19 Sunday OT Prayer over the Offering

This week Lectio the Liturgy with the Prayer over the Offerings for the 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time. We are going to study this prayer with some role playing. As you study or listen to this prayer, imagine yourself as playing the part of the offering.

Be pleased, O Lord, to accept the offerings of your Church, for in your mercy you have given them to be offered and by your power you transform them into the mystery of our salvation. Through Christ our Lord.

Remember, you are the offering in this week’s prayer. If you want to use an image, just imagine handing yourself over to God, who is delighted to accept you and take you into His arms. It’s a great feeling, isn't it?

What I found even more remarkable about God accepting us as the offering, is that He not only created us, and after we fell into sin, He even gave us the means to be transformed and become one with Him. The once tainted offering is now a perfect offering.

We are transformed through His gifts of Baptism and the Holy Spirit. In Baptism we become a new creature and He gives us His name. When He gives the Holy Spirit, His divine life lives in us and the Holy Spirit in us also sanctifies us.

By now you might be thinking, “Yes, well, I’m not perfect, I have sinned,” and that is exactly the point because God wants it all. He wants all of us, including our failures and our weaknesses. With his power He transforms our failures into grace, which He freely gives to us. Receiving forgiveness for actions which we felt would condemn us has now become the “mystery of our salvation.”

Being the offering is our identity. When we give ourselves to God, when He transforms every part of us, the good, the bad, and the ugly, we are made a new creation. This is who we are. We are no longer our failures and faults. St. John Paul II said it best, “We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures, we are the sum of the Father's love for us and our real capacity to become the image of His Son Jesus.”

And now imagine this: as you look in a mirror, you not only see your face, but you also see the image of Jesus come into focus. His image is becoming an overlay on top of yours. You are becoming the image of Jesus. People may see your face on the outside, but they know by your eyes and by your smile that you have been transformed.

This transformation may take place over time or it may take place in an instant, but either way, you and I as an offering are becoming more and more the image of Jesus because that is who we are.

Thanks for praying with me,
Julie