How to Prepare the Heart at the Offertory

BOOK CLUB 2 | WEEK 5: A Devotional Journey Into the Mass, Ch. 5

If you’d like to purchase a copy of Carstens’ book, you may do so here. If you’d like to access the Table of Contents for this series, click here.

Photo by Jacob Bentzinger on Unsplash

It is such a testament to the depth of the liturgy that this chapter can discuss a moment of the Mass that we may not even notice—the offertory—and use it to illustrate a profound an important concept—sacrifice and its place in the Church. Whether your parish goes all-out on the offertory procession or simply places the unconsecrated hosts and cruet of wine on the credence table for the priest to access when he’s ready, this moment when the bread and wine are prepared is a critical one, if we can learn to see with the eyes of our hearts.

This is where we turn to the concept of sacrifice:

We might ask ourselves “How do I understand the meaning of sacrifice?” It’s a question we cannot afford to get wrong, especially since the heart of Jesus’ ministry was His sacrifice on the Cross. That same heart beats at the center of the Mass in the sacrifice made present in the Eucharist. Moreover, our baptismal calling requires us to offer ourselves as a sacrifice. To misunderstand the true sense of sacrifice is to miss the very meaning of life as a Catholic.

Carstens starts us out by walking us through a few common but limited ideas of what sacrifice is: giving up things we love in a disordered or disproportionate way (watching hours and hours of television in the evenings), destroying or limiting use of things that are good to prove our love (food or drink, Old Testament animal or grain sacrifices), resigned acceptance of things that are hard (overnight feedings), going without things that we don’t need but indulge in anyway (chocolate ice cream)…

All of these, he says, can be a portion of sacrifice, but are not complete in and of themselves because these are all things that God already has. Everything that is… is His! The one thing He cannot have without us—a consequence of His giving us free will, which is a necessary prerequisite for love—is us. Our hearts. Our very selves.

Sacrifice, then, is to give ourselves to God. This might be represented or manifested in the offerings mentioned above—it is certainly praiseworthy, for example, to to abstain from meat on Fridays or to go without sweets during Lent—but those pious practices are not ends in themselves. Rather, those “little s” sacrifices are intended as signs to point us and help us to make the “Big S” Sacrifice of our very selves.

The timing of this chapter is serendipitous as we prepare for Ash Wednesday next week. Every year since 2021, I have been pregnant or breastfeeding during Lent, and this year is no different. I struggle, in this season, to feel comfortable making food-related sacrifices because I’m already certain that I don’t eat enough (or, well enough) to make up from the postpartum depletion and the constant nursing of my nine-month-old.¹ Even sacrificing something as “extra” as dessert or cream in my coffee feels… risky. While there are days when my overly-analytical brain tries to tell me that this is just concupiscence speaking, that clearly my attachments are way too strong, that I need to just muscle through… I’m learning to lean into that “mother’s intuition” in respecting my body’s needs and respecting the season I’m in, even when it’s not perfect or ideal.

The question, then, becomes: how do I facilitate detachment from material things without running myself into the ground, to the point that I am unable to care for my children in a virtuous way?² This is where, I think, Carstens’ definition becomes particularly helpful:

Indeed, most of us, most of the time, associate “sacrifice” with giving up, going without, destruction, deprivation, loss, pain, and suffering. If we focus so absolutely on these unpleasant aspects of sacrifice, we are consequently tempted to “sacrifice” to God things that are small, those that are not essential to us, gifts that are on the heart’s periphery and disconnected from the core of our being—and all in a way that duty demands.

That last line—all in a way that duty demands—is worth sitting with. Offering up an overnight nursing session can be fruitful if we strive for cheerful acceptance of it rather than ruminating in anger or acting short-tempered toward the baby… but our duty to feed our children remains the same, even if we don’t intentionally make an offering of it. That’s not to say that there’s no grace in offering up challenges that come part and parcel with our vocations. There certainly is! But we can’t stop there.

We want to incorporate the positive definition of sacrifice that complements the above “sacrifice is not only” or “sacrifice is more than” definition:

God the Father wants a loving union with you and me, whole and entire, with nothing kept back by us. If I offer words of prayer, these are acceptable because my heart is in some real way present in them. If I put a twenty-dollar bill in the collection basket, it is welcomed by God—but only if it comes from my heart. If I give up chocolate ice cream for Lent, this small sacrifice is received only when attached to my heart’s undivided desire for union with the Trinity. It was this same devotion to the Father and His will—a devotion amplified by His willingness to endure pain and suffering—that made Christ’s sacrifice pleasing to the Father.

