Offer It Up

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

1 Corinthians 13:1-3

There is a catholic phrase, “offer it up”, that has been widely used as a response to someone when they were experiencing pain or suffering. I personally do not remember hearing this phrase at all while growing up, but I think my parents and their generation know it well. Over the years “offer it up” has definitely gotten confused and misused when the love behind it has been missing. It then becomes an empty phrase that gets thrown about and interpreted as “get over it”. In reality, the original concept of this phrase is actually so beautiful. There are so many treasures of our faith like this one, which are actually full of truth and wisdom, if we would just take the time to learn more about their origin and meaning.

If we simply look at the word offer, an offering is something that comes from the heart. In the religious sense, it is also known as an oblation, which is a gift of gratitude to God or something given to God as an act of worship. In the Old Testament, the people of God would offer physical things, such as their harvest or livestock, to God, which was done as a sign of their offering gratitude to God and placing their trust in Him. Today, since Jesus Christ is the perfect eternal sacrifice, what we offer to God is in a sense given through Christ’s one sacrifice on the cross. Our offerings can be physical things, such as dedicating our homes to God, or they can be gifts of our heart, such as our time, talents and loving service. All of our offerings to God can be given to varying degrees, but they are all gifts of gratitude to God. 

With this in mind, it leads us to ponder why we use this phrase “offer it up” when someone is experiencing suffering. What are we actually offering to God in our suffering? There was a time in my life when I was under the impression that we were offering our suffering to Jesus on the cross, so that He would take it from us and we would not have to suffer. The problem with this, and anyone who has suffered knows that this is not actually what happens in every case. Although miracles do happen, sometimes our suffering remains, even when we turn to the Lord. So the question remains, what are we offering to God when we “offer it up”?

The answer lies in our call to imitate Jesus Christ. At the crucifixion, Jesus demonstrated the greatest act of love. He made an offering of Himself, as a gift of self-sacrificial love to the Father, which meant His brutal passion and death. Jesus’ offering in His suffering did not remove his pain and sorrow. Although He agonized in prayer in the garden and cried out to God in some of His final words on the cross, Jesus remained on the cross and endured the pain until the end.

The Highest Form of Love

There are so many ways that we express love as human beings, many of which have been perverted and twisted in our culture today. There is one act of love that stands above the rest and this is what we call agape. It is an act of truly authentic love that comes from the very center of our being, which gives of ourselves without counting the cost. It is giving our first-fruits, instead of what is leftover. The first-fruits are the best of what we have without worrying about what will remain for us. For the Jews, they gave the first-fruits of their harvest, flocks and livelihood, even when they were struggling to have enough for themselves. It was a great act of trust. Jesus Christ showed us how to give of our very selves in this same way. He showed us how to make a pure offering of our hearts to God. 

One of the scribes came to Jesus and asked him, “Which is the first of all the commandments?”  Jesus replied, “The first is this: Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone!  You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” 

Mark 12:28-30

The singular act of Jesus’ death on the cross, demonstrates the magnitude of God’s love for us, as well as the depth of Jesus’ love for the Father. When using the phrase “offer it up”,we recall Jesus’ offering of pure love to the Father upon the cross. It is this act of love that we are called to imitate in our lives, in both our joy and in our sorrows. By choosing to love even in our suffering, we in essence separate ourselves from the suffering by choosing to love even when we are hurting. This breaks the chains that the enemy tries to have over us through our experience of suffering. When we bring to God the first-fruits of our love, no matter what our situation may be, no matter what trial or hardship we are going through, we give Him a gift of pure love, proven and tried love, offering it to God in the very midst of our brokenness. 

To love in the midst of suffering is how we defeat evil. Satan wants us to be attached to our suffering. He wants us to identify ourselves as a victim and to be bound to our trials and hardships. Satan wants us to define ourselves by our suffering, but Jesus Christ on the cross, shows us exactly how to defeat the enemy in our lives through self-sacrificial love. Jesus chose to love in the midst of the greatest suffering of all time, and we are called to love in our greatest suffering as well. Even though we don’t feel like loving, even though it doesn’t make sense to us, even though it hurts, even though we are broken, we are called to love. By loving from the cross, Jesus redeemed it all by handing over His life to God as an offering. Jesus “offers it up” and thus He defeats Satan.

Let us remember that love lives through sacrifice and is nourished by giving. Without sacrifice there is no love.

St Maximilian Kolbe

Jesus does not simply demonstrate this one great act of love and then leave us to love in a much easier and more comfortable way. If He did, we would not have Christian martyrs. From the moment of Pentecost, Christians were willing to suffer and die, to hand over their lives, as an offering of love to God. The stories of the saints remind us of our call to take up our own cross and follow Jesus. Our life is to be a perpetual offering of love to God, which goes against the Christian trend of focusing only on what we receive from God. What am I giving to God? Do I give Him my time, my energy, my gratitude, my love, my worship?

Offering Requires Sacrifice

The offering of our love always requires sacrifice. More often than not, the thing we are sacrificing in order to love is our own ego. To love the other, we must move beyond our own selfish desires and needs and be willing to use our time, effort, money and energy in service to God instead of only on ourselves. When we start to understand that love is sacrifice, we open ourselves up to being purified in our intentions. An authentic sacrifice of love is pure, unblemished, and without sin. In the old covenant, the lamb or calf that was offered for the sacrifice was unblemished and perfect. The family could have profited greatly or lived off of that lamb or calf; it would have increased their livelihood. So the unblemished offering, which was brought to the temple, became an act of worship and gratitude to God. It was a sign that the family was placing God first in their lives, trusting in His divine providence. 

A single act of love to God made during a period of aridity is worth a hundred made with affection and consolation.

St Padre Pio

For us to love like Jesus, we are also called to offer our pure and unselfish love to God. Any love that is tainted with pride or vanity, any love that is fueled by anger or sensuality, is blemished. To have pure intentions is to not think of ourselves, but only of God. To love God without counting the cost, without any strings attached, without figuring up what we will receive in return. Many of the saints teach us that this type of offering is oftentimes learned through spiritual dryness or the dark night. It is in these times, when we seemingly are getting nothing in return from God, no consolations, that we are given the opportunity to prove our love for Him. So instead of despairing in the dryness, the saints teach us that the dryness is necessary in order to purify our intentions. It is what teaches us how to offer a truly unblemished sacrifice of love to the Lord. 

So many people in the world today are suffering. It’s important to remember that Jesus does not promise us that we won’t experience suffering, nor that our suffering will be removed in this life, but he does promise us redemption and grace. All suffering has been and is being redeemed. The promise of eternal life in heaven with God is revealed to us through self-sacrificial love. While we remain on this earth, we are promised grace, not always in order to remove our suffering, but in order that we are able to endure it. Through grace, we are given faith and hope, which frees us from bondage to the enemy. When we love despite the trials, hardships, pain and sorrow in our lives, we learn to live for eternity. None of this can be done without God’s grace. May we ever more pray for the grace to love even when it hurts, even when it seems impossible.

In bringing about the Redemption through suffering, Christ has also raised human suffering to the level of the Redemption. Thus each man, in his suffering, can also become a sharer in the redemptive suffering of Christ

Salvifici Doloris, 19