Love and Sacrifice

When the word "sacrifice" first reaches our ears, it is not always joyfully welcomed. We tend to associate sacrifice with pain and suffering, which is something that goes hand in hand with the word. But if we truly understand the beauty of sacrifice, we won't shun it the moment is stands, staring boldly, in front of us. If we, as Christians and as Catholics, fully understand the fundamental part sacrifice played in our salvation, we would gladly accept the word and all that it entails. 

Love is a choice.

"No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends." (John 15:13)

Love is sacrifice.

"The only perfect sacrifice is the one that Christ offered on the cross as a total offering to the Father's love and for our salvation. By uniting ourselves with his sacrifice we can make our lives a sacrifice to God." (CCC 2100)

Photo taken by Morgan Anding

Sacrifice is a requirement if love is to be genuine, as illustrated in the life of Christ. If we are to be unified as the people of God, we must set aside our selfish pride and sacrifice our wants and desires for those of God's for it is only His will that is perfect; not our own. 

"I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship. Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect." (Romans 12:1-2)

When we begin to surrender our will to the Lord's, we begin to understand the beauty of sacrifice. It is Christ who died on the Cross for our sins, not us. We did not, nor could we ever, die for ourselves to save ourselves. The beauty of our Catholic faith is that we have the opportunity to unite ourselves to THE perfect sacrifice that won our salvation everyday in the Eucharist! "The Eucharist is...the sacrifice of the Church.... In the Eucharist the sacrifice of Christ becomes also the sacrifice of the members of his Body. The lives of the faithful, their praise, sufferings, prayer, and work, are united with those of Christ and with his total offering, and so acquire a new value." (CCC 1368)

Fr. Simon Tugwell, in his book, Prayer in Practice puts this beautifully. He says, 

"If we let the liturgy mold us, forming our days and weeks and years, not dragging it into the turmoil of our superficial emotions, but letting it, gently and firmly, draw us into its own rhythm, then we will find in it a true school of Christian living, a source of wisdom and inspiration, and more and more we shall find that it is not an interruption of the day, but its very heart.... In the Mass we present ourselves totally to him, and then receive ourselves back, transformed and consecrated, not as we were before in ourselves, but as we are in Christ, hidden and renewed. At the invitation to communion in the ancient liturgies the priest says "the holy things for the holy people": the whole event is one great act of transubstantiation, making both us and the elements holy. It is not that we can claim to be holy in ourselves; but we have offered our unholiness, our sinfulness, and the Lord has accepted that offering and made it his own, uniting it with the mystery of his sacrificial death, in which death is destroyed, and with the mystery of his resurrection, that mystery of divine invincibility. The very unholiness and sinfulness that we offer is "transubstantiated" into the holiness and righteousness of God." 

Let us pray for the grace to be able to unite ourselves, whole and entire, to the One perfect sacrifice, Christ himself. May we be given the grace to die to ourselves and to the world so that we might better live a life of unity in the Body of Christ and continue to build up the Kingdom of God. 

Written by Alycia, Special Events Coordinator for the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm.