An oblation is an offering. It is something we present to God or something we offer to God. Each time we celebrate Mass, the gifts of bread and wine are given to God as an oblation. In our reading from Sirach today, it states that when we keep God’s law, it is an oblation, an offering that we give to him. I am not sure we perceive keeping God’s laws as an offering to him. This perspective certainly adds to our understanding of why we are called to keep God’s law and commandments as disciples of Christ. Furthermore, our reading from Sirach states that the one who keeps God’s commandments gives a peace offering to God.
Today, we commemorate the feast day of the Venerable Bede, an English Benedictine monk from Northumbria, which was a medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom located in what is now the northern part of England and the southeastern part of Scotland. Bede was born in the late 7th century. As a young child, he survived a terrible plague that struck that region in 686 that killed the majority of the population. Even though he spent the majority of his life at his monastery, he was a well-known author, teacher, and scholar. His work entitled the Ecclesiastical History of the English People has brought him claim as being consider the father of English history. I remember reading that book in college in a course on Western Civilization. Pope Leo XIII declared the Venerable Bede a Doctor of the Church in 1899. Bede is the only native of Great Britain to achieve this designation of Doctor of the Church. St Anselm of Canterbury, is also a Doctor of the Church, but even though Ansel was a Bishop in England, he was born in Italy. Bede was also a great linguist in Latin and Greek, having translated the works of the Early Church Fathers into the language of the Anglo-Saxons, which contributed greatly to the spread of Christianity in England. Bede is the patron saint of English writers and historians. We unite our prayers with his prayers today.
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