"Offering up" What and How?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Tannhauser
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
T

Tannhauser

Guest
What does it mean to offer something up to God (like a fast)

How do we do it?

What sort of mind and heart do we need to offer something up to God in this manner?
 
Tannhauser said:
What does it mean to offer something up to God (like a fast)
Click to expand...
A sacrifice can be called an offering. We give up (sacrifice) something that we enjoy (but is not sinful), so it is an offering. This is the origin of the phrase. You might “give up” something you enjoy (such as smoking) for non-spiritual reasons (such as you don’t want cancer), which is not an offering.

Anyone can offer up something to God. During Lent, it is customary to offer something up, and take something on, preferably something of a spiritual nature.

Giving up something we enjoy is a form of discipline.
 
  1. 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

vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20071130_spe-salvi_en.html
 
Tannhauser said:
What does it mean to offer something up to God (like a fast)

How do we do it?

What sort of mind and heart do we need to offer something up to God in this manner?
Click to expand...
I wonder if instead of giving up something, God wouldn’t be more pleased with something added. How about kindness, where we would have preferred a sharp remark, volunteering time a worthy cause, or daily Mass when possible instead of sleeping in? There must be many possibilities for DOING instead of NOT DOING. Give it some thought. Happy Lent.
 
Offering something up can include various things:

Worry
Transgressions against us
Pain
Unresolved conflict
your “last nerve” that someone just stepped on
situations that you’d otherwise “blow up” over

Kinda like praying to the count of 10.
 
Tannhauser said:
What does it mean to offer something up to God (like a fast)

How do we do it?

What sort of mind and heart do we need to offer something up to God in this manner?
Click to expand...
May I suggest reading Uniformity With God’s Will by St. Alphonsus Liguori. It will help you understand. It’s a very small book and very easy to read. You should be able to find it online for free.
 
Kindness, sacrifices… all of it is good …Mass-👍 it can’t get any better than that.

To continue with everyone’s ideas-

I used to assist an elderly priest from time to time so he could celebrate Mass for some long-term and palliative care patients. On one of those occasions, just before the offertory , he took up the paten in his hand, showed it to everyone present, pointed to the surface of the paten with his finger, and said (the french equivalent of) : “Do you see this (paten) ? Now put all your intentions on here so they can be offered to God during the Mass.”

It made a lot of sense. Christ would become present, in person, in the consecrated Host on the paten, while the Sacrifice of Calvary would be made present again, and Jesus would take our intentions to Himself, offering them for us and with us, together with all the merits of His sacred Passion and Death .

To offer something can also be interpreted to mean to present something to someone.

Here’s another one I’m still trying to digest - the definition of offering Communion by Father John Hardon :

OFFERING COMMUNION.

The practice of offering the reception of Holy Communion for another person. This means asking God to transfer to someone else the satisfactory (expiatory) and impetratory (intercessory) value of one’s own preparation for and thanksgiving after Communion. What cannot be transferred are the principal effects of the sacrament, namely the growth in sanctifying grace, in the love of God and neighbor, the lessening of passion, the right to a glorious resurrection, the forgiveness of venial sins, and the remission of temporal punishment due to forgiven sins.
 
Here are several links to *Uniformity With God’s Will *recommended by Sonic -
Sonic said:
May I suggest reading Uniformity With God’s Will by St. Alphonsus Liguori. It will help you understand. It’s a very small book and very easy to read. You should be able to find it online for free.
Click to expand...
The writing is a little smaller at this first link .

The font at this second link seems to reduce any squint factor.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top