Offer It Up

October 26, 2023

I grew up with a mom who always told me to “offer it up” whenever I complained about something that went wrong. Sometimes she would more specifically tell me how to “offer it up,” such as if we were out and I said I was thirsty – which was my way of hoping she would stop at 7-11 for a Slurpee – she would matter-of-factly reply with, “Swallow your saliva.” I heard that phrase a lot growing up, and my own kids in turn heard me use it with them when they whined from the backseat of our car. 

What my mom was trying to teach me – and I in a similar fashion tried to teach my children – was that we need to take advantage of daily sufferings and crosses that God sends to us. It is through this process of offering our sufferings that we can help both ourselves and others through our prayers and hardships. If we generously offer up our little pains in life – from being thirsty to spraining an ankle, and from suffering due to getting fired from a job or getting rejected in a relationship – and if we join our hurts with the foremost pain, which was Jesus sacrificing his life on the cross, then we can know the result will be God the Father bringing about some good somewhere else, to someone else, for something else. 

It is difficult to get children to understand how their suffering can bring about a greater good, especially when they are in the middle of their trauma in pain or in despair. Using age-appropriate language, parents need to help their kids understand that by not only accepting the suffering but actually welcoming it, we are uniting that suffering back to the suffering Jesus had at His Passion. Like Him, we can then begin to realize that we must get through Good Friday in order to celebrate our Easter morning.

One way to explain redemptive suffering to kids is to define it as the suffering that Christ first allows us to acceptingly experience and then offer back to Him as a way to be in union with his suffering on the Cross. When we do this, we humble ourselves and feel a deeper connection with Our Lord. It was Christ’s act of redemptive suffering that destroyed death and the eternal effects of sin. By offering our suffering in unity with Him, we are a part of Christ’s work of salvation.

Make sure your children understand they should not be suckers for punishment or seek it out like masochists, but when suffering hits us, if we lovingly and faithfully offer it to God, He will use it in a mysterious way for the redemption of the world through the power of our love. When suffering, recognize that it is God our Father giving us an opportunity to become like Jesus His Son. 

Jesus told His Apostles at the Last Supper that “a man can have no greater love than to lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Jesus laid down His life for us, and although few of us will ever have the opportunity to make this supreme sacrifice of giving our life for someone, unless we serve in the military on the battlefield, God is choosing our enduring of sufferings as our way to participate in the salvation of souls. Let your kids know that they can offer their suffering up for their friends and relatives who seem to have lost their way and are making unchristian life choices.

Our Lord simultaneously turns our miseries, big or small, into opportunities for personal growth and holiness. As Catholics, we are called to look at enduring pain as an awesome grace to be able to participate in the Passion of Christ. Suffering draws us closer to Jesus’s Sacred Heart. It is by our suffering here on earth and offering it up that we will be entirely emptying our hearts of the self and filling them entirely with Christ.

Our all-loving God desires we spend eternity with Him in Paradise, and so we are to look at the daily misfortunes we face as a test of our faith. When adversity hits us, we can choose to either reject God and His love or turn toward Him. If we continue to place our faith and trust in God we can strengthen our relationship in the long run, even though in the initial times of suffering we may not be able to recognize the importance of offering up our misfortunes. 

Jesus tells us, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me”(Luke 9:23). We are taught to accept the cross(es) exclusively given to us because it is in this suffering that we will be led at the end of our earthly time to meet Jesus in all His glory. Help your youngsters keep an eternal perspective, realizing that our time of earth is but a minuscule blip in time, and earthly suffering is nothing when compared to the everlasting joy we hope to attain in heaven. 

Now as I write all about the importance of suffering and the reason we need to offer it up, by no means can I boast that I am one of those glass-is-half-full-outlook people who happily accept bad news and painful struggles with God’s grace. I am often bitter when setbacks come my way, no matter how small they are, and I have to work every day to be better by reducing my complaining. I desire to be like those I see who don’t whine but habitually offer up their pain or distress as their powerful way to strive to be like Christ. I try to appreciate how the Catechism tells us:

“Christ calls His disciples to take up their cross and follow Him, for Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example so that we should follow in His steps. …Apart from the cross there is no other ladder by which we may get to heaven.”

