This week we Lectio the Liturgy with the Prayer over the Offering for the Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time.

May this sacred offering, O Lord, confer on us always the blessing of salvation, that what it celebrates in mystery it may accomplish in power. Through Christ our Lord.

The Prayer over the Offerings comes at a high point of the mass, just before the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ. I’ve written a lot about this moment, when we give to the Father our offerings and ourselves. However, this prayer tells us that these aren’t just any offerings, they are sacred offerings; sacred because they are offered on the altar and sacred because they will be united with the self-offering of Christ.

In exchange for the offering, we ask God to confer on us a blessing. Confer means to bestow or to grant, and in the prayer we are asking for not just any blessing.

During some seasons in our lives, we seem to ask God for a lot of different kinds of blessings, for health, for prosperity, or for safety, but our blessing today is much more important. We ask for the blessing of salvation, for sins forgiven and for eternal life.

It’s an interesting exchange. We give to God a sacred offering and in return, He gives us the blessing of salvation, but the best part of the exchange comes next.

We pray that what we celebrate in mystery may be accomplished in power.

In the Latin form of the prayer, for celebrate, we find the word agit which means to put in motion or to do. 

The mystery is the signs and symbols of our faith.

Mystery is part of every Sacrament. A Sacrament is a sacred and visible sign that is instituted by God to give us grace, an undeserved gift from God. (CCC 1084) In every Sacrament, the visible sign shows us what is happening in the invisible realm.

For example, in the Sacrament of Baptism, the pouring of water over the person being baptized is a visible sign of what happens in the unseen, “it signifies and actually brings about the birth of water and the Spirit without which no one ‘can enter the kingdom of God.’” (Also see CCC 1215)

In the Sacrament of the Eucharist, we see the bread and wine, but when the priest prays the words of the Eucharistic Prayer, the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Jesus.

While we see the signs and symbols in the visible realm, what we don’t see is the power in them. Just because we don’t see it does not mean it’s not there.

Romans 8:11 tells us that we have life when “the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also, through his Spirit that dwells in you.” (NABRE) 

In Acts 1:8 we are promised that “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.” (NABRE) We can have the same power that raised Christ from the dead. 

When we give God a sacred offering, He is the blessing of salvation we receive. All it requires is the faith to believe that God shows up in power - even when we can’t see it.