The Italian city of Ravenna is known as the capital of mosaics. Many examples of this type of art found in the city have been designated as World Heritage Sites by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). We are particularly interested in a set of mosaics on the walls of the central nave of the Church of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo. On the left wall is a procession of Holy Virgins led by the three Magi. On the right wall there is another depiction of the solemn procession of the Holy Martyrs. In addition to heading toward the apse of the church, where the majestic mosaics of Christ and his Mother are located, the processions have another feature in common: the Magi carry their well-known gifts (cf. Matthew 2:11), while the Virgins and Martyrs carry as an offering their own crowns, symbols of their witness as disciples. Ultimately, these crowns signify the very lives of these saints offered as a sacrifice on the altar toward which they walk. Such offerings are considered so sacred that the Virgins and Martyrs do not dare to touch them. Their crowns are held with a veil, a custom that was attested in the offertory processions of the second half of the sixth century, the period in which these mosaics were created.
The art found in Sant’Apollinare Nuovo is just one example of the sensitivity that the Church of the first millennium had regarding its participation in the Eucharistic sacrifice through the offertory procession, as a sacramental expression of a sacrifice that involves the entire Body of Christ, the Church, and which, therefore, is not only the sacrifice of Christ the Head. Is this not precisely what St. Paul said, using cultic language to indicate how the lives of Christians should be an existence entirely offered up? “I urge you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship” (Romans 12:1).
Procession through History
Of course, St. Paul was not suggesting the crude idea of ritual sacrifices of the lives of Christians in Rome. The appeal to sacrificial language to address matters relating to Christian existence, with all its vicissitudes, is both a beautiful metaphor and a point of connection between worship and life. It is, therefore, a very fitting image, both on the part of the author (Paul, who as a Jew was familiar with Israel’s sacrificial system) and on the part of the recipients—that is, the Christian community in Rome, which included both diaspora Jews and pagans—all of whom had converted to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The two groups of recipients had prior knowledge of ritual sacrifices, each in their own way and according to their previous religious traditions. For this reason, Paul’s exhortation was able to reach their ears and hearts.
To cite an example from early Christianity, the text of the Apostolic Tradition (early third century), when describing the celebration of the baptism of those who had undergone the catechumenal process, discusses the appropriateness of the neophytes making the offering at the beginning of the Eucharistic liturgy: “They who are to be baptized shall bring with them no other vessels than the one each will bring for the eucharist; for it is fitting that he who is counted worthy of baptism should bring his offering at that time” (Chapter 20).
During the medieval period, the custom of holding an offertory procession gradually disappeared. Several factors led to this change. Little by little, the faithful stopped producing their own bread and wine to present. In addition, a practice took hold among the clergy, whereby many priests devoted themselves to celebrating numerous Masses, many of them without the assistance of the faithful. These factors help explain how much the Eucharistic liturgy, in the popular mindset, came to be considered the business of the priest. The gradual disappearance of offertory processions was one of the most logical consequences of this process. This situation remained unchanged in the Roman Missal of 1570, continuing until the Second Vatican Council.
Image Source: AB/Meister von San Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Theology of Procession
This condition, however, changed with the reform carried out by the Council. The first version of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM), paragraph 80, indicates those things to be prepared: “on a side table: the chalice, corporal, purificator, and, if useful, a pall; a paten and ciboria, if needed, with the bread for the communion of the ministers and the people, together with cruets containing wine and water, unless all of these are brought in by the faithful at the presentation of the gifts” (now found in GIRM, 118). This last expression—“unless all these are brought in by the faithful at the presentation of the gifts”—demonstrates the possibility of reviving the ancient rite of the offertory procession. In the third Typical Edition of the Roman Missal, the General Instruction presents information about the offertory rite that goes beyond mere practical considerations: “The offerings are then brought forward. It is a praiseworthy practice for the bread and wine to be presented by the faithful…. Even though the faithful no longer bring from their own possessions the bread and wine intended for the liturgy as was once the case, nevertheless the rite of carrying up the offerings still keeps its spiritual efficacy and significance” (GIRM, 73). These texts, in addition to presenting practical aspects related to the rite, allow us to see the theology that inspires them.
Two other sections of the Eucharistic Liturgy merit mention, again with the aim of understanding more fully the forgotten value of the sacrificial offering. The first is the set of rites between the Orate fratres (“Pray, brethren”) and the Prayer Over the Offerings. The second is the act of offering that exists within all Roman anaphoras, taking one of them, Eucharistic Prayer III, as an example.
