the beginning of the liturgy of the Eucharist, the gifts, which will become Christ’s body and blood, are brought to the altar.
First, the altar, the Lord’s table, which is the center of the entire Eucharistic liturgy, is prepared: The corporal, the purificator, the chalice, the pall, and the missal are placed on it. The gifts are then brought forward.[3] While the priest receives the offerings, the offertory song is sung. Singing may always accompany the rite at the offertory, even when there is no procession with the gifts.[4]
* * *
This rite is described by St Justin (second century) with stark impersonal simplicity: “Bread, water and wine are brought.” The first Christians had no special ceremonies accompanying this rite, for it was their desire to depart from pagan sacrificial practices. At the same time, they emphasized the special character of the Victim, which is not the bread and wine, but our Lord himself.
However, later on, it became necessary to defend the intrinsic goodness of created things against Gnosticism, while making it clear that the gifts brought to the altar are not the Victim to be sacrificed. The congregation participated in the act of offering by approaching the altar in procession and presenting various gifts: not only bread and wine, but also other edible items and other things, such as gold and silver, and even flowers. The deacons sorted out these gifts and put aside those that would be used in the Mass. The rest was given to the poor or used for the needs of the Church. During this procession, a chant was sung—a custom that gave birth to the offertory antiphon.
Towards the Middle Ages, this practice disappeared gradually, no doubt because of the risk that it could give way to disorder.
* * *
Even though the faithful no longer, as in the past, bring the bread and wine for the liturgy from their homes, the rite of carrying the gifts up to the altar retains the same spiritual value and meaning. The participation of the faithful is expressed by their bringing the bread and wine for the celebration of the Eucharist, or other gifts for the needs of the Church and the poor.
The bread and wine that we offer are poor and humble gifts. Yet, precisely for that reason, they aptly represent our smallness before God. However, because of the Eucharistic transubstantiation, we will actually be offering to God not these lowly tokens of our creaturehood, but his only begotten Son, the only Victim worthy of him. The offering of bread and wine, gifts in kind, money, etc., and even that of our own person derives all its value from union with the divine Victim. This Victim, offered by us and for us, will absorb our own oblation.
Together with Christ, we offer everything that we are and all that we possess, all that we have done or try to do. We offer our memory, intelligence, and will; our family, profession, hobbies, success, sufferings, failures, and worries; and our aspirations and spiritual communions. Likewise, we offer our small and big mortifications: all those acts of love we performed yesterday and as many as we plan to perform today. “The appropriate word you left unsaid; the joke you didn’t tell; the cheerful smile for those who bother you; that silence when you’re unjustly accused; your kind conversation with people you find boring and tactless; the daily effort to overlook one irritating detail or another in those who live with you...”[5]
But let us not forget to offer also the happy events and the pleasant things that mark our day and our entire life. Do not think that God likes our sufferings more than our joys. No. What he really likes is the constancy of our love, whatever happens to us. He is our Father and he enjoys seeing how we try to overcome the disorder sin brought into the world. We achieve victory by fighting against the enemies of our soul: from within, our concupiscence, attachments, and pride; from without, the devil, the world, and the flesh.
* * *
When our Lord called the first apostles they were busy mending their broken nets by the side of an old boat. Our Lord told the apostles to follow him and statim—immediately— they left everything --relictis omnibus— everything! And they followed him.
Sometimes, though we wish to imitate them, we find we don’t manage to leave everything, and there remains some attachment in our heart, something wrong in our life which we’re not willing to break with and offer it up to God.
Won’t you examine your heart in depth? Nothing should remain there except what is his. If not, we aren’t loving him, neither you nor I.[6]
* * *
God is also happy to see our dreams come true, our goals conquered, our business running well —in a word, seeing how we love everything he sends us. “If things go well let’s rejoice, blessing God who makes them prosper. And if they go wrong? Let’s rejoice, blessing God, who allows us to share the sweetness of his cross.”[7]
Obviously, we cannot correspond adequately with our gifts for everything we have received from the Lord of heavens and earth. Nevertheless, our gifts are a token of our sincere desire to restore God’s dominion over creation, disrupted by sin. This is the work of redemption, performed by Christ, but to be completed by each of us.
The offertory song is like the smile that accompanies a gift and makes it more pleasing to the receiver. “God loves the cheerful giver” (2 Cor 9:7). And our gift to Christ is the desire to participate with him in the sacrifice of the cross, overcoming the passions that tend to pull us down, especially the fear of giving ourselves in total self‑surrender.
