Each month, I explore an aspect of our liturgy experience in this series called Mass Communication. Today, the focus is on the Preparation of Gifts.

We have concluded the profession of ancient formulas of faith. We offered prayers for the whole world. Now, we move to a distinct moment of liturgy where various things occur at once.

We all sit and sing while two several things are brought to the altar: money, bread, and wine.

Hard earn hours symbolized in our financial gifts. Money is donated as a symbol of our lives. Money is used for the mission of the Church. We give something of our hard earned work, so that the Church can carry out the mandate of Christ.

With money comes bread and wine. Abbot Jeremy eloquently speaks about the bread and wine being brought forth at this point in the liturgy. These words are worth the contemplation. He said,

Yet to understand the significance of the bread and wine we must look further and leave the church building to discover where this bread and wine have come from. It is worth tracing them all the way back to their earthly roots – back to wheat planted in a field, its sprouting during a different season, its being cared for by skilled farmers, its coming to maturity and being harvested. Then it is ground and brought to bakers who exert their own skills and bake bread in their ovens. And something similar must occur for the wine. Vines are cared for, pruned and cultivated, and grapes are gathered. There is need for the vintner’s skills and the years of the wine coming to maturity in the cellar. Already many people have been involved, and seasons and years have had to pass so that we might have the bread and wine brought forward in today’s liturgy. Still others bring these gifts from the baker and the winery, purchasing them with funds earned in some other work. Thus it is that we may call the bread and wine the fruits of creation and history, the fruits of nature combined with human ingenuity: “which earth has given and human hands have made … fruit of the vine and work of human hands … They are in fact the product of the cooperation between the Creator and human beings.”

The preparation of these gifts is a cosmic event! It is an event that invites our cooperation. We are the only mammals who prepare our food. We have gather the wheat and let it rise. We must gather grapes and take it through the process of becoming wine. This act of preparing bread and wine is man cooperating with God.

God takes the initiative to draw us into this mystery of this preparation:

Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation,for through your goodness we have received the bread we offer you ….

Our lives are offered in this simple gift of bread and wine. All of humanity is laid on the altar of God. As incense marks the altar, we will use all our senses to engage with God’s great deed. God draws us into the timeless event of his Son.