This week we Lectio the Liturgy with the Prayer Over the Offering for the 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time.

May these sacrificial offerings, O Lord, become for you a pure oblation, and for us a holy outpouring of your mercy. Through Christ our Lord.

All of the action of the prayer this week comes from one thing, our sacrificial offerings. Sacrificial offerings do not come from our excess. Sacrificial offerings sometimes hurt a little. For example, if I had a hundred dimes and you needed one, it’s not much of a sacrifice for me to give you a dime. However, it is a sacrifice to go to God and show Him the great plan I made for my life and then to hand my plan over to Him so He can do with me as He wills.

Whatever our sacrificial offerings are, we ask God that they would “become” two things: an oblation and an outpouring. I found it interesting that in the Latin form of the prayer, the first word we find is, “fiat,” meaning “may it be done.”

May it be done that our sacrificial offerings become for you a pure oblation, or offering. 

In the book of Leviticus, we find God’s rules for an oblation. The offering to be sacrificed must be an animal that is spotless and unblemished. The most perfect animal in the flock would become the sacrifice to take the place of the sins of the people. Jesus fulfilled that law when He became the spotless pure offering for us.

You and I, born under original sin and not being perfect, can offer our best but it isn’t pure, we need God’s help. In the Latin prayer, for the word pure, we find the word munda which means cleansed. God takes what we offer and He cleanses and perfects it.

May it be done that our offerings, now purified, become for us a holy outpouring your mercy.

A simple definition of mercy is that we do not receive what we deserve. 
We may think that we deserve or we will receive a harsh judgement from God because our offering is not enough or not good enough. When we ask for God’s mercy, we ask that we do not receive what we deserve. Instead, of punishment, we ask for a holy outpouring. When we ask for an outpouring of God’s mercy, it comes in the form of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is the fountain of mercy. The Holy Spirit is the bond of love between the Father and the Son. The Holy Spirit is the life of God living in us.

It never ceases to amaze me how much God is for us. He takes our sacrifices, no matter how small, he perfects them, and he gives them back to us, not just on a small plate, but in an outpouring of love and life and not just any life, He offers us His.