That is a VERY Patristic -- and IMHO -- excellent thought. I make a big deal, when somebody is foolish enough to give me the floor, to say that the Greeks are right to make a big deal of the "offertory" (when the bread and wine are brought forward) and that it is not without meaning that the 'gifts' bread and wine are "the work of human hands" as well as the fruit of the earth. In fact a vineyard pretty much requires some degree of civilization.
So when we offer bread and wine we are offering the sweat of the farm worker, the anxiety of the wheat grower, the work of the teamsters who truck the goods to market, the wholesaler, the retailer, everyone with their sins as well as their productive work. What is (as we think) transformed into Christ by his once-for-all sacrifice is YOU!
And this necessarily has an eschatological side - we proclaim Christ's death until he comes again - in that the transformation in us is a process which will be brought to completion for the vast majority of us only at the consummation.
When we offer the bread and wine, when we offer the body and blood of Christ, we are essentially tied up to that offering. We are members of the body which was offered on Calvary.
Great Post ,MD
From the words of the Late Blessed Archbishop Fulton Sheen...
“A reasonable being should ask himself why - if chemicals can enter into plants, and plants be taken up into animals, and animals be taken into man - why man himself, who is the peak of visible creation, should be denied the privilege of being assimilated into a higher power? The rose has no right to say that there is no life above it and neither has man, who has a vast capacity and unconquerable yearning for eternal life and truth and love.”
Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen
And this necessarily has an eschatological side - we proclaim Christ’s death until he comes again - in that the transformation in us is a process which will be brought to completion for the vast majority of us only at the consummation.
When we offer the bread and wine, when we offer the body and blood of Christ, we are essentially tied up to that offering. We are members of the body which was offered on Calvary.
- - -
I essentially agree.
CERTAINLY HE has to do all that, effect all that . . . the flesh, the carnal flesh in and of itself is only death.
HE ALONE IS RESURRECTION LIFE—IN US, IN THE WORLD, IN CREATION.
imho.
[donning haz mat suit as I type. Prottys are great at shredding our own. One of our ‘extra’ RELIGIOUS ‘skills.’]
LOL.
From yesterday's sermon by St. Peter Chrysologus in the Liturgy of the Hours:
Paul says: I appeal to you by the mercy of God to present your bodies as a sacrifice, living and holy. The prophet said the same thing: Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but you have prepared a body for me. Each of us is called to be both a sacrifice to God and his priest. Do not forfeit what divine authority confers on you. Put on the garment of holiness, gird yourself with the belt of chastity. Let Christ be your helmet, let the cross on your forehead be your unfailing protection. Your breastplate should be the knowledge of God that he himself has given you. Keep burning continually the sweet smelling incense of prayer. Take up the sword of the Spirit. Let your heart be an altar. Then, with full confidence in God, present your body for sacrifice. God desires not death, but faith; God thirsts not for blood, but for self-surrender; God is appeased not by slaughter, but by the offering of your free will.