Adoro Te Devote Series: Sacrifice
“Sight, touch, and taste in Thee are each deceived; The ear alone most safely is believed: I believe all the Son of God has spoken, Than Truth's own word there is no truer token.”
-Saint Thomas Aquinas, Adoro Te Devote Prayer
Not now, buddy. This is the most important part of the Mass. Hold on 40 seconds longer…Just not now.
I bounce our 15-month-old on my knee as I discretely feed him raisins. Trying anything to keep him quiet just a tad bit longer…
The priest raises the host up into the air, opens his mouth to repeat the words of Christ at the Last Supper…But instead of hearing those words I’ve been waiting all week to hear, my head rattles from loud discontented toddler shrieks.
It has been our son’s fifth attempt at escape, and he has had it. As have I….
Exasperated, I pick him up, quickly genuflect on the way out of my pew, and head toward the back of the church, trying not to stomp out of pure frustration. The Mass continues on behind me, but I can neither see nor hear it.
There is no cry-room at our church, which means I will be attempting to stop him from touching the shiny spigot on the holy water font for the next 15 minutes.
This happens every Sunday.
Always right around the Consecration.
And until recently, I was pretty bitter about it.
Last month, I had the opportunity to paint a commission of the Blessed Sacrament. Christ always has a way of aligning other aspects of life perfectly when I take on a new painting, and this one…holy moly. Every song, article, and podcast regarding Christ’s Presence in the Eucharist was being thrown my way as I worked on this painting.
Christ obviously wanted me to understand the significance of what I was attempting to portray with a paintbrush. And I thought I understood.
I was yearning for the Mass, was I not? Yearning for Him?
And yet entirely unable to feel present at Mass. Always distracted right as I receive Him.
I know I’m not the only parent who has this yearning. This past Christmas Eve, my husband and I spent the entire Mass trading off antsy-toddler-duty outside of Church. (I believe we made it three whole minutes sitting together as a family?)
Another dad joined the struggle as he swayed a sobbing toddler back and forth the entirety of Mass as well. Our eyes met briefly at one point, and I saw the same yearning in his own face as he said,
“Not how you’d expect Christmas Eve Mass to go, huh?”
His voice choked at the last of these words…
Sacrifice.
We call it the “Sacrifice of the Mass”. And when we hear it, we mostly think.
Yes, Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. We are remembering that horrific day where our Lord was tortured and left to die on a piece of wood while onlookers jeered.
It should (and does) bring us to our knees every Mass.
And when contemplating this, our own problems and sorrows compared to Christ’s Ultimate Sacrifice often put us to shame.
We shove them back. Try to forget about them. Act like they aren’t that big of a deal compared to what Christ had to go through.
But Jesus isn’t asking us to downplay our own sufferings.
He asks us to unite our own sufferings to His.
He said to “take up your cross and follow Me.” (Matt 16:24) He sees our cross, and invites us to follow him…
But not only that.
He asks us to unite our own sacrifices, big and small, to his one giant incomparable sacrifice. The sacrifice that is repeated at every Mass in a non-bloody way on the altar.
We have the opportunity to take every single little sacrifice (no matter how silly) and place them on the altar alongside Jesus.
What’s more? He said, “Do this in memory of me”
Memory=memorial.
And the term “memorial” as we know it now means something entirely different than it did back then.
“In the Sense of Sacred Scripture the “memorial” is not merely the recollection of past events but the proclamation of the mighty works wrought by God for men. In the liturgical celebration of these events, they become in a certain way present and real. This is how Israel understands its liberation from Egypt: Every time Passover is celebrated, the Exodus events are made present to the memory of believers so that they may conform their lives to them.
In the New Testament, the memorial takes on new meaning. When the Church celebrates the Eucharist, she commemorates Christ’s Passover, and it is made present: the sacrifice Christ offered once for all on the cross remains ever present.”
(Catechism of the Catholic Church 1363-1364)
I’m going to have to hold myself back from sharing the next two pages of the Catechism for the sake of this email. Go read them. And reread them. And soak them up some more, because they are gold.
In a nutshell:
Not only are we seeing Jesus’ Body and Blood on the altar. But we are witnessing His sacrifice, fully present, here and now, in a non-bloody way.
BUT, we are not just mere onlookers.
We are also participating in that sacrifice.
“Christ’s sacrifice present on the altar makes it possible for all generations of Christians to be united with his offering.”
(CCC 1368)
So, all the crosses we carry throughout our week: the hardships, sorrows, frustrations, struggles, fears, anxieties. All of it. Those are sacrifices that Christ is asking us to unite with His.
And for all you other parents of littles…those frustrations we as parents experience during Mass: the fussy toddlers, the crying babies, the potty breaks…
It makes perfect sense for those little frustrations to be happening right at the moment of consecration. Because those moments represent the little sacrifices we as parents make every single day. And we are given an opportunity right then and there, to place them on the altar and unite them to Jesus’ Sacrifice.
I was hoping to reveal the new painting that spurred on this reflection. But it looks like it might have to wait until next week!
Prayers for all you parents out there. And special thanks to all the priests who bring the gift of the Eucharist to us at every Mass.
In Christ,
Haley Dessauer
**Disclaimer: I try very hard to make sure the content of these reflections align with Church teaching…but I am still human and fallible (and may need occasional help from my brothers and sisters in Christ!) If you read something in one of my emails that does not align with Church teaching, please let me know! Likewise, when in doubt, seek out more information and contact your parish priest.
