Prayer Over the Offering 27 Sunday Ordinary Time

This week we Lectio the Liturgy with the Prayer Over the Offering for the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Accept, O Lord, we pray, the sacrifices instituted by your commands and, through the sacred mysteries, which we celebrate with dutiful service, graciously complete the sanctifying work by which you are pleased to redeem us. Through Christ our Lord.

Today we ask God for two things: to accept our sacrifices and to complete His sanctifying work in us.

For the word accept, in the Latin form of the prayer, we find the word suscipe, which means to take and receive.

Our sacrifices are our self-offerings, which are symbolized in the bread and the wine.

That’s a powerful image, isn't it? When we offer our sacrifices to God, and in the mass we can see our sacrifices being offered, He accepts them, and they are really His. And only as God can do, He takes what we offer, He transforms it, and He gives us something beautiful in return.

The commands that God instituted, or put in place, are these: take and eat; take and drink; and do this in memory of Me.  To “do this” does not mean to show up on Sunday and watch. It means to imitate what Jesus did. When Jesus offered bread and wine, He offered Himself. When we “do this,” we offer ourselves. Another “do this” that Jesus commanded is to take and receive. The saving work of Jesus cannot become a part of us if we just watch, we must suscipe it as well.

Obeying His commands is our dutiful service. Dutiful should not be thought of as an obligation because truly, it is what we owe back to God. After all, it is through our service that God completes His sanctifying work, the work of redemption in us. Our service is our “do this.”

His work of redemption causes the sacred mysteries, the life of Christ, to come alive in us. If we, the baptized, allow God to complete His work in us, we, too, live the life of Christ. In your own way, you live Christ.

The world today needs you to not only stay home and pray, but to go out, to bring Christ to the world, and it all starts when we’re on our knees, answering God’s command to “do this.”

Thanks for praying with me,
Julie