Homily:
17th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle B
If I were to mention the word “sacrifice” in the context in
which we are standing—that is here in a Church during a religious service—most
of us would probably know what I was talking about. That’s because sacrifice, in a religious
context, almost immediately calls forward images of the ritual sacrifices
offered by ancient peoples: animals or other objects offered on an altar in
homage to a god or gods. And this is
true enough, for in a religious context this is the basic definition of a
sacrifice. However, I think that there
is a much broader definition of sacrifice—one that we encounter outside of the
religious context—that allows us to understand sacrifice a little more directly
and to see how sacrifice is actually something that we encounter regularly in
our daily lives.
In a more general context, sacrifice is the surrender or
destruction of something that is prized or desirable for the sake of something
considered as having a higher or more pressing claim. And if we think about it, I guess we could
find that, in big and small ways, we do this almost every day. Families will give up vacations so as to save
money for a new home or a college education for their children. Parents will sell the sports car in order to
purchase a minivan as their families begin to grow. Some will refuse to take a new job because it
would move them too far away from loved ones.
Others, however, will even leave their native country in order to
provide a better life for their families.
Every couple of years, either in the winter or in the summer, this ideal
of sacrifice is on display during the Olympics, where athletes from around the
world who have sacrificed years of their lives in order to strive for greatness
in a particular sport compete for one prize—an Olympic medal—that makes their
sacrifices worthwhile. Without doubt,
sacrifice is something familiar to us.
And that’s good, because sacrifice is a very important
aspect of the Eucharist that we celebrate each and every week. The unique thing about the Eucharist
considered as a sacrifice, however, is
that while at the same time it is a sacrifice like those made by ancient
peoples, in which an offering is immolated on an altar, it is also a sacrifice
that never ends and is constantly being re-presented because of its most
perfect and enduring nature. In the
Catechism of the Catholic Church we read that: The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one
single sacrifice: “The victim is one and the same: the same now offers
through the ministry of priests, who then offered himself on the cross; only
the manner of offering is different.” (1367) And so, the sacrifice that we offer week after
week is the one, eternal sacrifice of Christ on the Cross. It is the only perfect sacrifice. And so, uniting ourselves to it becomes the
only way to make our lives an acceptable sacrifice to God. (cf. 2100)
The Church also teaches us that an outward sacrifice that
is not an expression of an inward sacrifice of spirit is empty (2100). And Psalm 51 reminds us that “the sacrifice
acceptable to God is a contrite spirit.”
And so we have to ask ourselves: “When we come here each week, do we do
it merely out of external duty or do we do it to offer something of ourselves
to God?” If we are here only because we
fear what God will do to us if we don’t show up, then I think that we are
missing the point. Don’t get me wrong,
we all need a reason to be here and if fear of punishment is all you have this
week, well then that’s something. But
the real fruit of our weekly sacrifice will only be found when we come here to
unite our daily sacrifices of prayer and work to Christ’s eternal
sacrifice. In other words, our sacrifice
of prayer in this building will mean little to us individually unless we bring
forward the sacrifices of our daily lives to be offered with Christ’s on this
altar.
Sometimes, however, we can convince ourselves that our
offerings don’t amount to much. This is
not new. As we saw in our readings
today, two persons were asked to place their meager offerings before a
multitude of people: to sacrifice what they had for a greater purpose. To each of them, it didn’t look like much;
but to God it was enough to multiply and satisfy. They couldn’t see this, however, until they
were invited to make the offering. They
thought their offering was barely enough to cover their own needs. What they found, however, was that, when
offered to God, their small sacrifices served a much greater purpose. In other words: their sacrifice, united
through the “man of God” to God’s sacrifice, was made abundantly fruitful.
And so this is our work: to daily acknowledge the
connection between the sacrifices we make every day and the one, perfect, and
abundant sacrifice that Christ offered on the cross; and then to bring those
sacrifices here to be offered with Christ’s and lifted up to God in prayer and
praise. Perhaps you can even find practical
ways of doing this, like writing down your sacrifices during the week on small
slips of paper and then dropping them into the collection basket next
week. Then, as you watch as the basket
is brought to the altar, you will be able see your sacrifices going up to be
offered with the bread and wine that will become the Body and Blood of Christ,
the true and perfect sacrifice. Whatever
way you choose, find some way to recollect the small and big sacrifices that you
will make this coming week so that you can offer them here and you will begin
to find that your participation in this celebration will be much more fruitful.
///
You know, I think that we have a special opportunity in
these coming weeks, as we hear more from these Eucharistic passages of John’s
Gospel, to reflect on and renew our experience of this miraculous event and of
its sacramental renewal here in the Mass.
And so I encourage you to spend time reflecting on these Gospel passages
each day of this week and the weeks following (yes, I said each day). In fact, we can begin
right now in the silence that follows before we profess the Creed. Let these words soak into your heart and ask
God for the faith to see the truth of what he has promised: that our sometimes
meager sacrifices can be made abundantly fruitful when united to Christ’s one,
perfect sacrifice.
My brothers and sisters, if you pay close attention to what
follows, you’ll see that our prayers and actions are all pointed toward making
that connection between the offerings of our lives and the life offered here on
this altar. And so let us turn, now, to
him and make an offering of ourselves acceptable to God our Almighty Father.
Given at Saint Mary’s
Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – July 29th, 2018
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