Episode Transcript  

One

An Exchange of Hearts

St. Catherine of Siena prayed again and again, “Create in me a clean heart, O God.” Then Jesus came to her, opened her side, and took out her heart. He later returned, opened her side once more, and gave her His own Sacred Heart, burning with love, saying, “Dearest daughter, as I took your heart away, now I give you mine, that you may live by it forever.” Imagine living with the heart of Jesus. Loving the people in your life with His love.

Every Mass invites us into this exchange of hearts. We give ourselves to Jesus, and He gives Himself to us, transforming us by the Eucharist we consume. But an exchange involves a gift from us, too. We have a heart to give, a life to give. That is what the offertory is about.

After the Creed, there is the Prayers of the Faithful, where we pray for four groups: the Pope and the leaders of the Church; public authorities; those burdened by difficulties; and the local community. Then we begin the second part of the Mass, the Liturgy of the Eucharist. This second part of the Mass begins with the Offertory, otherwise known as the preparation of the Gifts.

We all sit down, and the collection basket is passed around, and typically a family goes to the back of the Church to bring up the gifts of the financial collection, and the bread and the wine. It would be easy to see this as an intermission where we take a breather. Instead, this is the moment to place yourself on the altar.

Two

What the Gifts Represent

In the ancient Church, instead of passing around a collection basket, everyone would go to the back of the Church and then process forward, each person bringing gifts from their livelihood, foodstuffs, clothing materials, or silver and gold, plus the bread and wine to be used for the consecration. The deacons would place the bread and wine on the altar while the rest was set aside to be distributed to the poor. Each gift represented the person who brought it, their work, their time, their life. By offering these gifts, they were offering themselves to God in love.

Today we no longer bring forward material gifts. Instead, we give the money that can purchase the same things to be used for the good of the Church and for the poor. But the gift signifies the same thing: our gift of self to God.

At this point in the Mass, the bread and wine also represent us. Bread represents our labor, for it is produced by the sweat of the brow. Wine, made from grapes crushed in a winepress, represents our suffering and endurance. We bring to the altar the bread of life’s labor and the wine of life’s sorrow. In these gifts, we offer our daily life to God.

The Altar represents the Cross because it is the place where the sacrifice of Jesus is made present. The symbolism is profound. When the bread and wine are placed on the altar, they represent us. This signifies that we, too, mount the Cross with Christ, offering ourselves as a living sacrifice to the Father.

Three

Offer Yourself

We have all heard people say, “I just don’t get anything out of Mass.” St. Paul pleads with us in Romans chapter 12, “I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present yourselves as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”

Jesus gave Himself completely to the Father on the Cross. He makes Calvary present in the Mass so that we can join Him. In this way His sacrifice becomes ours, and ours becomes His. We should place ourselves on the paten with the host and pour ourselves out in trust into the chalice, offering all that is good and bad in us to be transformed.

So, when the gifts are placed on the altar, this is what we should be saying in our soul, “Father, I give myself entirely to you. All my prayer, work, joy, and suffering, I unite to the sacrifice of your Son made present here. I offer it for the good of my loved ones and the whole world. We too, like the bread and wine, are to be changed; we are to be transfigured. We come bringing ourselves to the sacrifice, and we leave renewed in Christ. As St. Paul says, “I live now not with my own life but with the life of Christ who lives in me.”

The Mass is not about what we get out of it. It is about giving ourselves totally and unconditionally to God, as Christ gives Himself to the Father and to us.

Four

Berakah

The priest then lifts the bread and prays, “Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation. Through your goodness we have this bread to offer: fruit of the earth and work of human hands. It will become for us the bread of life.” And we respond, “Blessed be God forever.” Next, the priest pours one drop of water into the wine, praying, “By the mystery of this water and wine may we come to share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity.”

Here the wine represents Christ, and the water represents us. And what happens to that drop of water? It becomes one with the wine.

This simple ritual expresses our whole faith: God became man so that we might share in His divine life. And how does that happen? By receiving the Eucharist with faith and love, we are united with Christ and transformed in Him. Then the Priest prays, “Blessed are you, Lord, God of all creation. Through your goodness we have this wine to offer, fruit of the vine and work of human hands. It will become our spiritual drink.” We respond, “Blessed be God forever.” Finally, he turns and says, “Pray, brethren, that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father.” And we answer, “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 holy Church.”

Notice: the priest says, “my sacrifice and yours.” This is not the priest’s offering alone. We, too, are offering ourselves, our prayer, work, joy, and suffering, joined to Christ’s one sacrifice of Calvary made present on the altar. This is why incense may be directed to the assembly: to signify that we ourselves are part of the offering, rising like fragrant sacrifice to God.

Five

The Preface 

After the Prayer over the Offerings, the priest begins the Eucharistic Prayer by saying, “The Lord be with you.” We respond, “And with your spirit.” He invites us, “Lift up your hearts.” We reply, “We lift them up to the Lord.” Then he urges, “Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.” And we proclaim, “It is right and just.”

This is the moment of the great exchange, the offering of hearts. We now lift up our hearts, joining ourselves to Christ’s offering to the Father. We mount the Cross with Him. We give Him our heart, our life. Then in Communion Jesus gives us His Sacred Heart and He places within us the fire of His love, that we may live no longer our own life, but His.

Whatever you have today, joy, sorrow, work, pain, give it to God. Then the next time you are at Mass, place it on the Altar at the Offertory. Then your whole life flows in and out of the Mass. Your whole life becomes a sacrifice of praise to God.

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