Let’s begin with the what. What is being offered is actually a whom - Jesus Christ! The Body and Blood of Christ are being offered in the Eucharist for the life of the world, for the forgiveness of sins, just
as they were on Good Friday.

To whom are the Body and Blood of Christ being offered? To God the Father. The Body and Blood of His Son are the only Gifts worthy of being offered to the Father. The offering of created objects, goats and bulls, bread and wine, gold and silver are not worthy of their Creator. Only His Son is.

So who is doing this offering? The answer to this question is not as simple as the answer to the first two. First of all Jesus Christ is the offerer as well as the offering of every Eucharist. Or as we say, Christ, on the cross and on the altar, is both Priest and Victim.

But the who doesn’t stop there, because for the Eucharist to be offered to the Father in a concrete place and time throughout history, we need a human being to act in the person of Christ. That person is the ordained priest who by the power of the Holy Spirit offers the Body and Blood of Christ to the Father.

But, the ordained priest never acts for himself alone, or by himself alone. Every priest is ordained from and for the Church, and so through the priest the Church (and that includes each baptized person present for the celebration of the Eucharist) offers the Body and Blood of Christ to the Father.

It may seem at first that we have three separate agents offering the Eucharist to the Father: Jesus Christ, the ordained priest, and the Church. But by the power of the Holy Spirit these three agents are united as the one Offerer.

There is more I need to write abut the Eucharist as Offering, but it must wait til next week.
                                            

                                               Msgr. David Lockard