Participating in the holy priesthood of sacrifice

Good News ReflectionThursday of the 13th Week in Ordinary TimeJuly 2, 2009
Today's Readings:Gen 22:1b-19Ps 115:1-6, 8-9Matt 9:1-8http://www.usccb.org/nab/070209.shtmlAudio:http://ccc.usccb.org/cccradio/NABPodcasts/09_07_02.mp3
Participating in the holy priesthood of sacrifice
The story in today's Gospel passage references the Christian priesthood that Jesus was initiating. As our High Priest, he revealed the priesthood's authority to heal (the Anointing of the Sick) and to forgive sins (Confession). Our Catholic priests come from an uninterrupted line of ordination that goes back to the Apostles to whom Jesus gave, in person, this authority. This is what gives priests of the original Church (Catholicism) the ability to make the Sacraments effective and real and miraculous, regardless of whether they are holy men or sinful.
In today's first reading, Abraham foreshadowed this priesthood. He offered a sacrifice as a gift to God in obedience to the calling he had been given by God. Although he didn't kill his son, the knife raised above his son showed a willingness to give up everything for the Lord, and this was the true sacrifice. When the priest at Mass raises the bread and wine (before it becomes Christ's body and blood) above the altar, he represents all of us who are willing to give up everything for God. This is why the bread and wine are brought to the altar by members of the congregation instead of from the back closet or sacristy.
What are you willing to give up, and what are you clinging to that should be sacrificed for the sake of doing the work of God? Very often, God's only looking for our surrender, our willingness. He doesn't always take what we offer, as we see when he stopped Abraham from killing Isaac. God provides the substitute sacrifice to help us let go without losing.
When we do experience losses, if they are offered to God they become a time of rising up and walking forward, a time of healing with great gain. We gain a greater intimacy with God. The ram that God provides to us is found in the thicket of our thorny pain. We discover that the true sacrifice was not what we had to give up. The true sacrifice is attitude of letting go. We gain much from this, because trying to hold on to anything that is not God himself holds us back from receiving everything that God wants to give to us.
Whenever the gifts of the altar are presented during Mass, we can mentally place our losses into the bread basket and the wine carafe. We can also put in there what we're afraid of losing, the material possessions that we love and the bad attitudes that we don't want to change. The priest will offer these to God, upon the altar, by saying a prayer of sacrifice on our behalf.
Prior to coming to Mass, we should always do an examination of conscience to identify our recent venial sins (i.e., not mortal sins, which have been killing our relationship with God, for then we need the healing graces that are provided in the Sacrament of Confession). During the Penitential Rite at the beginning of Mass, we should offer our venial sins to God and place on the altar whatever motivates us to continue these sins, even if we're yet not sure what that is. God knows. He will bless us in our willingness to let go.
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