Where there may exist only a few children with a burning heart to adore the Redeeming God, there are always those martyrs who are ‘willing to offer Him their short lives in oblation”.
Newsroom (16/11/2021 18:00, Gaudium Press) The Latin word altare means ‘raised platform’. It designates the base – generally of stone – on which, from the beginning of humanity, sacrifices have been offered to God the Creator.
Early in the first chapters of Genesis we see Cain and Abel presenting the products of their labours to God, although each in a very different spirit and with very different results.
The Old Testament also relates the burnt offerings offered to the Lord by Patriarchs and Prophets like Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses or Joshua.
However, the oblations of the Old Law are mere pre-figures of the Perfect Sacrifice in which the Eternal Priest immolates the spotless Victim. “By his Death He atoned for the sins committed in the course of the first Testament, that the elect may receive the eternal inheritance promised to them” (Heb 9:15).
The altar in the New Testament
On the altars of the New Testament, bathed in the most Precious Blood of the Redeemer, we often find silent Martyrs offering the best of their lives to glorify Jesus in the Eucharist: these are the flowers that adorn them.
As they populate fields and gardens, they attract with their delicacy and colour the people who contemplate them or pick them to give as gifts. A single rose, especially if given with filial love, causes a mother’s delight, and a bouquet of flowers elegantly adorns the centre of a dinner table.
There are those gardens of lilies, tulips, or begonias, excellently cared for, which allow us to feel very close to Paradise.
Much more symbolic, however, is the fact that flowers adorn altars all over the world. As the flowers are living beings, the very instant they are separated from the plant, their beauty begins to fade.
The splendour of the bright petals reverts to the brown marks of suffering; their lives are sacrificed in an act of praise to the God who vivifies all things.
And when the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is celebrated on this altar, the flowers that adorn it “watch” the bloodless Passion of Christ, Who again pours out His most Precious Blood for our benefit.
At the Altar
Would that all Catholics were prepared to glorify with their lives the Redemption brought by Jesus as these mute witnesses do!
Would that they always accompanied Jesus in spirit at the altar instead of, as so often happens, absenting themselves from the celebration of Holy Mass under the pretext of being too busy.
Where there may exist few children with a burning heart to adore the Redeeming God, there are always those martyrs who are ‘willing to offer Him their short lives in oblation”.
The presence of these creatures – flowers and plants – with a nature so inferior to ours, testifies to the greatness of the Sacrifice which is being celebrated. They behold the eyes of the priest; embellish the Priesthood before the faithful; and most importantly, glorify the Redeeming God with their silent holocaust.
Text extracted from the magazine Heralds of the Gospel n.202, October 2018.
Compiled by Sandra Chisholm
