We continue our homily series “Keeping Mass in ChristMass” on this Third Sunday of Advent — otherwise known as Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete means “rejoice” — And we are REJOICING because Christmas is almost here. It’s not quite upon us, but it’s so close… the purple is even beginning to mix with the white of Christmas, and we get this beautiful ROSE…

Meanwhile, in our little tour of the Mass — we are also getting VERY close to the climax of the liturgy — the consecration of the Most Holy Eucharist and our intimate communion with Jesus. 

But we’re not quite there yet…

Last weekend, we ended with a description of the homily — that its goal is to help explain the readings we heard in the Liturgy of the Word, and then to stir up a hunger for what comes next in the liturgy… it ought to stir up expectation for the miracle we are all about to witness and participate in.

But lets not rush ahead just yet! “Be patient, brothers and sisters,” our second reading from the Letter of James said, “until the coming of the Lord.”

Immediately following the Homily, something else comes first. We stand back up together and we do what? 

We profess our faith: We proclaim the Creed!

I really love this placement… because it’s almost as if… just in case the priest or deacon preached some kind of heresy — the Church now forces us all to profess what we actually really do believe! 

It’s genius! — The Creed covers a multitude of bad homilies.

The Creed is the core of what we believe, and we are PROUD to profess it. 

We don’t mumble the Creed. We don’t mindlessly recite it.

We PROFESS it.

We remember that countless saints and martyrs have DIED because they believed and professed these words rather than deny them. 

And now we join their ranks! We too should be willing to die for this Creed. It’s our battle cry as Christians!

After the Creed, we then have the Prayers of the Faithful or “General Intercessions” — This is a chance for us to tell God exactly what we need. 

The Lord WANTS us to ask for what we need. And so, we pray that the blind see, that the mute speak, that the deaf hear, that the dead are raised, that the poor have the good news preached to them… We pray for the entire Church. We pray for Pope Leo. For all bishops and priests. For families. We pray for our political leaders — even the ones we disagree with. We pray for the sick and the suffering. And we pray for the dead, that they may rest in peace. 

We trust that our prayers are POWERFUL… Jesus told us: “Amen, amen, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you.”

So, we offer our prayers in confidence, knowing and trusting that the Lord WILL answer them according to His perfect will.

After we’ve offered our petitions, we are seated once again, and then… a notable shift occurs… 

We have come to the part of the mass which we call the “Offertory.”

The Offertory is a real point of transition — We are whisked quickly from the Liturgy of the Word and now embark on the second pat of the Mass: The Liturgy of the Eucharist!

That word transition is key. There’s a shift — a hand-off as it were — from the Scriptures to the Sacrifice. From Word to Sacrament. The Liturgy of the Word was only the precursor, if you will.

In this sense, it’s good that we got to hear from St. John the Baptist again in our gospel this weekend. He is, after all, Christ’s precursor. He is “the one about whom it is written: 

Behold, I am sending my messenger ahead of you; he will prepare your way before you. 

John the Baptist is the man who hands off the Old Testament to the New… He is the point of transition. He’s the last of the Old Covenant prophets and is himself a kind of bridge into the New Covenant in Jesus. When he finally sees Christ revealed, he makes it very clear: “He must increase, I must decrease.”

But as we heard, John was in prison at this point in the story — he had been locked up for daring to speak the truth about the invalid, sinful union that King Herod had entered into with his brother’s wife — and while he was there in prison, he began to wonder:

Is Jesus really the One? Is this who we’ve been waiting for all this time?

John the Baptist represents the entire Old Testament tradition in this good, honest question. — Up to this moment, all the patriarchs, the kings, and the prophets had hinted at and foretold a Messiah who would one day finally arrive to set the People free from the hands of all who hated them. 

But here John was — locked up in jail! He wasn’t free! And so he naturally begins to ask: “Is Jesus really the long-awaited Messiah? Is this the one who will deliver the Chosen people of God? Or do we keep waiting?”

Jesus steps in to answer John’s question: “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them. And blessed is the one who takes no offense at me.” 

In other words Jesus is saying: “Yes… Absolutely yes.”

“I am the One who you have been looking for all this time.”

And I think something like this happens in the Offertory of every Mass.

We just heard the promises that the Holy Scriptures contain. We heard the prophecies and the stories that all point directly to Jesus.

Now comes that crucial moment of transition in the Liturgy —

From Word to Sacrament. From just hearing about the promises… to experiencing their fulfillment in real time. From learning about the teachings… to encountering the Teacher Himself come in the flesh. From listening to what God has done in the past… to seeing with our own two eyes what He is doing right in front of us.

So that in mind, let’s take a closer look at the prayers and rites surrounding the Offertory.

After the people sit down following the Prayers of the Faithful, a flurry of movement takes place. The priest goes up to the altar and sets the missal. The paten and chalice are brought forward and unveiled. The corporal (that square white linen on which the consecration will actually take place) is opened and laid out flat on the altar. 

