Consecration and Sacrifice (Midweek Message)

Jan Van Eyck, Adoration of the Lamb 

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

Consecration and Sacrifice

October 12, 2016

Often when we offer the gifts of bread, wine, and plate receipts in Eucharist, we recite together a line from 1 Chronicles 29:14 (and the 1928 Prayer Book), “All things come of thee, O Lord, and of thine own have we given thee.”  The idea is that whatever we offer as thanksgiving gifts to God are in fact already God’s, since God gave them to us. 

But this phrase focuses mainly on what we give back to God.  The more general idea upon which it is based is that all things belong to God, already, including us.

Jesus tried to make the point clearly when he taught the rich young man to go, sell everything he had (not part of it) and give the proceeds to the poor.  Jesus lived what he taught.  He perfectly submitted to God, and wholly aligned his will and actions with God’s ultimate purposes and love.   In the words of Celtic spirituality, he was the thinnest of “thin places” between our world and the Ultimate. In “emptying himself” to God (Phil 2:1-13), and submitting fully to God, the Man Jesus is an exemplar for us.

Seeing such emptying of self as the heart of growth toward God, St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of The Society of Jesus, wrote the following prayer as part of his Spiritual Exercises:

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will. All I have and call my own, you have given all to me. To you, Lord, I return it. Everything is yours; do with it what you will. Give me only your love and your grace, that is enough for me. Amen.

The idea is also expressed in a poem by Frances Ridley Havergal, the text of number 707 in the Hymnal 1982:

Take my life and let it be
consecrated, Lord, to thee.
Take my moments and my days;
let them flow in endless praise,

Take my hands and let them move
at the impulse of thy love.
Take my feet and let them be
swift and beautiful for thee.

Take my voice and let me sing
always, only, for my King.
Take my lips and let them be,
filled with messages from thee.

Take my silver and my gold;
not a mite would I withhold.
Take my intellect and use
every power as thou shalt choose.

Take my will and make it thine;
it shall be no longer mine.
Take my heart it is thine own;
it shall be thy royal throne.

Take my love; my Lord, I pour
at thy feet its treasure store.
Take myself, and I will be
ever, only, all for thee.

If we would be followers of Jesus, we must consecrate all we have and are to God.  Giving up all, intentionally getting rid of the attachment we have to things and placing them in the service of Jesus, is at the heart of Christian spirituality.  It is only by giving all to God that we find our true selves and anything becomes truly our own. 

Grace and Peace, 

Fr. Tony+