Love vs. Sacrifice

[AServantofGod]

All 3 readings today had to do with love, mercy, and sacrifice specifically how God wants love or mercy over sacrifice or holocaust. What place does sacrifice then play in our Christian life? I’ve read accounts of saints such as St. Therese of Lisieux and the Fatima children St. Jacinta and St. Francisco. They seemed to believe and report the extreme importance of sacrifice as a means to help bring souls to Christ.

 

[Saint_Andrew]

Hello

I believe Sacrifice can be played in many ways, one example is my mother quitting her job to bring the two of us up when my father died suddenly many years ago.

Other Sacrifices can be going for a job for less money, cutting back on luxurys things.

Spending more time with God in pray.

Many examples.

God Bless
Saint Andrew.

 

[adnauseum]

Your sacrifice is your contrite heart. It is yourself.

Every day when you go to mass, you offer all you have done at work, with your friends, with your family as your sacrifice.

Your offering is mingled with the perfect sacrifice of the Lamb of God. When the priest offers the sacrifice of the body and blood, he is offering all of our joys and sufferings up to God.

The sacrifice is your life. Everything you do, sanctify and return it to God.

 

[AServantofGod]

Saint Andrew:

Hello

I believe Sacrifice can be played in many ways, one example is my mother quitting her job to bring the two of us up when my father died suddenly many years ago.

Other Sacrifices can be going for a job for less money, cutting back on luxurys things.

Spending more time with God in pray.

Many examples.

God Bless
Saint Andrew.

Saint Andrew, what a wonderful example of sacrificial love was shown by your mother. She is an inspiration.

 

[AServantofGod]

adnauseum:

Your sacrifice is your contrite heart. It is yourself.

Every day when you go to mass, you offer all you have done at work, with your friends, with your family as your sacrifice.

Your offering is mingled with the perfect sacrifice of the Lamb of God. When the priest offers the sacrifice of the body and blood, he is offering all of our joys and sufferings up to God.

The sacrifice is your life. Everything you do, sanctify and return it to God.

So it seems then when the Bible refers to God wanting love or mercy rather than sacrifice, he is referring to sacrifice performed out of obligation. Sacrifice performed out of love for the Lord is desireable. The difference being in the attitude or the contrite heart as you mentioned.

 

[PiusXIII]

The way my priest explained it in the homily was that many of us carry things in our heart----anger, bigotry, hatred, etc…and that we have to get rid of those things before we come to Him in worship. He said that what God was saying is that in the Old Testament times, if a person offered a sacrifice of an animal but did not have mercy in their heart, then their worship and sacrifice was meaningless…in the same way, we cannot offer the sacrifice of the Mass–the most perfect sacrifice of all—without first clearing our heart of the sinful things. We need to have mercy first before sacrifice. We need to have love in our heart before we can come to God in prayer. Otherwise, without love, our sacrifices, our good intentions, our offerings to God are just going through the motions.

 

[AServantofGod]

PiusXIII:

The way my priest explained it in the homily was that many of us carry things in our heart----anger, bigotry, hatred, etc…and that we have to get rid of those things before we come to Him in worship. He said that what God was saying is that in the Old Testament times, if a person offered a sacrifice of an animal but did not have mercy in their heart, then their worship and sacrifice was meaningless…in the same way, we cannot offer the sacrifice of the Mass–the most perfect sacrifice of all—without first clearing our heart of the sinful things. We need to have mercy first before sacrifice. We need to have love in our heart before we can come to God in prayer. Otherwise, without love, our sacrifices, our good intentions, our offerings to God are just going through the motions.

Excellent!

However, wouldn’t that eliminate a great portion of us from attending mass? Can not the action, in and of itself, be pleasing in the eyes of God. In other words, if God knows our hearts are filled with anger, bitterness,etc. but we come to mass because we want to be closer to God, doesn’t that count for something? And can the act of attending mass and the graces received from the Eucharist not assist in changing our attitudes?

 

[PiusXIII]

AServantofGod:

Excellent!

However, wouldn’t that eliminate a great portion of us from attending mass? Can not the action, in and of itself, be pleasing in the eyes of God. In other words, if God knows our hearts are filled with anger, bitterness,etc. but we come to mass because we want to be closer to God, doesn’t that count for something? And can the act of attending mass and the graces received from the Eucharist not assist in changing our attitudes?

I certainly think that’s true----and I think it’s something my priest touched on a bit too—about how we can’t find that love and mercy on our own—we have to turn to the source of love and mercy—God–for help.

I think the overall point (and I’m probably not doing a good job of explaining this) is that we can’t let self-importance or arrogance or whatever blind us to the ways we sin and fall every day. We have to address these sins we have in our own life otherwise if we approach God thinking we’re somehow worthy of Him and yet still have a grudge against a neighbor or anger about something that happened earlier in the day…our worship will not be as pleasing to God as if we had exercised forgiveness or compassion…love and mercy.

I’m probably not explaining this well.

 

[AServantofGod]

PiusXIII:

I certainly think that’s true----and I think it’s something my priest touched on a bit too—about how we can’t find that love and mercy on our own—we have to turn to the source of love and mercy—God–for help.

I think the overall point (and I’m probably not doing a good job of explaining this) is that we can’t let self-importance or arrogance or whatever blind us to the ways we sin and fall every day. We have to address these sins we have in our own life otherwise if we approach God thinking we’re somehow worthy of Him and yet still have a grudge against a neighbor or anger about something that happened earlier in the day…our worship will not be as pleasing to God as if we had exercised forgiveness or compassion…love and mercy.

I’m probably not explaining this well.

You are doing quite well explaining. Thanks!