“Make everything you can a sacrifice.”—The Angel of Portugal to the three Fatima children
Sacrifice stands before us as the hidden key to life. The word itself may sound frightening, conjuring images of blood, destruction and perhaps an overly demanding God who wants us to give up the things we enjoy. Nonetheless, it points us to our true vocation—‘to make holy.’ The entire cosmos was created for sacrifice—to be made holy—and God has placed us within it to ensure this happens. The universe exists to glorify God as a temple to his honor, and he has established human beings as priests to order all things to him within it.
God left the work of creation intentionally incomplete, placing it into the hands of man and woman as his stewards who must bring the world to its perfection. Adam was tasked with working within the Garden, cultivating it and directing it to the glory of God. Adam’s work is meant to become a priestly sacrifice, making the world holy—a place that honors God as his temple by ordering all things rightly and offering them to God in sacrifice. In transgressing God’s commandment, he set aside this task, following his wife, Eve, in diverting things from their proper end to his own enjoyment.
This is the whole problem of sin—to revert the order of things from God’s glory to our own. When things are offered to God, they reach their true goal, but when we turn them toward us, we throw a monkey wrench into the right working of the universe–and our souls.
If God created us for sacrifice, Jesus is the one who clearly models how to exercise this vocation. In our slavery to sin, he presented himself as the Lamb of God offered in atonement, bringing about a restoration of freedom and life. He lived only for the Father, even to the point of death. Without sin, he did not have to die, but he willingly gave himself in obedience to set right Adam’s disobedience. His perfect sacrifice righted the order of the entire universe, directing it back to the Father and restoring humanity’s call to offer it to God.
We often think of the Cross as what Jesus did for us so that we didn’t have to do it. Simon of Cyrene, however, reminds us that we are invited to accept the yoke of Christ and join him in the great sacrifice. St. Paul points out how Jesus’ sacrifice must become ours as well:
I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Gal 2:20)
Jesus offered his sacrifice to draw all things to him (Jn 12:32) and through him to the Father. In the Mass, as we offer Jesus to the Father, we, too, become the sacrifice because we are joined to it as members of his Body.
Jesus is the one who made his entire life a sacrifice—all his thoughts, words and actions, all flowing from and to the Father—and we, too, should make everything we can a sacrifice, including all the little details of our day. God taught the Israelites this in preparing for the perfect sacrifice. Adam had fallen by eating, so Israel had to offer its food to God: animals, grains and drink. Jesus pulls us out of our fallen desires, not simply by turning us away from food, but by feeding us, filling us with his divine life. By coming to us and nourishing us from within, he restores order within us, enabling us to take up our lost mission again. His sacrifice becomes more and more our own as it reaches out into all aspects of our lives.
If we share in Christ’s sacrifice and receive the gift of his life within us, we can then begin to rightly order things around us, making them into a sacrifice as well. This may entail giving something up if it can’t be rightly ordered to God, because if it doesn’t honor him, it doesn’t belong in our lives. But even the things we don’t give up should become a means of praising God, lifting them up to him as little acts of love. Sacrifice becomes all-encompassing as every little act becomes a gift we offer back to God—our work, home life, relationships, leisure and prayer. The sacrifice of Christ, which we receive in Communion, begins to permeate our lives like leaven, enabling us to lift everything up to God in thanksgiving, praise and reparation.
The sacrifice of our lives culminates in the hardest thing to sacrifice, and yet the most important for shaping us: our free will. We fear giving it up, but looking to the Cross, we must trust that surrendering everything will lead us to the fullness of life. Just as Jesus opened his arms without holding anything back, we, too, must receive everything that the Father sends us as a gift and offer it all back to him as a gift in obedience and love. Following Jesus in making our lives a complete sacrifice opens the path of holiness in our daily lives. Everything, when made into a sacrifice, becomes a means of drawing closer to God and, at the same, sanctifying the world around us so that it can glorify God.
