Divine Mercy Chaplet: "I offer You..."

[StefanF]

I have been recently thinking ( a sometimes dangerous endeavor) of the following words of the Divine Mercy Chaplet: Eternal Father, I offer you the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Your Dearly Beloved Son…
Could someone please explain the “I offer” part? How can I offer this to God? I feel like I am out in left field on this question but I really don’t get it. Any help in understanding this would be much appreciated.

Thanks!!!

 

[Catfinger77]

I had the same reaction to that concept.

 

[CRV]

Message Divine Mercy

"at the Mass, Jesus is giving Himself Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity into our hands: literally, in the hands of the priest and spiritually, in the hands of all the lay faithful who are uniting their own sacrifices to the offering of the priest at the altar. Together, each in his own way, we offer Jesus’ infinite sacrifice of love to the Father. That’s the power of the Mass. It’s Jesus’ own sacrifice of love in our hands, held up to the Father, and the Father can’t resist such a perfect sacrifice of love. It really is the perfect prayer.

Now, the chaplet is an extension of that moment of the Mass, because on the “Our Father” beads of the rosary, we pray, “Eternal Father, I offer You the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Your dearly beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ in atonement for our sins and those of [what? … my family? … my city? … no, not just that …] for the whole world.”

 

[Tis_Bearself]

CRV’s explanation is correct. I note that this type of “offering” isn’t unique to the Divine Mercy prayer. The same concept is present in many old traditional prayers, and they are all based on the same understanding of the Mass that CRV posted. Unfortunately, this understanding of what the Mass is seems to have been lost over time, especially as lot of these old prayers were replaced by very simple modern ones. I prefer the old ones, I learn something saying them.

Beginning of the traditional Morning Offering which I say every day:

O my God, in union with the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I offer Thee the Precious Blood of Jesus from all the altars throughout the world, joining with it the offering of my every thought, word and action of this day…

Beginning of the traditional “Prayer for Daily Neglects” from Pieta Prayer Book which I say every day:

Eternal Father, I offer Thee the Sacred Heart of Jesus, with all its love, all its sufferings and all its merits,
First — To expiate all the sins I have committed this day…

Beginning of the traditional “Prayer of St. Gertrude” for the Holy Souls in Purgatory, which I typically say at the end of every Divine Mercy chaplet; it’s not part of the chaplet, but all the parish prayer groups in my area who say the Divine Mercy have a habit of adding this prayer at the end:

Eternal Father, I offer You the most precious blood of thy Divine Son, Jesus, in union with the Masses said throughout the world today, for all the Holy Souls in Purgatory,…

The Divine Mercy prayer is very much like all of these prayers and lots of others that were in common use at the time St. Faustina was alive.

 

[StefanF]

@CRV… Thanks so much for the explanation. You’ve really helped!

 

[Convert3]

Beautifully put! Thank you!