Explanation of the Prayers and Ceremonies of Holy Mass, Dom Prosper Guéranger - Quam oblationem

Here begins the Great Prayer which continues up to the Memento of the dead, and in the midst of which the sublime Mystery of Trans-substantiation is accomplished.  Thus speaks the Priest: Quam oblationem tu, Deus, in omnibus, quaesumus, adscriptam, ratam, rationabilem, acceptabilemque facere digneris.  Holy Church continues wholly absorbed in the Oblation, imploring of God to bless it, and, in order to this, the Priest makes thereon the Sign of the Cross, so that thus sanctified it may be lovingly accepted by the Lord; adscriptam (here the Cross is again signed): this Oblation is of such real importance, that it must be registered, He is begged to note it down; ratam (again, the sign of the Cross), it must needs be ratified, approved, confirmed in Heaven, as a Thing most truly Good and Fitting; lastly, the Priest begs that this Oblation may be rationabilem.  To understand this expression, we must call to mind what those victims of the Old Law were, they were, after all, but gloss and figurative, having no worth, save in as far as they had reference to the Sacrifice of the Cross.  Whereas, the Bread and Wine, or rather, - anticipating in thought, together with Mother Church herself, the stupendous effect of the Sacred Consecration, let us say, - the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ are here, on our altar, the true and real Victim, the Spiritual Oblation whereby all other sacrifices are rendered superfluous and sterile, it is in this sense that St. Paul, writing to the Romans, tells them to offer unto God in their own persons, an interior and wholly spiritual host: Obsecro vos, fratres per misericordiam Dei, ut exbibeatis corpora vestra hostiam viventem, sanctam, Deo placentem, rationabile obsequium vestrum (Rom. xii. 1).  You, who are Christians, says the Apostle, ought to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, agreeable unto God, and reasonable, that is to say, spiritual, in contradistinction to the Sacrifices of the Old Law.  So then, the Christian must offer to God, even his very body, making it to take its share in prayer; and this he does by imposing fasts and penances upon it, in order to prevent its continually dragging downwards, according to its own material tendency; in a word, he must so act that the inferior part be continually upheld, so that it may without hindrance unite itself to the superior part of his being.

But let us return to the Offering that is on the Altar.  Were this Bread and Wine to remain such as they are they would be no better than the Sacrifices of the Old Law; but inasmuch as they are soon to be changed into the Body, Blood, and Soul of Our Lord Jesus Christ, verily this will be a reasonable Host, essentially reasonable.  This is not all: our Oblation must needs be acceptabilem, so that the Lord may truly say: I am wholly satisfied with the Offering made to Me.  Ut nobis Corpus et Sanguis fiat dilectissimi Filii tui Domini nostri Jesu Christi.  At the words Corpus et Sanguis, the Priest makes the Sign of the Cross over the Host and over the Chalice.  Oh! may this Oblation become the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ!  Truly the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ are for ever in Heaven, but we are asking that They may be produced here below in this Oblation which we are offering.  So then, it is for our own sakes that we make such a petition to God, as that this Oblation may be changed into the Body and Blood of the Lord, for the Church particularly puts these words on our lips: Fiat nobis, in order that this Body and Blood may be at our own disposal and may even become our very Food.