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Turning to Aquinas on sacrifice we find multiple purposes, thanksgiving for gifts received, request for favors, grace. Offering God the honor owed him as justice. Primarily since the Fall from grace due to original sin sacrifice is made in reparation, the most perfect Christ’s passion and crucifixion. From these meanings we find congruence with the universal concept of the sacrificial purpose of the creation, “Sacrifice can have many purposes, including expressing submission to God, thanking God for gifts, imploring God’s grace, or appeasing God’s justice” (Staudt).
Giving glory to God is the constant theme of Saint Ignatius of Loyola. Something as a young man I found difficulty with, a kind of demeaning subservience, that is, until it became apparent that giving the glory to God is to selflessly love all persons, all things are doing justice in recognition of their ordained end. To love with pure love is in effect to give glory to God who is perfect, pure love. That itself is a totally transforming stance that makes us like the God we’re created for and ordained to love.
That itself is a totally transforming posture that makes us likened unto God himself.
I’ve termed it “Morning Offering Spirituality” in recent years, received from a Sister of Christian Charity in the second grade far over a half-century ago. Its not always easy to remember it, to remember to reoffer it throughout the day when the pinch comes, but it makes all things possible, and it makes all the difference in time and eternity.
Good points …Rev.Fr.Iannunzi in one of his talks mentions how The Lord allowed every negative thought of every human , Adam to the last to be projected unto Him by the enemy , sweating Blood to make reparations using His Will to counter such…
https://www.ltdw.org/
We are also told how it is venial sins that lead to mortal sins ..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAXt2Xct_Gs
Was it likely that Adam had little thoughts of envy/ fear being projected on to him from the enemy , which were neglected in his role to ’till and guard ‘…
His words on beholding Eve in her beauty – ‘my flesh , my bones….taken out of me ..’ – did he miss out on turning to The Lord in gratitude acknowledging her as belonging to The Father …
With the upcoming Synod ,the desire to look for the deep roots to bring them up to The Lord – as a responsibility of the whole Church , which the Holy Father is dealing with through help of various persons including women …the age old narrative that Adam was seduced into the wrong choice …has same led to the complexity of relations all through .. interesting too that Adam blames Eve , she does not retaliate, instead points ? with more humility to the right source…
The efforts at various levels such as the more prochoice candidates bringing out good sensible plans that help families with young children to be able to have more paid time , flexible hours etc and more awareness of the means and good of the sacrifice in facing the pain of the inevitable separations – may all such lead to speedier victory of goodness and healing in families and nations !
Can all the benefits of the Democratic Party’s social justice policies (such as the “good sensibles plans to help families”) offset the evil of abortion?
According the an org that promotes abortion Guttmacher Institute, & the CDC, over 70M unborn babies are aborted every year globally (not counting those chemically aborted & destroyed zygotes during IVF process). In the US over a million unborn babies are aborted & could be as high as 2M if those aborted chemically are added.
Catholics are taught by the Church that at conception (zygote stage), the zygote is human, ie it has a soul, thus it is a human being with unique DNA, not just a part of the mother (else, the fetus will have the same DNA as the mother if it is just a part of the body of the mother). Abortion is really horrifying murder by mutilation.
“Everything, when made into a sacrifice, becomes a means of drawing closer to God and, at the same, sanctifying the world around us so that it can glorify God.”
Should we sacrifice the Catholic school system?
“A preferential option for the poor” should be maintained in our Catholic Schools. If we find that we cannot afford to keep our schools open to the poor, the Church should be ready to use its resources for something else which can be kept open to the poor. We cannot allow our Church to become a church primarily for the upper classes while allowing the poor to remain in public schools. The priority should be given to the poor even if we have to let the upper classes fend for themselves.
Practically speaking, the Catholic Schools must give up general education in those countries where the State is providing it. The resources of the Church could then be focused on “Confraternity of Christian Doctrine” and other programs which can be kept open to the poor. These resources could then be used to help society become more human in solidarity with the poor. Remember, the Church managed without Catholic Schools for centuries. It can get along without them today. The essential factor from the Christian point of view is to cultivate enough Faith to act in the Gospel Tradition, namely, THE POOR GET PRIORITY. The rich and middle-class are welcome too. But the poor come first.