A Free Life

Saturday of Week 2 in Ordinary Time

Office of Readings: A Selection from St. Irenaeus

(click the link to go to Universalis for the St. Irenaeus reading)

Irenaeus is pondering the nuances of offering.  Making an offering or sacrifice is deep in the Judeo-Christian tradition.  But there is an unfolding.  Human to animal.  Animal to grain.  Grain to life…One’s whole life, that is.  It seems what Irenaeus is honing in on is freedom and how it relates to offering. 

The Lord wanted us to make our offerings in all innocence and without ulterior motives.

So, trying to ward off the wrath of God no longer suffices.  Making an offering for Sin no longer suffices.  My offering is the free gift of my life, perhaps symbolized by the work of my hands made tangible in money.  

Here is my life.  I offer it this morning in Joy and Thanksgiving, that I may live it Eucharistically.  I am not afraid to let it be broken and shared when I remember that that is exactly how your life is multiplied in me.

Tough talk. 

Tough self-talk.

I think it is prayer.