“I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer yourselves as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—which is your spiritual worship” (Romans 12:1)
St. Paul may have in mind the temple in Jerusalem. In a dozen more years it would be leveled to the ground by the Roman conquerors. It was the only place for his people to offer sacrifices. Animals would be slaughtered daily and offered to the Lord as expiation for their sins. Only the spotless healthy beasts and birds were worthy to be put to death by the priests. The apostle had already realized that the human being is able to be a living temple to replace dead animals.
Sacrifice, however, that basic and instinctive way of relating to the living Lord, took another form. Not animals, but humans, and heaven forbid not by killing, but by living an ongoing slaughter of sin within one’s self, presenting one’s whole self pure, spotless and vibrant with a life of service to the Lord.
See in your mind’s eye the moment when the deacon or priest crosses his arms while raising high the consecrated Body and Blood of Christ. You hear the words:
“Thine own of Thine own we offer to Thee, on behalf of all and for all.”
To paraphrase:
We are returning to You what is really Yours. You made it possible for us to grow grapes and wheat, but look what we did with them. We cooperated with You in planting, tending, harvesting and then turning them into delicious wine and bread. And then we took those gifts of Yours reworked as best as we were able and brought them back so that we would fulfill Your words at the Last Supper when You turned them in some mystical manner into Your very body and blood. Now we once again raise them up to You before we distribute those elements and partake of them as Eucharist.
We realize what is happening: In our feeble, imperfect and all too human way we are imitating You, the Perfect Sacrifice presented to the heavenly Father on the cross for the sins of all humanity by making ourselves living sacrifices as far as we are able. For as long as the Father blesses us with life, we intend to make the gift of life an ongoing offering as holy and as pleasing to Him as we are capable of doing, with the grace of the Holy Spirit.
Our life will be a constant prayer reaching out with each breath to stay in touch with You, the God-man with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
St. Mark the Ascetic in his letter to Nicolas the Solitary (Philokalia, Vol. One, p. 153), reminds us: “What repayment for all these blessings can you possibly make to Him who has called your soul to eternal life?” This goes for Jews and Gentiles, both types to whom St. Paul was addressing in his letter to the Romans. The wonderful loving God has opened the entrance to eternal life to all mankind. One need not wonder about his or her qualifications. The only requirement is the desire to enter, and to live one’s life in a manner commensurate with those who abide there eternally. There’s no way one can pay the entrance fee through some earthly sacrifice. The only acceptable cost is “The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit. A broken and contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise” (Psalm 51:17).
“Our spiritual worship” is a reminder of the Lord’s conversation with St. Photina, the “woman at the well” (John 4:4ff). Every altar replicates the temple in Jerusalem as a place where the Unique, once for all sacrifice is offered, Jesus Christ Himself. The Holy Spirit is “everywhere present and fills all things,” making it possible for us baptized into Christ and anointed with the Holy Spirit to offer up ourselves cleansed of sin and spotless in radiant glory to welcome the presence of the Holy Trinity in our own souls.