What are we doing?

We are “preparing the way” for the arrival of Jesus! The drama of the Mass shifts focus, and now we are setting things up — making sure everything is ready for the Bridegroom when He comes at last.

Meanwhile, the basket is being passed around in the pews, and a collection for the needs of the Church is taken up. We must not underestimate this action. The collection may seem to some like an irrelevant, worldly intrusion into our prayer and worship — but it’s actually a practical, tangible sign of our sacrifice to God. 

ALL of us need to do our part in supporting the Church’s mission — because we are not mere consumers or spectators…

No! We have skin in the game…

This mission is our mission, too…

And so we are to give generously of our financial resources, according to our individual means — and we really should give until it hurts a little bit! — We are enabling the Church to carry out the work of the Gospel. Without this support, there’s no building, no electricity, no running water, and therefore… no ministry.

Once that collection has been taken up, then the presentation of the gifts occurs.

Members from the congregation process forward with the collection, as well as gifts of Bread and Wine that are to be used in the Eucharistic Sacrifice.

This, too, is not a time for us to zone out and wait until its over and done with. No, this is an invitation to unite YOUR offering with Jesus’ offering on the Cross. You can imagine placing YOUR intentions into that ciborium (that gold container holding the bread). You can picture dropping your difficulties, your sorrows, your suffering into that cruet of wine. What you’re doing is piling all of your needs… your sins… your ENTIRE lives — into the gifts that we will present to the Lord.

God wants ALL of you — the whole of you — not just part of you! As St Therese once famously said: “You cannot be half a saint. You must be a whole saint or no saint at all.”

So we give God EVERYTHING… we OFFER UP our entire lives to him…and ask that He then transform us by His grace.

St Paul in his letter to the Romans says it this way: “I urge you therefore, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship.” We offer a LIVING sacrifice  of ourselves — together with Jesus — in every single Mass!

And now, at long last — these gifts finally come to the altar!

This is an incredible moment! From ALL ETERNITY, God had designated this bit of bread and this portion of wine to become something astonishing: The Body and Blood of His Son given for us!

If you think about it, this bread and wine have already undergone a kind of “suffering” — a “passion” — in order to become what they are now…

The wheat was crushed and then baked in white-hot furnace… the grapes were smashed, they bled out, and were fermented until they reached full maturity…

As Monsignor Knox writes, we should “get excited about the unconsecrated bread and wine” because “this piece of bread, which might equally have been made into a sandwich… is going to be the Victim that will bring us all to everlasting life.”

And so the priest receives these good gifts from the people, and then turns around and marches back up into the sanctuary. You can imagine all of your intentions, piled into that bread and wine, being carried with him up to the altar, the Mountain of Calvary.

The priest then lifts up what’s called “the paten” which is that small, flat circular golden plate which has the Host on it. The word “Host” comes from the Latin ‘Hostia’ which means ‘Victim.’ The priest lifts up that unconsecrated host to God, and prays silently:

“Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation, for through your goodness we have received the bread we offer you: fruit of the earth and work of human hands, it will become for us the bread of life.”

Setting down the paten, he turns to the chalice. And you’ve probably noticed that he pours wine into the chalice first, and then a tiny little droplet of water. As he does so, the priest prays: “By the mystery of this water in wine, may we come to share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity.” 

As Monsignor Knox explains: “What we’re really praying is something along these lines: ‘Make us one and the same thing with Jesus Christ, our identity merged and lost in his, just as the identity of that spot of water is merged and lost in the wine that covers the bottom of the chalice.’”

Another great hero of our faith, St Athanasius, once put it this way: “God became man, that man might become God.” This bread and wine are about to become God… Well then… why not us? 

Therefore we pray: “May we come to share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity.”

Then the priest lifts up the chalice and thanks God once again:

“Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation, for through your goodness we have received the wine we offer you: fruit of the vine and work of human hands, it will become our spiritual drink.”

Really these words are rooted in an ancient, traditional Jewish meal blessing — a barakah prayer — which the father of a family would normally lead, saying: “Blessed are you, Lord, our God, king of the universe, who has brought forth bread from heaven.”

Then the priest bows low to the altar and prays silently: “With humble spirit and contrite heart may we be accepted by you, O Lord, and may our sacrifice in your sight this day be pleasing to you, Lord God.”

This is a very solemn moment. The tension and drama is building. We are getting closer and closer to the Heart of the Mass…

The priest then washes his hands, praying silently: “Wash me, O Lord, from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin” — a humble reminder of baptism, where all our sins are washed away by the Blood of the Lamb, but also an act done in holy fear of the Lord, knowing that if he dares to stand “in persona Christi” at the altar, and lift up the Body and Blood of the Lord, then he must pray for clean hands and a pure heart.

But that is where we will need to stop today. We are now VERY VERY close to Christmas… Next week, we will continue on with the tour of the Mass with the Eucharistic Prayer itself — the Climax… the Center of the Sacred Liturgy.