Becoming an Offering
The human vocation is eucharistic, priestly, and victimal; that is to say that man becomes his true self by giving thanks, by making the holy offering and, finally, by offering not only things to God, but by making the oblation of himself. The Latin word for victim is hostia, from which we derive the English word host, signifying the bread set apart for the Holy Sacrifice. In the Eastern Churches, the same bread set apart for the Holy Mysteries is called the lamb. By offering himself to God, man becomes a sacrificial victim, a hostia (host), an offering made over to God and identified with “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Apocalypse 13:8).
