What is the meaning of the offertory of the Mass?
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, purificator, missal, and chalice are placed on it. The gifts are then brought forward. 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.
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 they desired 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 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.
Even though the faithful no longer, as in the past, bring the bread and wine for the liturgy from their homes, the rite retains the same spiritual value and meaning.
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, but his only begotten Son, the only Victim worthy of him. 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...”
But let us not forget to offer also the happy events and the pleasant things that mark our day and our entire life.
Nov 6 Thu