In this offering of Christ to His Father both priest and people have their share as they gather around the altar. There is a true sense in which every baptized Catholic is a priest. "You are a holy priesthood," writes St. Peter, "to offer spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God, through Jesus Christ ... a kingly priesthood, a holy nation." "I exhort you," says St. Paul, "by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, your reasonable service."
St. Augustine explains that, by virtue of this inward priesthood conferred by Baptism on every Catholic, we all offer a special sacrifice to God when we assist at Mass. This is the sacrifice of our whole self, soul, body, heart and mind, an unreserved holocaust, a complete handing over of ourselves to God to dispose of us according as He wills. This offering is caught up with the oblation made by Jesus Christ, and the two together, forming one single whole, arc presented to God. Just as the drop of water is put into the chalice and, mixed with the wine, is offered to the Father equally with it, so our act of surrender of ourselves is united with Christ's great act. That is why its value is enhanced immeasurably.
Hence: only the baptized Catholic can, properly speaking, assist at Mass. Only he enters into the dispositions of the divine Victim, uniting himself with Him. Others who may be present are there merely as onlookers who take no active share in what is being done. But for the Catholic every time he assists at Mass and renews the offering of himself and all he is and has to God, he is forcibly reminded that his religion demands imperatively that he be a man of selfsacrificing life. Indeed there is nothing better he could do than make his whole ensuing day a continuation of "his" Mass, by carrying his cross willingly, and regarding it as a precious treasure.
So much for the offering of oneself in the Mass. Now, what about the offering we make of Jesus Christ? In this offering, too, both priest and people have each their share. It is the priest alone who consecrates the bread and wine; for this purpose he is primarily ordained. It is he who places on the altar the Body and the Blood of Jesus Christ, Who now lies there as a Victim, mystically slain. But now the faithful who are assisting, spiritually take up these gifts after the priest and present them to God. That is why the priest, earlier in the Mass, has referred to it, in addressing the people, as "my sacrifice and yours," and why, when speaking to God, he says: "We offer to Thee, O Lord, this chalice of salvation." Never let me imagine that the Mass is the private prayer and offering of the priest. We arc all priests in the sense explained, and we all unite in saying Mass.
To Abraham God made the promise that he would be the father of a great nation. "Lift up thy eyes and look from the place wherein thou now art, to the north and to the south, to the cast and to the west. All the land which thou seest I will give to thee and to thy seed forever. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth. If any man be able to number the dust of the earth, he shall be able to number thy seed also."
In spite of this solemn assurance, God, some time later, spoke again to Abraham: "Take thy onlybegotten son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and go into the land of vision, and there thou shalt offer him for a holocaust upon one of the altars which I shall show thee." Abraham obeyed instantly and had reached the point of taking hold of his own son and slaying him in sacrifice on the altar, when, just at the last moment, he was prevented by an angel. The order given him by God was a test of his faith, and this faith was so pleasing to God that He multiplied blessings on the head of His servant.
Isaac, carrying on his back the wood for the sacrifice, is a vivid figure of Christ bearing His own Cross. When we Catholics come to Mass we assist at the Sacrifice of Calvary, and, as in the case of Abraham, our acceptance of what the Church teaches us is a tremendous act of faith. We do not see Christ offering Himself, but "faith supplies what is wanting to our senses." That, is why the Mass draws on us such abundant blessings or, rather, that is yet another reason added to those already mentioned: namely, that through the holy Sacrifice of the Mass we exercise faith, believing on God's word what we cannot understand.
Jesus, in today's Mass, I have united the offering of myself to Your perfect offering; I would strive each day to continue to live my offering, to make the day a confirmation of my giving by lovingly accepting Your arrangements for me. To recognize Your hand ruling and molding my life in the thousand happenings of daily life is to walk, not by sight, but by faith. Lord, increase my faith.