After offering the bread and wine and performing the ablution, the priest addresses the assembly with the words: “Pray, brethren (brothers and sisters), that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father.” We hardly ever realize that this phrase already calls the offering of bread and wine that we present to the Lord God of all creation a “sacrifice.” The faithful often say that Mass is a sacrifice because it is the sacramental expression of Jesus’ death on the cross. And this is absolutely true! One aspect, however, does not usually appear in the awareness of many of the faithful: Holy Mass has a sacrificial aspect also because it is the sacrifice of the Church. The prayer addressed to the Father, and the action of the Spirit that he sends, ultimately identify the two sacrifices and make them one. But it is necessary to recover the awareness of what the Church’s part in this sacrifice is. After all, the Bride’s response to the immense love of the Bridegroom who gives himself for her on the Cross will depend on this.
Furthermore, it cannot go unnoticed that the Latin text, very well translated into English, explicitly mentions the offerers: the priest (meum/my) and the assembly (vestrum/yours). The choice, in both Latin and English, not to simply say “our sacrifice” is an expression of the lex orandi that reveals that all the baptized are called to offer their own lives, and this becomes sacramentally visible with the sacrificial offering of the elements that Jesus himself chose: bread and wine.
Lost and Found
The act of offering, therefore, is not a matter of little importance. It is not a trivial thing. We run the risk of trivializing it if, during the offertory procession, we prefer, for example, to present symbols that express more our “didactic need,” the presentation of a theme that we want to propose, than an actual sacrifice. To be a sacrifice, the thing offered must be lost. The offerer must not wish to recover it for himself. Even in their simplicity, bread and wine, as well as food for the poor or donations for the maintenance of the Church, have a reference to Christ’s Passover—all these things “die” for the person who offers them, while promoting the life of the community. For this reason, didactic or thematic symbols should have no place in the dense and profound gesture of offering. They “speak” to us and are not true offerings.
All Roman Eucharistic Prayers feature the theme of offering in their text. Again, I would like to take Eucharistic Prayer III as an example, which, despite being a post-Vatican II creation, has a theological understanding of sacrifice and offering in perfect harmony with the ancient and venerable Roman Canon. Here is the passage called the Memores igitur, which comes immediately after the Narrative of the Last Supper in Eucharistic Prayer III: “Therefore, O Lord, as we celebrate the memorial of the saving Passion of your Son, his wondrous Resurrection and Ascension into heaven, and as we look forward to his second coming, we offer you in thanksgiving this holy and living sacrifice.”
As we can see, immediately after the words of the Institution Narrative, the community performs a series of important acts. In accordance with what Jesus said at the Last Supper—“Do this in remembrance of me”—this section of the Roman Eucharistic Prayers always contains a memorial action, evidenced by the plural noun memores, which identifies this spiritual status of the assembly and the presiding minister. The object of this memory is the Paschal Mystery of Christ.
In addition to the act of remembrance, there is another very important act. While the Church commemorates Christ’s Passover, she offers in thanksgiving hoc sacrificium vivum et sanctum—“this holy and living sacrifice.” If we follow the language of the Eucharistic Liturgy from the offertory rite up to this point, the offering of bread and wine by the faithful and by the priest is called a “sacrifice”—“Pray, brothers and sisters, that my sacrifice and yours….” The grammar of the text has not yet identified the word “sacrifice” with the death of Jesus. This step will be taken in the continuation of the Prayer and will be “sealed” by the Father. Let us observe: “Look, we pray, upon the oblation of your Church, and, recognizing the sacrificial Victim by whose death you willed to reconcile us to yourself, grant that we, who are nourished by the Body and Blood of your Son and filled with his Holy Spirit, may become one body, one spirit in Christ.”
What the Church asks here is a spiritual operation that only the Father can perform: to look upon the sacrifice of the Church, that is, the offering of bread and wine, and recognize it as it now is: the Victim whose death reconciled us to him. It is at this point, therefore, that the immense simplicity of the Church’s sacrificial offering attains the highest dignity. No matter how simple this offering may be, through the immense goodness of the Father, it is welcomed in the same way as the Son, in his obedience unto death, and for this reason it is deeply pleasing; it is a perfect sacrifice.
Active and Conscious
Therefore, if the Father takes seriously the offering of bread and wine that the Church makes, so too must the celebrating assembly take care to present it without distorting its meaning. “Mother Church earnestly desires that all the faithful should be led to that fully conscious, and active participation in liturgical celebrations which is demanded by the very nature of the liturgy” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 14). Undoubtedly, the active and conscious participation of all the faithful in the Eucharist must include an offertory rite in which, from time to time, at least on more festive days, the assembly can present the foods that Jesus chose and, with them, make an offering of their own lives.
