St. Stanislaus

ADORATION
5am to 6am Every Weekday
9am to 8pm Every Wednesday

1st Wednesday- Parish Family Holy Hour -
Exposition and Benediction from 6pm to 7pm

CONFESSIONS
7am Sunday Mornings

Dear Family,

 I hope your summer is off to a good start!  

Please allow me to share a short instruction on the offertory at Mass:

Starting in July, our ushers will be asking a family/couple/individual at each weekend Mass to bring up the gifts during the offertory. Why do we have the gifts brought up by God’s people? Doesn’t this just create a sort of intermission when we are tempted to zone out? In the past, people used to bring up much more than bread, wine and money during the offertory at mass. They would bring up things that represented their very lives and that involved a real connection with their gifts and skills. The Church sees the preparation of the gifts (offertory) as a time of great importance and not just simply the practical need to bring the bread and wine to the altar for the consecration. We can lose the connection between the offertory and what we offer because money is a sterile symbol and doesn’t fully remind us of what we can and should be offering at each mass. In a sense, a custodian could bring up his mop and place it before the altar or a mother could bring up the lunch she made for her kids (please don’t actually put these things in the collection basket though!). My desire is to have people from every walk of life, whether rich or poor, strong in faith or faltering, old or young, bring up the gifts at mass each weekend. God desires and treasures the gift of ourselves to him, not just a couple wrinkled bills thrown in the basket, not that I’m dismissing monetary gifts/tithing which is an obligation we have to support the Church and the poor. This is partially why the gifts of bread and wine are incensed at Mass; the smoke rising to heaven represents the value of our lives as a prayer to God.

Every Mass is a sacrifice and every sacrifice requires something…or someone to be sacrificed, to be given, to be offered up. That is why you hear words like “oblation” during the Eucharistic prayer. Jesus is always the only spotless sacrificial lamb who takes away the sins of the world, but He desires that we unite ourselves to him on the altar at each Mass, offering up our sacrifices, our sufferings and hardships, our work and money, our gifts of service. By the time the offertory is concluded, we should have mentally and spiritually placed our very selves on the altar along with the bread and the wine, which represents our gifts. A good reminder of this is when I say “Pray brethren that my sacrifice AND YOURS” may be acceptable to God the almighty father. There are two sacrifices being offered up. Jesus, which I offer up to the father and the sacrifice of your life united to Jesus’ sacrifice. It is a beneficial practice to specifically call to mind the things in your life that you need to offer up on the altar. Here are some other thoughts from the Church Fathers regarding the offertory at Mass:

St. Cyprian, martyred in Africa in 258, chided those who came to Mass and received the Eucharist but made no offering of their own: “You are wealthy and rich, and do you think that you celebrate the Lord’s Supper, not at all considering the offering? Who comes to the Lord’s Supper without a sacrifice, and yet take part of the sacrifice which the poor man has offered? Consider in the Gospel the widow… ”

St. Augustine was impressed by a fifth-century procession of gifts in Rome in which the faithful brought from their own homes things from their kitchen tables. Augustine called this an “admirable exchange” — for their gifts God gave back Jesus. The prayer over the gifts from the sixth day in the octave of Christmas uses Augustine’s language: “Lord, receive our gifts in this wonderful exchange: from all you have given us we bring you these gifts, and in return, you give us yourself.” 

St. Stanislaus Church will remain open on Wednesdays after daily Mass until 8pm. 
At 6pm on the 1st Wednesday of each month, St. Stanislaus will offer a Parish Family Holy Hour which will conclude with Benediction.  

First Fruits - Archbishop's Call to Share