Tag Archives: sacrifice

No Life Without Sacrifice

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In this Sunday’s gospel (Mark 10,35-45) James and John, two of his disciples, want something from Jesus; they want the power and position they believe he can give them. “Grant that in your glory we may sit one at your right and the other at your left.”

But they want glory without any cost. Grant it and it’s ours, they say to him. They’re looking for an easy way to get something good. Jesus says they want glory “without drinking the cup,” a life without struggle, effort and suffering. But there’s no life without sacrifice.

You can’t live without sacrifice. You can’t have it all and you can’t have it easily. That applies to every level of life.

We have to sacrifice for our own good. For example, we can’t be healthy without adopting a healthy life style, something often hard to do.

We make sacrifices for others, and that’s often hard to do. Parents sacrifice for children; children for parents. Sacrifice for strangers–that’s very hard. Soldiers have  to be ready to give up their lives for their country. The ultimate sacrifice, we say.

Jesus described his own death on the Cross as a sacrifice. That sacrifice was the culmination of a life given for others.

Sacrifice has a holy dimension we may forget.  We remember that dimension at Mass, where we use the word frequently. Sacrifice comes from    two latin words that mean “doing something holy.” If  what we do is good, for ourselves, for others, for our world, we are brought  to God through it, and God blesses our efforts, our struggles and the suffering what we have done entails.

“We come to you, Father, with praise and thanksgiving, through Jesus Christ your Son,

Through him we ask you to accept and bless these gifts we offer you in sacrifice”

What are the gifts we offer to God in sacrifice? Yes, they’re the gifts  of his Son, who offered himself to his Father once on the Cross and now becomes our offering to God who blesses us through him.

But they’re our gifts too, our sacrifices, many and varied as they are, that are joined to his and they bring down God’s blessings on us and on our world.

Let’s keep our sacrifices holy.

The Prayer of Abel

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“Look with favor on these offerings and accept them as you once accepted the gifts of your servant Abel.” (1st Eucharistic Prayer)

In a homily, St. Ambrose explains why God accepted Abel’s gifts and not Cain’s. His gifts were a prayer from his heart.

He brought them to God prompted by the same gratitude that caused the Samaritan to give thanks to Jesus after being cured of leprosy. Gratitude is always at the heart of the Eucharist.

Abel’s gifts were the result of true prayer, according to Ambrose, who summarizes what true prayer is: “Jesus told us to pray urgently and often, so that our prayers should not be long and tedious but short, earnest and frequent. Long elaborate prayers overflow with pointless phrases, and long gaps between prayers eventually stretch out into complete neglect.

Next he advises that when you ask forgiveness for yourself then you must take special care to grant it also to others. In that way your action can add its voice to yours as you pray. The apostle also teaches that when you pray you must be free from anger and from disagreement with anyone, so that your prayer is not disturbed or broken into.

The apostle teaches us to pray anywhere, while the Saviour says Go into your room – but you must understand that this “room” is not the room with four walls that confines your body when you are in it, but the secret space within you in which your thoughts are enclosed and where your sensations arrive. That is your prayer-room, always with you wherever you are, always secret wherever you are, with your only witness being God.

Above all, you must pray for the whole people: that is, for the whole body, for every part of your mother the Church, whose distinguishing feature is mutual love. If you ask for something for yourself then you will be praying for yourself only – and you must remember that more grace comes to one who prays for others than to any ordinary sinner. If each person prays for all people, then all people are effectively praying for each.

In conclusion, if you ask for something for yourself alone, you will be the only one asking for it; but if you ask for benefits for all, all in their turn will be asking for them for you. For you are in fact one of the “all.” Thus it is a great reward, as each person’s prayers acquire the weight of the prayers of everyone. There is nothing presumptuous about thinking like this: on the contrary, it is a sign of greater humility and more abundant fruitfulness.”