At the offertory, let us tell our Lord: “I have no use for divided hearts. I give mine whole and not in parts.”[8] For Love has to be repaid with love.
Footnotes:
[1]“The liturgy is not a show, a spectacle, requiring brilliant producers and talented actors. The life of the liturgy does not consist in ‘pleasant’ surprises and attractive ‘ideas’ but in solemn repetitions. It cannot be an expression of is current and transitory, for it expresses the mystery of the Holy. Many people have felt and said that liturgy must be ‘made’ by the whole community if it is really to belong to them. Such an attitude has led to the ‘success’ of the liturgy being measured by its effect at the level of spectacle and entertainment. It is to lose sight of what is distinctive to the liturgy, which does not come from what we do but from the fact that something is taking place here that all of us together cannot ‘make’” (J. Card. Ratzinger, The Ratzinger Report, p. 126).
[2]GIRM, no. 48; GIRM3, no. 72.
[3]GIRM, no. 49; GIRM3, no. 73.
[4]GIRM, no. 50; GIRM3, no. 74.
[5]St. Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, The Way, no. 173.
[6]St. Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, The Forge, no. 356.
[7]St. Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, The Forge, no. 658.
[8]St. Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, The Forge, no. 145.
LITURGY OF THE EUCHARIST
As Christ commanded in the Upper Room
In the Last Supper, our Lord Jesus Christ, anticipating the sacrifice of the cross, gave us the blueprint of the Mass. An early account by St Paul tells us how Christ’s command to perpetuate the sacrifice was done by the first Christians:
For this is what I received from the Lord, and in turn passed on to you: that on the same night that he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took some bread, and thanked God for it and broke it, and he said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this as a memorial of me.” In the same way he took the chalice after supper, and said, “This chalice is the new covenant in my blood. Whenever you drink it, do this as a memorial of me.” Until the Lord comes, therefore, every time you eat this bread and drink this chalice, you are proclaiming his death (1 Cor 11:23‑26).
And this is precisely what takes place during the liturgy of the Eucharist.[1] The sacrifice of the cross is continuously present in the Church when the priest, representing Christ the Lord, carries out what the Lord did and commanded his disciples to do in his memory. We can identify three steps in the liturgy of the Eucharist:
• The Presentation and Preparation of the Gifts. The bread and wine with water, the elements that Christ used, are brought to the altar.
• The Eucharistic Prayer. The Church gives thanks to God for the whole work of salvation and the gifts of bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ.
• The Rite of Communion. Through the breaking of the Bread, the unity of the faithful is expressed; and through Communion, they receive the Lord’s body and blood in the same way that the apostles received Communion from Christ’s own hands.[2]
A. THE PRESENTATION AND PREPARATION OF THE GIFTS
Gifts are brought
May the contrite soul, the humbled spirit be as acceptable to you as holocausts of rams and bullocks, as thousands of fattened lambs: such let our sacrifice be to you today, and may it be your will that we follow you wholeheartedly, since those who put their trust in you will not be disappointed (Dan 3:39‑40).
* * *
At the beginning of the liturgy of the Eucharist, the gifts, which will become Christ’s body and blood, are brought to the altar.
First, the altar, the Lord’s table, which is the center of the entire Eucharistic liturgy, is prepared: The corporal, the purificator, the chalice, the pall, and the missal are placed on it. The gifts are then brought forward.[3] While the priest receives the offerings, the offertory song is sung. Singing may always accompany the rite at the offertory, even when there is no procession with the gifts.[4]
* * *
This rite is described by St Justin (second century) with stark impersonal simplicity: “Bread, water and wine are brought.” The first Christians had no special ceremonies accompanying this rite, for it was their desire to depart from pagan sacrificial practices. At the same time, they emphasized the special character of the Victim, which is not the bread and wine, but our Lord himself.
However, later on, it became necessary to defend the intrinsic goodness of created things against Gnosticism, while making it clear that the gifts brought to the altar are not the Victim to be sacrificed. The congregation participated in the act of offering by approaching the altar in procession and presenting various gifts: not only bread and wine, but also other edible items and other things, such as gold and silver, and even flowers. The deacons sorted out these gifts and put aside those that would be used in the Mass. The rest was given to the poor or used for the needs of the Church. During this procession, a chant was sung—a custom that gave birth to the offertory antiphon.