In other words, the sacrifice on the Cross was acceptable to the Father because it was an offering of Christ’s very life, made from a place of devotion and desire for unity. His suffering on the Cross amplified that desire that was already present in Him. Can our daily crosses do the same for us? Can we see in each tantrum, in each unwashed dish, in each daily death to self an opportunity to grow in love and acceptance of God’s will for our lives?

And as we discern our Lenten disciplines—the things that we feel the Lord wants to use to teach us during this season—the question we can ask is this: What disciplines (prayer, fasting, and/or almsgiving) will allow me to best make a gift of myself and my heart to the Father?

Likewise, when we attend Mass, we can pay attention for the moment of the Offertory as a unique and important reminder for us to offer ourselves—our prayers, works, joys, and sufferings—to God in union with the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross.

The preparation of the gifts at Mass is really a preparation for sacrifice. Therefore, our understanding of true sacrifice should lead each participant at Mass to prepare for the sacrifice by asking a single question: “How can I get my whole self onto the altar—even onto the paten holding the host and into the chalice of wine—to give to God?” At the conclusion of the preparation of the altar and the gifts, the priest will command us to, “pray that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father.” This juncture along our journey into the Mass is the moment when we are asked to make our sacrifice. It is time to carry our sacrificial gifts—ourselves—to the altar.

And how do we do this? How do we carry ourselves to the altar to join with Christ in the sacrifice of the Cross, re-presented at each Mass?

Through prayer!

I love the way that Carstens ties in the Morning Offering in this chapter. Here’s the one that our family says, when we can remember to say it: “O my Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I offer you my prayers, works, joys, and sufferings of this day in union with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world. I offer them for the intentions of Thy Sacred Heart—the salvation of souls, the reparation for sins, and the reunion of all Christians. I offer them for the intentions of our bishops, for the intentions of our Holy Father this month, and for all the intentions of our family.”

Making a habit of a daily Morning Offering allows us to flex that sacrificial muscle, bringing to God every aspect of our day as it happens, so that we can remain more recollected at our Sunday Masses. It also helps us model and teach this skill for our children.

Offer up all that is good and bad and ugly—all that you are—so that you can find yourself united with others in Jesus’ own body, transformed by the Spirit, and offered in loving union to the Father. This offering will be a true gift to God, one that He is unable to have without you.

Thus, when we see the Offertory happening at Mass, we can use that moment to call to mind all our prayers, works, joys, and sufferings from the week. We can thank God for the blessings, for the graces he gave us in the midst of the challenges, and for the ways He is continuing to draw us closer to Himself, even when we don’t fully understand His process. We can align ourselves with His will more closely, bring our loved ones to His feet in prayer, and ask for the graces we will need in order to face the week ahead.

Will you join me in trying to make Morning Offering each day this week, as we prepare for Ash Wednesday? How can we live out this fuller understanding of sacrifice, both within and outside the context of the liturgy?

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One more thing! We’ve got a date for our Virtual Discussion! Our call will be hosted on Monday, March 11, at 7:30pm CST. (You can click here to add the event to your Google calendar.) I am thrilled to share that Chris Carstens (the book’s author) is planning to join us! The call will be a chance for us to discuss the book more fully, to ask questions, and to share how these habits have been bearing fruit in our lives over this spring semester. If you have a moment, you can pop over to the chat thread and RSVP, share a question you’d like to ask on the call, or drop an insight you’ve gleaned from the book!

1. On this note, I’m so excited (!!) for the new project

Annelise Roberts

is starting, titled

The Everything Free Life

. Annelise is drawing on her experience as a mother and homemaker with dietary restrictions that sometimes leave her feeling like she has to cook, well, “everything-free”. This post is a great place to start if you’re interested in learning more about where she’s coming from and what she’s working toward.

2. As the saying goes, “Your Lenten discipline should be penitential for you, not for everyone around you!” Please don’t give up coffee if you’re mean without your coffee. No judgment. I’m mean without my coffee. But we are allowed—nay, encouraged—to be considerate of others and aware of our limitations when choosing Lenten disciplines.