Jun 3 Wed
Do I owe service and sacrifices to God?
People have always felt the need to offer sacrifices to God, since man's need to show his reverence towards God in deeds is born of the dictates of natural reason. We are ordained by nature to serve God and worship him with adoration, love, and praise. This is the supernatural virtue of religion that binds us to the one Almighty God.
The Christian has still greater reason to worship God, because, as well as being the all-powerful Lord and Creator, God is our Father, who has wanted to make us sharers in his very life. And as his children, we have to adore him supernaturally, moved by God's own love. We must also seek God's glory in all our actions. Today it is all the more urgent to do so, since “there are people who try to desecrate everything, seeking to convert whatever is in itself sacred, even the very priesthood, into something profane. We want to bring all things to God, each according to its nature: what God has made sacred is sacred."
Ever since Christ died on the Cross for us, our worship should be offered to God through Jesus Christ, mainly in the holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
Saint Josemaría used to comment that, for me, everything seems too little when it is for the Lord. We want to offer him the very best. “Generously give the Lord that young heart you have, that beautiful, splendid life: give your life to him. Make yours the sacrifice of Abel, not that of Cain. Abel gave him the best of his flock." What pleases God most is a clean life, a life entirely dedicated to him, a life of love. “That is why we want to offer our life, our generous dedication, in reparation for our own sins; for the sins of all men, our brothers; for the sins committed at all times, and for those that will be committed until the end of time. Above all, for the Catholics, for God's chosen ones who do not respond, those who betray the special love God our Lord has bestowed on them."
Absolutely everything has to be for God; we offer him the very deepest recesses of our mind and will, our whole being. He receives our offering: it goes up to his throne like incense, united to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. “We each make the consecratio mundi, the consecration of the world, through our personal dedication to the Lord's service and, through him, to the service of all souls without exception, in the practice of our own job or duty, in the middle of the world, which we love, each in our own state."
Let us give up our lives cheerfully. “If you think that your talents, your personality, your qualities are being wasted; that you're not allowed to take full advantage of them. -Meditate well on these words of a spiritual writer: ‘The incense offered to God is not wasted. Our Lord is more honored by the immolation of your talents than by their vain use.’"