Towards the Middle Ages, this practice disappeared gradually, no doubt because of the risk that it could give way to disorder.
* * *
Even though the faithful no longer, as in the past, bring the bread and wine for the liturgy from their homes, the rite of carrying the gifts up to the altar retains the same spiritual value and meaning. The participation of the faithful is expressed by their bringing the bread and wine for the celebration of the Eucharist, or other gifts for the needs of the Church and the poor.
The bread and wine that we offer are poor and humble gifts. Yet, precisely for that reason, they aptly represent our smallness before God. However, because of the Eucharistic transubstantiation, we will actually be offering to God not these lowly tokens of our creaturehood, but his only begotten Son, the only Victim worthy of him. The offering of bread and wine, gifts in kind, money, etc., and even that of our own person derives all its value from union with the divine Victim. This Victim, offered by us and for us, will absorb our own oblation.
Together with Christ, we offer everything that we are and all that we possess, all that we have done or try to do. We offer our memory, intelligence, and will; our family, profession, hobbies, success, sufferings, failures, and worries; and our aspirations and spiritual communions. Likewise, we offer our small and big mortifications: all those acts of love we performed yesterday and as many as we plan to perform today. “The appropriate word you left unsaid; the joke you didn’t tell; the cheerful smile for those who bother you; that silence when you’re unjustly accused; your kind conversation with people you find boring and tactless; the daily effort to overlook one irritating detail or another in those who live with you...”[5]
But let us not forget to offer also the happy events and the pleasant things that mark our day and our entire life. Do not think that God likes our sufferings more than our joys. No. What he really likes is the constancy of our love, whatever happens to us. He is our Father and he enjoys seeing how we try to overcome the disorder sin brought into the world. We achieve victory by fighting against the enemies of our soul: from within, our concupiscence, attachments, and pride; from without, the devil, the world, and the flesh.
* * *
When our Lord called the first apostles they were busy mending their broken nets by the side of an old boat. Our Lord told the apostles to follow him and statim—immediately— they left everything --relictis omnibus— everything! And they followed him.
Sometimes, though we wish to imitate them, we find we don’t manage to leave everything, and there remains some attachment in our heart, something wrong in our life which we’re not willing to break with and offer it up to God.
Won’t you examine your heart in depth? Nothing should remain there except what is his. If not, we aren’t loving him, neither you nor I.[6]
* * *
God is also happy to see our dreams come true, our goals conquered, our business running well —in a word, seeing how we love everything he sends us. “If things go well let’s rejoice, blessing God who makes them prosper. And if they go wrong? Let’s rejoice, blessing God, who allows us to share the sweetness of his cross.”[7]
Obviously, we cannot correspond adequately with our gifts for everything we have received from the Lord of heavens and earth. Nevertheless, our gifts are a token of our sincere desire to restore God’s dominion over creation, disrupted by sin. This is the work of redemption, performed by Christ, but to be completed by each of us.
The offertory song is like the smile that accompanies a gift and makes it more pleasing to the receiver. “God loves the cheerful giver” (2 Cor 9:7). And our gift to Christ is the desire to participate with him in the sacrifice of the cross, overcoming the passions that tend to pull us down, especially the fear of giving ourselves in total self‑surrender.
At the offertory, let us tell our Lord: “I have no use for divided hearts. I give mine whole and not in parts.”[8] For Love has to be repaid with love.
Footnotes:
[1]“The liturgy is not a show, a spectacle, requiring brilliant producers and talented actors. The life of the liturgy does not consist in ‘pleasant’ surprises and attractive ‘ideas’ but in solemn repetitions. It cannot be an expression of is current and transitory, for it expresses the mystery of the Holy. Many people have felt and said that liturgy must be ‘made’ by the whole community if it is really to belong to them. Such an attitude has led to the ‘success’ of the liturgy being measured by its effect at the level of spectacle and entertainment. It is to lose sight of what is distinctive to the liturgy, which does not come from what we do but from the fact that something is taking place here that all of us together cannot ‘make’” (J. Card. Ratzinger, The Ratzinger Report, p. 126).
[2]GIRM, no. 48; GIRM3, no. 72.
[3]GIRM, no. 49; GIRM3, no. 73.
[4]GIRM, no. 50; GIRM3, no. 74.
[5]St. Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, The Way, no. 173.
[6]St. Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, The Forge, no. 356.
[7]St. Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, The Forge, no. 658.
[8]St. Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, The Forge, no. 145.