The Eucharistic Prayer: Offering
The next part of the Eucharistic Prayer is called the offering. One of the things I like about the liturgy is that there is a continual exchange between God and his people. We give Him thanks for all he has given and offer these gifts back to Him for blessing. He sends the Holy Spirit to change these gifts into the Body and Blood of Christ. We offer them back to Him. The GIRM describes this part of the liturgy in these words,
Offering: By which, in this very memorial, the Church–and in particular the Church here and now gathered–offers in the Holy Spirit the spotless Victim to the Father. The Church’s intention, however, is that the faithful not only offer this spotless Victim but also learn to offer themselves, and so day by day to be consummated, through Christ the Mediator, into unity with God and with each other, so that at last God may be all in all.
It is not only the bread and wine that has been transformed into Christ’s Body and Blood, but also those who have gathered as the Body of Christ who are transformed. First by the calling down of the Holy Spirit, and then by being offered back to the Father through the Holy Spirit, we are meant to be slowly transformed over our lifetimes to resemble more and more the person of Christ. Here again we see that the celebration of this sacrament is centered on theosis. The purpose of the Eucharist is both to give thanks for all that God has done for us and all that he has given to us as his children and then to offer it all back and more in return.
Perhaps one of the best responses that can be given once we come to realize the full measure of what God is offering to us in the Eucharist is to turn to this ancient prayer of the Old Testament:
How can I repay the Lord for all the good done for me? I will raise the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord. (Psalm 116: 12-13)
May it be a prayer that echoes in our hearts during every celebration of the Eucharist, as we offer ourselves along with Christ to the Father.
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A bit of advice, Father: Find the thurible!
At the old Mass, we gloriously smoke the place up every weekend. But It’s a rarely seen & smelt happening at St. Thomas, I’m afraid. Easter & Christmas just aren’t enough. Why not every weekend?
The reason I bring it up here is that during the Offertory when the priest incenses the altar & the gifts, then the acting sub-deacon incenses the priest, the rest of the servers are incensed, then, finally, the congregation. Why? Because the whole people of God are part of the offering to the Father, of course. Of course, they are even without being incensed, but it really drives the point home in a sacramental way.
Now, the last I saw it it was on a stand in the sacristy…
I too enjoy the incense, and it is certainly something we could bring up at a future liturgical commission meeting for the reasons you suggest. My own thought is that we could go somewhere between two times a year and every week….and work on pointing out the reasons during homilies!
Yes, that is key – catechesis on the change. Even when doing something that is perfectly permissible &, frankly, should have been done all along – this, too, can be an insurmountable cataclysmic upheaval to some.