According to the dictionary, an oblation is an offering, something presented to God or offered to God. Each time we celebrate Mass, gifts of bread and wine are given to God as an oblation. It struck me that in our reading from Sirach today, it explains that when we keep God’s law, it is an oblation or an offering that we give to him. I guess I never really consciously thought of it as that way. It certainly adds to our understanding of why we are called to keep God’s law and commandments. Sirach goes on to say that the one who keeps God’s commandments gives a peace offering to God. Tomorrow, we enter the holy season of Lent with our observance of Ash Wednesday. I really love the holy season of Lent, a time when we look into our hearts to see how we might have missed the mark on our journey of faith, to see where we have failed and where we need reconciliation and healing in our lives. Ash Wednesday is one of the most crowded days in our church, a day that resonates with the faithful. The last couple of weeks during Sunday Mass, we have heard from the Sermon on the Plain from the Gospel of Luke, in which Jesus tried to break through the false piety and rigidity and hardness of heart that the Pharisees had in the way they approached God’s laws and commandments. Pope Francis has warned us about a rigidity of heart as well, saying that while meekness, forgiveness, benevolence, and goodness are gifts from God on our journey of faith, rigidity is not one of those gifts. Pope Francis added that “the law was not drawn up to enslave us but to set us free, to make us God’s children”. As we end Ordinary Time today and get ready for the start of Lent, may we see our lives and our love of God’s laws and commandments as an oblation to God and a gift of our faith.
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