ps. sorry about the font size change, it's not letting me fix it
"Pray, brethren, that our sacrifice my be acceptable to God, the Almighty Father."
"May the Lord accept the sacrifice, at your hands, for the praise and glory of His name, for our good and the good of all His Church."
"May the Lord accept the sacrifice, at your hands, for the praise and glory of His name, for our good and the good of all His Church."
When it comes time for Communion, we are not only partaking in the sacrifice of Christ, but also of ourselves.
On the altar, Christ comes down. It is the eternal kiss between divinity and humanity. Christ's one sacrifice spans all of eternity. It is not a reenactment of the passion, but a participation in it. Through the sacrifice of the Mass we are PRESENT at the table of the last supper, the 40 lashes, and the final breaths of the Cross. Christ is outside of time, and so while He was on the cross, He gave up his life for each and every Mass, each and every person. We are tapping into the divine love of the ultimate sacrifice. A gift fully given that will never be fully understood.
But it is not only Christ who is present on the altar. We are also called to make an offering. The words italicized above commonly are understood to pertain to the bread and wine, the offering that the priest will consecrate allowing the congregation to take part in Christ's sacrifice. However, we can also take this time with in the Mass to lay something on the altar. We pray "Accept the sacrifice" of our day, our frustrations, our joys, our pains. We offer our lives to Christ, telling Him, "It is all for you. I may not be a missionary, a priest, a nun; I am only a student, parent, worker. I have no conversion story. I am not Paul. I simply live, loving you, each day." We lay down THAT life, knowing our faults, and asking the Lord to accept the effort we put forward as we strive to become more rooted in Christ and fall deeper into Love.
We consecrate ourselves. Asking that as the bread and wine are transformed, we may also be transformed. We undergo a 'transubstantiation' of sorts. The bread and wine- physical, natural, human- becomes the Body and Blood - divine, the soul of Christ. We consume this into ourselves. And we the congregation of Christ - physical, natural, human- open ourselves to the grace of the divine, the soul of Christ, and it's ability to change us.
It does not happen with out our will. The divine cannot transform us, unless we allow it. Our lives are our own, feeble, human, weak, until we allow Christ, the Great High Priest, to consecrate them and work through our hands, our hearts, our selves to love all of humanity. By allowing Him to consecrate our lives, by offering ourselves to Him, we are then more prepared and able to live out the call and mission Christ has given to us. To LIVE and LOVE all for Christ, in all that we do, all we say, and all we are.
