This week we Lectio the Liturgy with the Prayer Over the Offering for the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Look, we pray, O Lord, on the offerings we make to your majesty, that whatever is done by us in your service may be directed above all to your glory. Through Christ our Lord.

How would you define God’s majesty? In Psalm 96:6, David gives us a pretty good definition, “Splendor and power go before him; power and grandeur are in his holy place.” God’s majesty brings together His glory and power, His strength and beauty, and His greatness and goodness.

As I thought about how God is all of that, I wondered how anything I could offer could make God’s majesty any greater, yet David continues in verses 8-9a, “give to the LORD the glory due his name!
Bring gifts and enter his courts; bow down to the LORD, splendid in holiness.” The offerings we bring to God are not given to earn his favor, they are given to Him only to glorify Him because they are what is due to Him.

Notice that this prayer has the word “that” for a conjunction and it indicates a subjective phrase. This means, what is listed after “that” is something which is not granted on its own. In this case, in order for whatever we do in service to be directed to His glory, depends on our offerings.

The offerings are the things we do in God’s service. These offerings are not only our prayer, they are the Sacraments, ourselves, and these are also the service we to give to one another in love.

The most incredible thing happens when God looks on our offerings. God does not see what we see. We may see our imperfections or our littleness, but God sees our heart. He sees our desire to serve Him, and He takes what we offer and He blesses it. He makes it better and in an incredible way, what we offer, whether it be small or large, is all directed to His glory.

As we glorify God, He glorifies us. It just doesn’t seem like a fair exchange, does it? But when we consider the majesty of such a great God, a God who is for us and wants to do all He can to help us to spend eternity with Him, we see that God makes us an offer we can’t refuse.