I was recently turned on to a podcast by a priest named Fr. Michael Schmitz. The podcast is a weekly upload of his homily, basically. He’s a young and a very insightful priest who seems to be able to connect really well with the young Church. I admit that I’ve only listened to several of his homilies, but I have been impressed with his charisma and the messages he seeks to share, so I thought I would write about it. (Side note: I downloaded about 20 of his podcasts and loaded them to my iPhone so I can listen to him at work today).
Last night, I listened to his homily from this past Sunday, in which he focuses on the Mass as the Great Sacrifice. At one point he discusses the consistent historical link between worship and sacrifice. This has been the focus of my prayer since I listened.
God does not need our sacrifices. He gains nothing from them. We cannot offer him anything which he doesn’t already have. Slaughter one sheep or a one thousand, either way this sacrifice doesn’t affect God one bit. And yes, it has been said that he gains pleasure from our act of dominance over our will in his name, but again, this seems theoretical, unnecessary, and uncharacteristic of the loving and order-driven God we worship. All of which begs the question: if God does not need or benefit from our sacrifices, why then does He require them?
This makes me think back to A Knight’s Tale, to the scene in which the aggravating leading lady requires Heath Ledger’s character to purposely lose a jousting tournament to prove he loves her. Girls may swoon over this, but as a guy, I found this request petty, selfish, shallow, and actually offensive. This woman is asking this guy she supposedly cares about to give up the things that are most important to him, all for the sake of her reassurance. (And before you girls clamor up with a “but she tells him to win it in the end!!!” I respond with the assertion that it doesn’t matter. The losses he had sustained could have been insurmountable by that point, and even if they weren’t, I don’t know where she gets off thinking she can play all these manipulative games for her own satisfaction.)
I can’t believe that our God is like this. I can’t accept the idea that He asks us to make sacrifices all for the sake of some petty sense of satisfaction. That’s like a dog owner asking his dog to do tricks for his amusement, just for the purpose of proving that the dog is obedient enough to do them.
The only solution that remains to my perception, then, is that God requires our sacrifices not for His sake, but for our own. This is the concept I’ve been wrestling with since I listened to the podcast last night. I can accept the theoretical idea that God requires sacrifices for our own sake – that is in line with the God I know. But what benefit we receive from these sacrifices is another story. Do we grow in discipline as a result of them? Possibly, but that doesn’t seem quite correct to me.
The conclusion that I’m dancing with right now is this: God requests our sacrifice. It is our decision whether or not to pay that sacrifice to Him, but when we do, we bolster our courage and confidence in ourselves, as believes who have responded to God’s call. It is our opportunity to rise up and give something back to He who gives us everything. Perhaps God doesn’t WANT our sacrifices, but He requests them because He knows, buried within our hearts, WE want to make our sacrifices. We long for any tiny, precious opportunity to show our gratitude to the One who breathed life in us. This is much like a mother who allows her child to spend his allowance on a trinket gift for her for Christmas – though she doesn’t need it, she knows the joy and satisfaction it gives the child to offer it to her, and so she gladly accepts it.
I don’t know if this explanation is satisfying, complete, or even correct. I would love to hear your thoughts about it, though. This is, of course, a mystery the scope of which I don’t flatter myself to think I can address in a blog post, but that’s kind of the point, right? To work our way through these mysteries so that we can come together to a deeper understanding of the God who fathered us.
I’ll be praying for you.
4 comments:
I agree with you that I cannot imagine the God I believe in requesting sacrifices out of pettiness or for his own sake. I agree that if He does request sacrifices, they are for our sake.
But I haven't decided whether or not I even believe that God requests sacrifices. I think sacrifices are good if they make us better people; for example, if someone is particularly materialistic, then I can imagine him/her committing to give up a really nice possession to combat this trait. But in my mind, what God cares about is that we overcome our vices, not that we overcome our vices through sacrifices.
I do not understand, though, the "trading-off" mentality. I know it's really common, and I feel sure I have participated, but I do not philosophically or theologically understand the idea of giving up an ice cream cone or something for souls in purgatory. Buuut I think now I'm branching off into how hands-on I understand God to be, so I will stop myself here.
I would love to hear your response (or anyone's, for that matter), since you have clearly done more research than me. Just as a request, please don't use the example of Abraham and Isaac.
ha oh goodness my response was long... SORRY!
I agree with ALP. =) I feel that sacrifices have a lot to do with overcoming human nature. In other words, they are a means through which we die to ourselves, thus setting us free from whatever it is that's holding us back from Christ.
This is most specifically in the cases of God asking us to give up or sacrifice those things that we are most in danger of making into idol, you know?
It would be really interesting to see what the Church Doctors have to say on the matter, no?
I think that sacrifice is not about merely overcoming vice or growing in discipline, it is first and foremost about love. That's what sacrifice is; that is its purpose. Jesus had no vices. He didn't need to be disciplined. God the Father sacrificed His Son out of pure love for you and me. That is why we should make sacrifices as well. During Lent or Advent when we fast, we're doing it out of love, to detach, or die to ourselves as Therese said, for the sake of growing closer to Christ and experiencing in the slightest way what He had to experience. By offering sacrifices we learn to detach from this world and cling only to Christ, because all good comes from Him.
I think God does request sacrifice. He asked His perfect, spotless, innocent Son to sacrifice Himself, so why would He not ask us to offer ourselves as well? Kori's right, He doesn't need our sacrifices by any means. But I think He wants them because when we sacrifice for Him, we express love for Him. And that's why He created us - to love! It so pleases Him! When we sacrifice we grow in love for Him, so it is for our own sake, as well. Love is not a petty reason to request sacrifice. Our joy so increases as we come to know better and participate more in the exchange of love God has made us for.
Christ's self-sacrificing love is the reason we can have hope, after all!
I miss you all!
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