Every week we gather around our parish altars. We place on the eucharistic table bread and wine as our offering to God, who consecrates them and returns them to us as the body and blood of his beloved Son. But imagine a bigger table, an altar on which is placed not just the eucharistic elements, but the means of realizing mercy, compassion, justice, forgiveness in our lives.

Imagine placing next to the paten and chalice your favorite casserole dish, the one you use to prepare suppers for neighbors experiencing crisis or hardship. Set on the parish altar the book you read to your child every night, during those special moments of quiet grace. Include in your offering all the stuff of family life: the keys to the family van, the basketball you and your kids shoot hoops with after supper. Add to these gifts the smartphone you put aside when a friend needs to talk, the yarn you use to knit shawls for the parish prayer shawl ministry, the snow shovel you use to clean your elderly neighbor’s walk.

All these gifts are sacramental; they reveal God in our midst.

As the scribe in today’s Gospel says: God seeks no greater gift from us than our bringing God’s mercy to others. To embrace others in love as God embraces us is the heart of discipleship. With our eucharistic offerings, God accepts our most ordinary acts of mercy, our tools of reconciliation, our humble efforts to heal and reconcile. God accepts them and returns them as grace, blessing, and hope.

May we become what we offer at our altars: the embodiment of God’s mercy and peace, the vision of God’s compassion and justice to heal and lift up the broken, the fallen, the lost.

Deacon Jay Cormier

Jay Cormier, a deacon serving in the Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire, teaches at Saint Anselm College and Pope John XXIII National Seminary. He is author of The Deacon’s Ministry of the Word and editor and publisher of Connections.