Offer It Up: The Offertory

After the Homily, quite a number of things happen seemingly at once. Perhaps we get too caught up in the song and don't really notice. But now we have, as one priest I know likes to put it, "halftime". It's anything but a break, though. Rather, it is a preparation - setting the table of the Lord.

It is here that the Liturgy of the Word becomes the Liturgy of the Eucharist.

This is part five of my series on the Mass, Guided Missal. 

Part 1: Opening the Doors
Part 2: A Rite for Wrongs
Part 3: Word.
Part 4: I've Got Good News

The Creed

After the homily, we stand as a group and recite an ancient speech from the earliest days of the Church: the Nicene Creed. The Creed is our beliefs distilled. Just over a year ago, we switched to the Third Edition of the Roman Missal with a re-translated Creed. This forced everybody, young and old alike, to take a closer look at that thing we say at every Sunday Mass.

It's a good thing, too. I feel like the Creed is sometimes glossed over or recited gloomily. We don't realize that at the time it was written, professing that Creed was a death sentence. Martyrs went to their deaths standing by those words - and we have to dare to do the same today. Are we willing to stand by those words, even through the worst of times? If we had a gun to our head, would we find the strength to say "I believe"?

When we profess the Creed, we aren't just reminding ourselves of what we believe. We are affirming and continuing the actions of two thousand years of brave men and women who sacrificed all for the sake of that Creed and the Gospel it stands for. We should proudly announce the Creed with the same courage as those early martyrs, knowing that they will lead us, today, to persecutions and scorn.

The Intercessions

Next, we present the needs of the community before the Lord. I find great significance in that - we don't just keep our intentions to ourselves, but rather rely on the whole community for prayer and support. The Intercessions (or, as is sometimes called the Prayers of the Faithful) are one of the best examples of the "One Body" that Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians 12. We are full of one Spirit and thus are one. As Saint Paul said, "If one part of the body suffers, the entire body suffers with it" So with prayer and supplication we raise the needs not just of ourselves but the entire Church family.

The Offertory

Now we have the "big" portion of this part of the Mass - the offertory. Bread and wine, along with monetary donations, are brought forward and given to the priest. Why carry them up though? In most churches the bread and wine are kept in the sacristy...why take them to the back of the church only to bring them back up again? 

The practice of an offertory is derived from the days before large-scale companies capable of producing communion wafers en masse. Usually, the bread and wine for the Mass were provided by a member of the community along with various gifts and valuables used to feed the priests and maintain the church. The offertory was their opportunity to bring those gifts forward and present them before God. 

Today, the bread and wine come from the church, but the offertory is no less about us. We may not provide the bread and wine necessarily, but we should offer up everything we are - our worries, fears, anxieties, hopes, dreams, desires - everything, victory and defeat. Light and dark. We place everything we are on that paten and, like the bread and wine, God will make it holy.

The Preparation of the Gifts

The next part is really easy to miss, especially because the priest intentionally mumbles most of it (especially if a song is being sung). The bread and wine are elevated in turn, with the priest saying:

"Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation,

for through your goodness we have received

the bread we offer you:

fruit of the earth and work of human hands,

it will become for us the bread of life."

Then the wine, saying 

"Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation,

for through your goodness we have received

the wine we offer you:

fruit of the vine and work of human hands,

it will become our spiritual drink."

Does it sound familiar? It should for anyone who knows their Jewish wine blessings! In Judaism, a lot of importance is placed on sharing the cup of wine, and so blessing it is a vital part of any meal. The wine blessing is, in Hebrew: barukh attah Adonai eloheinu melekh ha-olam borei peri hagafen. If, for some odd reason, you aren't up on your Hebrew, that's translated as "Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the Universe, Creator of the fruit of the vine." 

Like many things in Catholicism, we draw from our spiritual ancestors. By referencing their wine blessing, we place the mass in the context of the todah, a bread and wine sacrifice, as well as the Passover. We are saying "Look, we are fulfilling all of these things. This isn't coming out of nowhere."

So now we've set the stage. We've placed ourselves, as humble individuals, on the altar to be transformed into the Body of Christ. We've set our meal in the context of the Jewish rites, and we're ready for the major drama to start. 

Get ready, because it's time for the Eucharistic Prayer.