St. Michael's Lent 2026 - Reading #23 - Worship
Reading
Augustine widens sacrifice beyond the altar of beasts — mercy, temperance, the body itself can be offered.
He writes, "Thus a true sacrifice is every work which is done that we may be united to God in holy fellowship, and which has a reference to that supreme good and end in which alone we can be truly blessed. And therefore even the mercy we show to men, if it is not shown for God's sake, is not a sacrifice. For, though made or offered by man, sacrifice is a divine thing, as those who called it sacrifice meant to indicate. Thus man himself, consecrated in the name of God, and vowed to God, is a sacrifice in so far as he dies to the world that he may live to God. For this is a part of that mercy which each man shows to himself; as it is written, 'Have mercy on thy soul by pleasing God.' Our body, too, is a sacrifice when we chasten it by temperance, if we do so as we ought, for God's sake, that we may not yield our members instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but instruments of righteousness unto God. Exhorting to this sacrifice, the apostle says, 'I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercy of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.'"
From each living member he lifts the eye to the whole Body.
Then: "This is the sacrifice of Christians: we, being many, are one body in Christ. And this also is the sacrifice which the Church continually celebrates in the sacrament of the altar, known to the faithful, in which she teaches that she herself is offered in the offering she makes to God."
Weekday works and Sunday Mass converge here.
Reflection
Do the math on what this means for a Tuesday. The commute endured with patience for God's sake: sacrifice. The paycheck earned honestly and spent on other people's shoes and groceries: sacrifice. The appetite refused, the temper mastered, the tired hour given to a child's question: sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice. Fatherhood, offered upward, is not the thing that keeps you from the altar. It is matter for the altar. Even the fasts of this season belong here — three weeks of small surrenders were never mere training; they were offerings.
And at Sunday Mass, all of it converges. When the priest offers the Host, the Church teaches that she — which includes your pew, your week, your household — is in the offering.
So bring it deliberately. Next Mass, at the offertory, place the week's work on the paten in your mind, name by name, load by load. That is not pious imagination. That is the sacrifice of Christians.