This week we Lectio the Liturgy with the Prayer Over the Offering for the 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time.
May this oblation, O Lord, we pray, cleanse and renew us and may it become for those who do your will the source of eternal reward. Through Christ our Lord.
As I meditated on this prayer this week, I asked God for an example to use for cleanse and renew and He told me, “washing windows.” I take it He’s noticed my sunroom windows need to be done, and that will have to wait for spring. But let’s use His example and look at this prayer through a window.
We pray that our oblation, or our sacrifice or offering, would cleanse and renew us. If someone asks you for the definition of cleanse, you might say to clean, but we need to define to clean as well. To clean would be defined as removing something that doesn’t belong.
That’s what we do when we wash windows, or clean anything, really. The dirt, water spots, and dust don’t belong on the glass, and on occasion, we need to clean them. When the glass is cleaned, it is renewed, or just like new.
Our oblation should do the same for us. Our offering to God is whatever keeps us from seeing Him clearly. This would be our desires for worldly things, or our attachments to sin, and even lies we’ve come to believe about Him and about ourselves.
In addition, when we give these attachments as a sacrifice to God, we are renewed. We become a clean window and this clean glass allows us to receive Him in his fullness and it allows others to see Him through us.
In the Latin form of the prayer, for the word reward, we find the word remunerationis, which means repaying. Our oblation also becomes the source of eternal reward or repayment for those who do His will.
There is a phrase that I’ve heard, mostly when it’s time for a collection, “God will never be outdone in generosity.” Imagine the generosity of God when, as this prayer requests, the sacrifices you offer to God remove whatever it is that is between Him and you. You are made new, and in exchange, God doesn’t just repay you, He accomplishes “far more than all we ask or imagine, by the power at work within us.” (Eph 3:20)
This week, as we lay our oblations on the altar, be joyful. Give without trying to count your cost because God truly is never out done in generosity.
Thanks for praying with me,
Julie