Presentation of Gifts

In the response that we give to God's Word telling us about his tremendous love for us, we realize that there are two ways in which we manifest our gratitude to God. Our first response is given in words, expressing our deepened faith by the profession of faith and the prayer of the faithful. But professing and exercising that deeper faith alone is not enough – we need to further show our gratitude and love also in action. And that is what we do in the 'Presentation of Gifts.'

A Return of Love

After the Prayers of the Faithful are completed, the ministers bring up the gifts – the collection of money as also the bread and wine to be used at the altar. Reflecting first on the money we donate we recall that it is basically a symbol of ourselves that we bring and place lovingly in the collection plate/bag, indicating that we wish to give our very selves, and not so much our possessions, totally to the Father through our loving service of the neighbour. The gifts we present may not amount to much in terms of their monetary value, but they express our heartfelt gratitude, wonder and praise to the Father for his love of us. Through them we not only thank God but also fulfill his desire that we who are blessed, in turn reach out lovingly to those who have been less blessed than we. Then there are the bread and wine, water and other requirements for the Eucharist which are brought up and presented to the Celebrant. These too represent our very lives brought in gratitude to be placed trustfully in the hands of our loving Father. Through these symbols we express our readiness to obey whatever the Lord commands. After all, throughout the readings that was the key question placed before us: 'Now, therefore, if you will obey …'

These gifts are not only for immediate use at the altar, but are also meant to be later distributed to the poor and needy of the parish. These gifts are accepted by the Celebrant and presented to God after being shown to us to remind the assembly that this is what they themselves have presented. This gesture of 'presenting' is accompanied by a brief prayer of praise to which all exclaim: 'Blessed be God forever.' Through this acclamation we acknowledge that all that we have presented at the altar comes from God himself. He has blessed us generously throughout the week and so we have no fears about giving generously back to God, through our needy neighbour; we are confident that he will not abandon us in our own hour of need.

Richly Symbolic Gifts

Participating intelligently in this simple rite should make us more aware of the giftedness of all that we are/have. We have referred to material possessions above, but this reflection could also extend to our gifts of Nature – our limbs and faculties, for example. We know that a simple unexpected twist could land us with a slipped disc or spondylosis and endless back or neck problems ever after. Often it is only when we have lost some of these precious gifts that we realize their infinite value and the tremendous goodness of God in granting them to us for whatever period we have enjoyed them.

What about the gift of sound, healthy relationships within the family and with outsiders too? Here again, we tend to take these relationships for granted until some relational crisis forces us to revaluate our personal contribution to each loved one. The simple gifts we bring up to the altar should make us reflect on each level of life asking us the all-important question: Having received God's love in plenty (as reviewed in the liturgy of the Word) how meaningfully do we value it and in gratitude contribute to make these gifts effective in our lives? In this matter, as in all else, we need to take a proactive stance to life. This simply means that we don't wait for reminders from outside, like a breakdown or a crisis, but that we take the initiative and consciously choose to foster and deepen these gifts that we have been blessed with. We do this especially by sharing them freely with others, particularly the less fortunate.

Examples speak best so we present just a few here: In our relationships with immediate and extended family we could wait for birthdays and such like occasions to get in touch with these members and renew the depth of our relationship with them. Or we could also proactively take the lead and find ways and means of getting in touch with them – even if there is no special occasion calling for such a contact. The question here as elsewhere is: Do I wait for others to take the lead, or do I want to be the kind of person who takes the initiative to love? And we choose to do this simply because God in his infinite goodness always takes the initiative to love us, in the first place. We could establish effective contact through a simple phone call, a letter or email or perhaps occasionally even a personal visit.

With regard to our personal physical gifts, our gratitude for these gifts could include regular physical exercise, a healthy diet, regular habits of rising and retiring at reasonable hours. However, realizing more keenly as we do in our day, the tremendous havoc that is caused by stress in our lives, we would need to consciously work to avoid unnecessary stress in our day-to-day activities. We have all heard or read about “laughter clubs” – while these might be considered as an 'extreme' measure to bring about happiness and cheer in our lives, we could certainly do a lot more to reduce hidden or latent tension among the members of our family/community by ourselves taking the initiative to converse when we meet, to see the lighter side of things and diffuse whatever tension there might arise among us. There are some persons who will never take the initiative in such matters but are content to happily tag along as long as others 'do the needful.' If I am such a shy or backward person, maybe I need to ask myself why I choose to depend on others in such matters – is it because I believe that I have nothing to contribute, or that I have not received enough from the Lord, or that what I contribute will not make much of a difference? Or even, that I do not appreciate sufficiently God's own gifts and blessings to me.

Awareness of Others

The gifts further make us question the purpose of our stay here on earth. Are we here only to look after our individual temporal happiness, or are we all called to live in love, living already now the kind of life we will ultimately live in God's presence? We all know very well and even perhaps say it often, that we cannot take all our wealth with us when we go to the 'pearly gates' – we have to leave them behind, and for whom? Merely giving a part of our wealth in charity to our poorer brethren doesn't solve the problem, since the question still remains: 'whose are these gifts of Nature, in any case? Don't they belong rightly to all of God's children? The very gifts we bring up to the altar at the Eucharist challenge our consumerist and globalized view of life because of which the rich continue to get richer while the poor, at the bottom of the pyramid, are condemned to an endless cycle of poverty and misery.