The cross is central to our religion. Our fundamental symbol is Christ crucified on a cross. We are present at the cross when we are present at Mass. The one, perfect sacrifice in 33 A.D. was a bloody one, and at every Mass since the original Good Friday we are re-presenting this sacrifice as an unbloody act. We are to join our personal sufferings during the Offertory as we ask the Son to take our sufferings with His and offer it up to the Father. Although our offering is in itself imperfect, joined at Mass with the offering of Christ it becomes perfect praise and thanksgiving to our Almighty Father. Children need to be taught that the Mass is not repeating the murder of Jesus, but is taking part in what never ends – the offering of Christ as a suffering victim to the Father for our sake, and the invitation for us to offer our sufferings as well. 

In the Mass, at the end of the Preparation of the Gifts, the priest says to the congregation, “Pray, brother and sisters, that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God the Almighty Father,” and signifies that there are not multiple sacrifices in the Mass, but rather, we are sharing in the singular sacrifice of Christ. The phrase “my sacrifice and yours” reminds us of the different things offered in every Mass – the priest presenting to the Father once more the sacrifice of the Son on the Cross and we, the people, offering ourselves in union with this.

“The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice: The victim is one and the same: the same now offers through the ministry of priests, who then offered himself on the cross; only the manner of offering is different. And since in this divine sacrifice, which is celebrated in the Mass, the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross is contained and is offered in an unbloody manner…” (Catechism #1367)

Kids these days who are complaining about troubles and burdens not only need to be told to “offer it up” like in past generations, but they need to be taught how the words suffering and sacrifice are related. Parents would do well to explain to their children who often squirm at Mass because they don’t fully understand what is going on, that at Mass the risen God the Son becomes present on the altar and offers himself to God the Father as a living sacrifice who suffered by being crucified on the cross. Prior to entering church for Mass, challenge your kids to listen for the words of sacrifice, “This is My body . . . this is My blood . . . given up for you.” 

When listening attentively to the Eucharistic Prayer (especially version I, AKA “the Canon”), one can hear that our worship is offered to God by Jesus as it was at the moment of Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection, but now it is offered through the priest acting in the person of Christ, and it is offered as well by all of the baptized, who are part of Christ’s Body, the Church. The script of the Canon uses the word “sacrifice” four times, “offer/offering” nine times, and “victim” four times. Keep your kids listening attentively during the Eucharistic Prayer, and if your priest is one who regularly prays the original version (the Canon/Prayer I), you can tell your kids before Mass that you’ll ask them after Mass how many times they heard the words “sacrifice” and “victim,” and the child(ren) who answer with the correct numbers get double donuts at their favorite donut shop after Mass. 

Something that many Catholics have been erroneously taught for the past 50 years or so due to faulty interpretations of Vatican II and progressive priests who rashly implemented changes is that the Mass is primarily a symbolic, communal, fellowship meal and a reenactment of the Last Supper, without mentioning it is primarily a sacrifice. Too many Catholics these days are ignorant of the fact that when the priest speaks the words of consecration at Mass, he is not addressing the congregation – he is directing them to the Heavenly Father. The priest is speaking in the person of Christ and indicating that this act of our worship, as members of the Body of Christ, is united to the perfect sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. 

Each Christian has a role to unite our suffering with that of Jesus’s.  By “offering it up,” we are to consider our pains as a type of redemptive suffering because we are uniting with Christ by offering our suffering for others in unity with Him. It should assure us to know He is with us the whole time we are enduring hardships and suffering setbacks. 

No matter what our cross in life is, if we can consider it a gift from God as He desires to strengthen us for some greater purpose, we will discover that our greatest struggles in life actually turn out to be our greatest blessings. Realize our Lord will not allow you to go through something you cannot handle.

Reflect with your children on St. Paul’s words:

“In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and want.I can do all things in him who strengthens me“ (Philippians 4:12-13).

Our Lord is more concerned that we grow in faith and develop fortitude, tolerance, and perseverance than He is concerned that we feel comfortable. So the next time you feel like complaining about your sprained ankle, your broken relationship, or your unquenchable thirst, swallow your saliva.