Lectio the Liturgy: Sunday, July 5, 2026

Julie Storr shares a reflection on the Collect for the Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time.

This week we Lectio the Liturgy with the Prayer Over the Offering for the Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time.

May this oblation dedicated to your name purify us, O Lord, and day by day bring our conduct closer to the life of heaven. Through Christ our Lord.

When we hear this prayer at the offertory time of the Mass, it’s really easy to forget that the “offering” isn’t the collection. When we sing the “offertory hymn,” our focus should not be on the collection baskets going around and the Prayer Over the Offering is not prayed over our donation.

The prayer is prayed over our oblation, or what has been placed on the altar. When we dedicate our oblation to God’s name, we dedicate it to Him.

The Gift

The oblation is a gift, or a sacrifice. Our oblation at the Mass is our offering of Christ to the Father, along with our own sacrifice, which could be ourselves, which would be the perfect offering.

Perhaps this prayer is familiar to you, “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 those of the whole world.” What we pray in the Chaplet of Divine Mercy is what we do at the Mass.

The Prayer Over the Offering reminds us that our oblation is what purifies us. It is an example of the work of the Trinity. We offer Christ (and ourselves) to the Father, and through the work of the Holy Spirit, the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of the Lord and the Spirit’s work in us sanctifies us.

The prayer also asks that this oblation would, day by day, bring our conduct closer to the life of heaven.

Day by day, or die in diem in Latin is defined as something that occurs and continues. Day by day is found often in scripture, for example, we hear it in the Lord’s Prayer, “give us this day our daily bread,” and in Luke 9:23 when Jesus tells us to take up our cross daily.

Striving for Heaven

Today, and each new day, this oblation should bring us closer to the life of heaven. The word conduct in the prayer is actionem, or action. The heart of this prayer is that our participation in the liturgy, our participation in the oblation, would bring us closer to the life of heaven.

As I prayed with this prayer, I saw that “day by day” doesn’t mean we start over every day; we build on the day before to bring us closer to heaven. This is always a work in progress, but progress is good. Even if we stumble a bit, it’s still progress because we have an opportunity to grow stronger.

We could also think of our progress as a sliding scale. Day by day, as our conduct and actions achieve more, the slider on the scale gets closer to the life of heaven, and farther from the slavery of the world.

Each of us are on a different place on the slider scale. Where each of us are today is a mix of heaven and earth. The goal is to have more heaven in your life today than you had yesterday and when we reach heaven, we will be at 100% on the slider scale.

Lectio the Liturgy Sunday July 5, 2026