Offer It Up

Have you ever been told to offer something up? Chances are, if you are like most Americans, your immediate response is resentment at being told what to do and a mental block against the idea—especially if it came from one of your parents.  It matters little whether you may have told others precisely the same thing when you had nothing to suffer.

Well, despite whatever emotional baggage you may carry regarding this idea of offering something up, it does have the power to transform your life. But the enemy will do his best to prevent your realizing it.

“Offer it up,” is such a vague thing to say anyway. We humans do not deal well in vagueness, even when it presents universal truth. We need the concrete specifics that turn that universal truth from something out there into something that penetrates to the deepest recesses of our hearts.

As I mentioned in my last post, sacrifice is a part of our baptismal priesthood. That means that we are called to offer sacrifice to the Father on behalf of others. Unlike the ministerial priest who offers the sacrifice of Christ upon the cross through His role in persona Christi, acting in the person of Christ, we have only the substance of our lives to offer in sacrifice. However, there is certainly enough substance there and it too may be transformed by Christ, if not transubstantiated.

In the sacrifice of the Mass, the priest has the tradition of centuries behind the weight of his words directed toward a specific offering. We need that same specificity in our lives. Although we can simply sacrifice in general for souls or for the world, unless we have a burning zeal like the great saints, we will soon grow lukewarm in our efforts.

We need specific intentions. We need to pray for particular people, for particular situations, for particular healings.  If I say in a moment of suffering that it is for my friend who is struggling, for my godmother, for someone who is going through surgery, or for anyone else for whom I have promised to pray, I have somewhere to direct my pain.  Instead of struggling within myself and wanting to escape, I have a means to bring fruit from my suffering because it is for another.

Even when the suffering seems impossible to offer up because it is too much to endure, we can make that effort of the will.  Then offering it up means transforming it into a prayer moment by moment. Instead of an obstacle to remove, it becomes a sacrifice of love as we lift up to the Lord the name of a loved one, repeating again and again that the suffering is for that one so dear to us.