How can we offer Jesus' body, blood, soul, and divinity in the Divine Mercy chaplet?

By Dr. Robert Stackpole, STD (Mar 25, 2013)

I received a letter from a Mr. Miller with a question about the meaning of what we "offer"
to God in the Chaplet of The Divine Mercy. He wrote: "How can we offer what is not
ours? 'Eternal Father, I offer you the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of your dearly
Beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ...'." But these things belong to Jesus, not to us. So
how can we offer them?"

This is an excellent and profound question. I think it would be best to divide the answer
into three parts.

1) In a sense, He does belong to us, just as we belong to Him; the New Testament says
that the relationship of Jesus to His disciples is so close that we literally become His
mystical "Body" on earth, and He fills us with His Spirit (see I Cor 12). Thus, when we
offer Him to the Father in the chaplet, we are also offering ourselves in and with Him,
and He is offering us in and with Himself. Spiritually, we are so enmeshed as to be
inseparable from Him (save by unrepented mortal sin, of course).

2) The New Testament also tells us that our relationship with Christ is so close that it is
a relationship of spousal love: Christ is the Bridegroom, and the Church is His Bride
(see Eph 5:25-32). As in any true spousal relationship, the spouses, in a sense, belong
to each other. The two have become "one flesh" (Gen 2:24).

3) That we can, in a sense, offer Christ to the Father is also enshrined in the Catholic
liturgical tradition, and manifest in the Mass even today. Look at Eucharistic Prayer #1
in the Roman Missal: "We offer to You, God of glory and majesty, this holy and perfect
sacrifice: the bread of life and the cup of salvation" (so we offer what has just been
consecrated, and is no longer bread and wine, but now the "bread of life" and the "cup
of salvation." In other words, the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ).

Or look at Eucharistic Prayer #4: "We offer You His Body and Blood, the acceptable
sacrifice which brings salvation to the whole world. Lord, look upon this sacrifice which
You have given to Your Church; and gather all who share this one bread and one cup
into the one Body of Christ, a living sacrifice of praise" (the reference here to the
"acceptable sacrifice" is an allusion to Micah 1:11, which the ancient Church Fathers
saw as a prophecy of the Eucharistic Sacrifice — the one pure offering to God — that
would be offered one day to God everywhere in the world: "For from the rising of the
sun to its setting my name is great among the nations, and in every place incense is
offered to my name, and a pure offering, for my name is great among the nations, says
the Lord of hosts").

This is surely a great and deep mystery: that we offer up Christ in the Eucharist, and He
offers us up, and we offer ourselves in union with Him, and He offers us in union with
Himself. But I think it is in line with the implications of Scripture, and made explicit in the
liturgical tradition of the Church, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We cannot fully
comprehend such a holy mystery, but we can see in some ways that it makes sense,
and we can believe it on the testimony of the Holy Spirit, who inspired the writing of Holy
Scripture, and fashioned the liturgical traditions of the Body of Christ down through the
ages.

Eternal Father,
I offer You
the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity
of Your dearly beloved Son
our Lord Jesus Christ
in atonement for our sins and for those of the whole world.

This prayer is likely familiar to you. But in case it’s your first time seeing it: these are the
words prayed in the Divine Mercy chaplet at the beginning of each of its five decades.
As such, it’s a fairly important prayer in the Divine Mercy devotion.

That said, it can also be very difficult to take in, to really grasp. It clearly touches upon
some deep mysteries of the faith. Having just celebrated the feast of the Most Holy
Body and Blood of Christ, I’d like to touch on just one of these deep and confusing
mysteries. Briefly put, it is this: how can it be possible that we should offer Christ’s own
Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity to the Father?

How can we offer anything that is not ours?

Does this mean that we actually possess the very Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of
Christ? That we have it, and are able to offer it?

Well… incredibly… yes! When, in His Passion, Jesus suffered and died on the cross,
His self-offering was not exclusively to God the Father in atonement for our sins. His
saving work was not merely a legal one-and-done “substitution” form of redemption. His
sacrifice has also become a never-ending gift to us of His own New Life. He has given
His whole self to us – and He has done this in a few, overlapping ways. For the sake of
brevity, I’ll just mention three.
First – we are given His Body and Blood as our own new body and blood. As St. Paul
says, our old self is crucified with Him, and we are raised in His own Body (Rom 6:3-
11). We enter into a new life in His image, re-created according to Him. As C. S. Lewis
puts it, we are to become “little Christ[s],” (Mere Christianity, Book IV, Chp.7) our flesh
created according to His Flesh, His Blood running through our veins.

Second – in a mystical way, we actually become His Body. Again, as St. Paul writes, we
are all members of the Body of Christ (1 Cor 12:27). In this way, in offering ourselves to
the Father, we simultaneously offer Christ’s own Body to Him, united in the Son’s self-
gift to the Father.

And third – we become newly created as the Bride of Christ, the Church (see Eph 5:25-
27, 32). At the foot of the cross, we are created out of the side of Christ, the New Adam,
just like Eve was taken out of the side of the first Adam. We are joined with Him as one
Flesh. So, sharing in His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, we share in His mission, and
offer ourselves together with Him for the mission – as a gift to the Father for the
salvation of the world.

May we treasure this incredible Gift so freely given to us by God! And may we learn to
be better stewards of it, more and more, as we learn just what He has called us to –
nothing less than to be sharers of Himself, His mission, and His life.