Some might feel that the possessions one has are the result of one's own ingenuity, skill, personal hard work and sacrifice. While that is true up to a certain point, we need to realize that our situation would have been quite different had we started life with a physical handicap – had we been blind, we certainly would not have been able to amass a great amount of material wealth. And the same for other physical handicaps – they minimize the possibilities available to such a physically challenged person. But then, there are a host of other kinds of challenges that persons face in life; most people are saddled with some handicap or challenge. What about children born into very poor, almost destitute families with very little opportunities to advance in learning or other skills; add to these the hundreds of others who become deprived because of the addictive habits of their parents or the social prejudices that surround them. These apply in good measure to the girl child in many parts of the world. In short, we have to admit that God does not distribute his gifts equally to all his children. He gives to some five 'talents' to others two and to still others only one. This uneven distribution might seem unfair, but actually it is beneficial to all concerned.

Those who are blessed with more are challenged to be large-hearted and share their blessings with others while those who have received little must first of all use whatever they have received while trusting in the loving providence of the heavenly Father. If God ensures that even the birds of the air and the lilies of the field are taken care of, he will certainly not neglect his beloved children made in his own image and likeness and called to share life with him. However, God does not always care for his suffering children directly, as it were. More often than not, he inspires others who are better off, to exercise their compassion and love and 'feel for and with' the under-privileged. So the ones who are blessed more should not imagine that what they have is altogether their own property to be disposed off as they deem fit. Like the servant to whom ten thousand talents had been loaned by the master, they cannot afford to oppress the poorer ones who have borrowed a paltry one hundred denarii. What they share with the needy is not theirs in the first place and much less is it their privilege to decide with whom they will share their blessings. The Dives and Lazarus story (Lk16:19-31) reminds us of the dire consequences of such thinking and behaviour.

The Lord's prayer which is an integral part of every Eucharist has us pray: 'Give us each day our daily bread. The original Greek word epiousios occurs only once in the entire Bible – in this prayer. This reminds us that it is a new word coined by the early Christians to designate the extraordinary character of this bread we talk of here. Its specialty, however, is not that is makes available to us the very person of Christ (this is true but would not have been the perspective of the early Christians). They saw the Eucharist rather as 'bread that is broken and shared!' So, the Lord teaches us to pray for everything that sustains human life on earth, but only that we who receive it from him might be large-hearted enough to share with others. This is further illustrated by the parable which follows – the man here asks for three loaves of bread not for himself but that he might share it with a friend who has come in from a journey and he himself had nothing to set before him (Lk 11:5-8) - and also in the story of the rich man Dives (Lk 16:19-31).

These considerations apply particularly to the grossly excess wealth and possessions that some might have. And what is more important is the attitude underneath such accumulation of riches. The dangerous and treacherous aspect of material possessions is that the more one has, the more one seems to need. Our needs somehow never seem to be satisfied, unless we consciously discipline ourselves with some serious thinking along Gospel lines. We can be sure that we are on slippery ground when we find ourselves moaning disproportionately over something that we have lost – that should warn us in time that we are getting attached to material things, that our priorities are not in order, that we are getting to the stage where things become more important and valuable than persons. Our vision has become distorted and needs to be challenged each time we celebrate the Eucharist. If we don't attend to this in time, we run the risk of becoming so blind and hard-hearted that not even Jesus in person would be able to shake us out of our self-centredness – as happened in the case of the Scribes and Pharisees.

Eucharistic Values

With this sense of gratitude deeply ingrained in us, we then look upon everything we receive as a further gift from the Father; we accept them with appreciation not only seeing them as valuable but also using them with respect and gratitude. Saying 'thank-you' for everything we receive is one of the many signs that the Eucharist is producing the effect it was meant to produce and that we are living our Eucharistic celebration.

Yet another value to be learnt is the proper use of the gifts we have, both personally and also in Nature. How many of us can say that we are consciously careful about the use of water, so that we do not needlessly waste this precious commodity? In our day we are being made more and more aware of the extravagant way in which we use most of Mother Nature's blessings. The irresponsible way we generally use plastics is a case in view. But the same can be said for our lavish use of paper, be it newsprint or even other paper, of electricity or the fuel we use for our vehicles, the pollution we needlessly cause in numberless ways. Unless we consciously do something about the way we use these gifts of Nature, we cannot seriously come up to the altar to thank and praise God for 'what earth has given and human hands have made.'

Linked with this economic use of Nature's gifts is the thoughtfulness we need to have of generations yet to come. There is a powerpoint programme making the rounds on the Internet on how by 2070 there will be an acute shortage of water throughout the world. Each person will be allowed only one litre of drinking water per day, to mention only one significant detail. While this programme appears frightening, the reaction of several people to the review of the slides is: 'Thank God I will not be living in 2070 – so that is not a problem I have to worry about!' The implication seems to be: 'So I can go on using these gifts of Nature the way that suits me, without worrying about what future generations will have to face.' The Eucharist properly celebrated cannot foster such self-centred attitudes in us but would rather make us ready to tighten our belts and avoid needless waste – not only in our own personal habits, but also by encouraging others to be aware of the possible waste in their life-habits.

With these few reflections, brief as they are, we realize that our Eucharist does not end in the Church itself, but continues throughout the day, no matter where we are, or what we do. It has to do with the kind of persons we become through our celebrations of Eucharist. Summing up the Eucharistic values flowing from this simple rite of the presentation of gifts, we have:

1. Awareness of our being blessed lavishly
2. A spirit of gratitude for all of God's gifts; expressing gratitude for everything received
3. The readiness to share our blessings generously with others
4. A minimum of complaining regarding what we don't have. The spirit of being content with what we have!
5. A conscientious and proper use of all of Nature's gifts
6. Thoughtfulness of others, especially of generations yet to come
7. Recognizing and appreciating the giftedness of others

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