About the everyday sacrifices... my column this week at Patheos

The gift of doing a weekly column like this is that provides me a place to revisit themes that have grown stronger in my own life over time and take them to a deeper place. For example, this week's column....


Sacrifice -- the kind that serves another -- binds us intangibly to the wonderful wounded Christ whose own power transforms our humble service in all our relationships -- work, families, marriages -- and helps to perfect it, so it look like His. And we find this most truly when we lay it all down every week as an offering in the Holy Sacrifice of Mass...  before the Holy Sacrament of the Altar. 


Here's a bit: 

Sacrifice for another, it might be said, is perhaps the ultimate “yes” that one can offer another person, and unto God. 

Sacrifice acts on behalf of another, putting them first, not furthering one’s own cause. It entails interrupting or delaying our own plans, desires, trajectories, goals and even giving something we may be afraid to lose… our time, money, comfort, power or prestige… for the sake of another who may or may not be worthy of it. 

True sacrifice is a profound offering… a mix of generosity, magnanimity, humility, love, and selflessness.

We sure do appreciate it when someone else shoulders our burden in the muddiness of life, or has our back when the fight is on, or stands in the gap between what we can and cannot do for ourselves. 

In the midst of being on the receiving end of another’s loving service, we often have no idea to what depth they chose to intervene on our behalf. And it’s often not until long afterwards that we have an opportunity to respond in gratitude to what’s been received.  

There's more, here.