We cried to the LORD, the God of our fathers, and he heard our cry and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. // Deuteronomy 26:7
O Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I offer Thee my prayers, works, joys, and sufferings of this day.
I joined my heart with emotion to the words of the Morning Offering I prayed in my freshman homeroom with my classmates. It was my first year at a Catholic school, and while I was doing fine with the academics, I was having trouble forming friendships. I missed my public school where I had many friends and wished I had stayed with them.
But the Morning Offering helped me through each day as I learned what it meant to make an offering to the Lord. I learned that He wanted the best of all of my life and was with me in my joys and sorrows. Looking back, I can see how those lonely days of early high school were my first lesson in offering up the first fruits of my life.
In the First Reading for today, the Lord teaches His chosen people a simple prayer to pray with their offering of the first fruits of their crops and livestock for when they finish wandering in the desert and enter the promised land. The prayer reminds them of their past when they were slaves in Egypt and how the Lord heard their prayers and freed them from oppression.
His saving act for the Israelites prefigured the saving act of His Son for all of us. The Lord heard the cry of humanity enslaved to sin, became a man, died for us, and delivered us from oppression. Through Baptism we are delivered from Original Sin and offered the grace to live free from enslavement to our actual sins.
Sister, the Lord Who has delivered us asks us to offer Him the first fruits of our lives. Every Sunday at Mass we can prayerfully join them with Offertory when the priest prays over the bread and wine. Every joy and suffering we experience is an opportunity to offer our lives to the Lord. He wants you to share every moment of your life with Him. He has given you all; will you offer it to Him?
He wants you to share every moment of your life with Him. // Susanna SpencerClick to tweet
Susanna Spencer holds a master's in Theology from the Franciscan University of Steubenville and is the Content and Theological Editor for Blessed is She. She is a freelance writer, editor, and speaker living with her philosopher husband and four kids in Saint Paul, Minnesota. She loves reading theology, attending beautiful liturgies, cooking delicious food, and casually following baseball. She is the author of the Gospel Studies including Seek His Kingdom: A Meditation on Matthew; narrator for Found: Advent With the Good Shepherd and Rescued: Lent With the Lamb of God; a contributing author to our children’s devotional prayer book, Rise Up; and Theological Editor of the Blessed Conversations Studies. Find out more about her here.
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