"Offer it up"-What does it mean?

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Dumb question. I don’t quite understand the concept of “offering up” sorrow and struggles.

What does it mean?

Thanks!
 
Great minds think alike!! I just asked the same thing a week or so ago (the thread above). I’m still trying to wrap my brain around it, despite the helpful replies.

I keep trying but I don’t really get it. Since Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice, I don’t understand how a small sacrifice on my part can be used for venial sins, purgatory, special intentions, etc. I don’t know WHY it’s such a difficult concept for me to grasp, but it is. 🤷
 
DakiniArtist said:
Dumb question. I don’t quite understand the concept of “offering up” sorrow and struggles.

What does it mean?

Thanks!
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I usually visualize my taking my sufferings, and joining them to Our Lord on the cross. Then I ask the conversion of whomever is suffering from temptations to anything similar–or whatever He needs at the moment. One of the saints said this was effective for helping convert souls who were being tempted at that moment.

Joining your cross to Our Lord’s helps mentally process the holiness of the suffering that has been sent to you. “Don’t go looking for the cross, it will find you,” said St. Francis de Sales.

Blessings,
Cloisters
 
Spend enough time with Catholics, and you will hear the phrase, “Offer it up.” The phrase is typically heard as a reply to a list of personal woes. So what does this phrase mean? We are priests of God by our baptism.54 We are not ministerial priests, who offer up the sacrifice of Christ upon the altar at holy Mass. But, as non-ministerial priests, we do offer something to God: our bodies, our actions, our labor, and even our sufferings…
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We offer up our lives and our sufferings formally, in the Mass, by consciously offering ourselves up with our sufferings, along with Christ to God the Father during the Offertory. Informally, we “offer it up” simply by asking God, in the midst of our suffering, to join our suffering to Christ’s, and to use our suffering.
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Extracted from the following article, which I recommend you read in its entirety: calledtocommunion.com/2009/08/a-catholic-reflection-on-the-meaning-of-suffering/
 
At least, from Our Lady of Fatima,

This is the formula:

O Jesus, this is for love of you, for conversion of sinners and in reparations of sins against the immaculate heart of mary.

If from my own formulations:

Jesus, I offer this as a sacrifice, I unite it with your most sorrowful passion and death at the cross, for the conversion of sinners.

I hope it helps
 
"40. I would like to add here another brief comment with some relevance for everyday living. There used to be a form of devotion—perhaps less practised today but quite widespread not long ago—that included the idea of “offering up” the minor daily hardships that continually strike at us like irritating “jabs”, thereby giving them a meaning. Of course, there were some exaggerations and perhaps unhealthy applications of this devotion, but we need to ask ourselves whether there may not after all have been something essential and helpful contained within it. What does it mean to offer something up? Those who did so were convinced that they could insert these little annoyances into Christ’s great “com-passion” so that they somehow became part of the treasury of compassion so greatly needed by the human race. In this way, even the small inconveniences of daily life could acquire meaning and contribute to the economy of good and of human love. Maybe we should consider whether it might be judicious to revive this practice ourselves. "

~ Pope Benedict XVI Spe Salvi

w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20071130_spe-salvi.html
 
ForeverJoy said:
Great minds think alike!! I just asked the same thing a week or so ago (the thread above). I’m still trying to wrap my brain around it, despite the helpful replies.

I keep trying but I don’t really get it. Since Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice, I don’t understand how a small sacrifice on my part can be used for venial sins, purgatory, special intentions, etc. I don’t know WHY it’s such a difficult concept for me to grasp, but it is. 🤷
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I dont get it either :confused:
 
While growing up, we were taught to ‘offer it up’ for the poor souls in Purgatory.
And also to offer Masses for the poor souls in Purgatory. To give them graces.

Traditional Catholic teaching was to bear our disappointments, daily sufferings, and doing chores we thought were burdensome with a view towards remembering, and helping the poor souls who were suffering far more than we were.

Kids were taught not to feel so put out about the tasks they were required to do, because they had it pretty good compared to people who were less fortunate.
 
ForeverJoy said:
Great minds think alike!! I just asked the same thing a week or so ago (the thread above). I’m still trying to wrap my brain around it, despite the helpful replies.

I keep trying but I don’t really get it. Since Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice, I don’t understand how a small sacrifice on my part can be used for venial sins, purgatory, special intentions, etc. I don’t know WHY it’s such a difficult concept for me to grasp, but it is. 🤷
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It isn’t so much the sacrifice on your part, since you and I are finite creatures. It’s not like your being in pain has some sort of supernatural merit.

Instead, it’s the supernatural love for God that we have in the midst of suffering, which permits us to suffer patiently, and which is the very love of Christ for His Father working through us.

It is His love which gives merit to our actions, since it is His love which permits us to respond to suffering in a way which pleases the Father. If God rewards us for the way we suffer, it is because He first gave us the ability to respond to His promptings in a way which will please Him. This is why we finite creatures can offer ourselves: because the offering has merit through the infinite love of the Eternal Word.

It’s like a little girl who’s “dancing” with her daddy by standing on his feet as he holds her and moves her around the room. Such a dance is completely an act of the father, but the little girl agrees to it, and cooperates with him.
 
DakiniArtist said:
Dumb question. I don’t quite understand the concept of “offering up” sorrow and struggles.

What does it mean?

Thanks!
Click to expand...
To me, to “offer up” something is a token of my love for God. My way of showing Him that I love Him and want to please Him, Whenever I do offer up something, what ever it is, I tell God, “This is for You Lord”!
 
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