OFFERING (AGAIN)

The French author Daniel-Rops published, in 1952, a little book called "Missa Est" with very fine B&W photographs by Laure Albin-Guillot and a series of brief texts explaining parts of the Mass followed by short meditations on each part. Here is his meditation on the Offering of the bread and wine (my translation):

If you have nothing else to offer the Lord, lay before Him only your works and your travails:

this piece of bread resting there on the paten cost many men many efforts.

If your hand is empty and your mouth painfully dry, offer your wounded heart, all you have suffered:

for the wine to be poured into the chalice, did the grapes not have to be trampled and their skin opened?

If all you have inside you is sin and bitterness, the pain of living and all humanity’s anguish:

let your hands lift up those sad things, for Mercy has received them in advance in His Supper.

And if you do not even have the strength to offer and implore, if all inside you is absence and abandonment:

only accept in silence that Another take care of you on your behalf and accept you, so that the Offering and the Offerer may be one gift.