Offering It up

“Offer it up.” So I’ve been told when I am sorrowing or experiencing suffering from my debilitating disease. My response, usually unspoken, has been:

“But… What does that mean?”

A Broken World

I won’t go into a long preamble before I share something with you that’s kind of rocking my world right now and maybe helping me gain new perspective on suffering as well as that Catholic wisdom of “offering it up.” I’m reading the Catechism of the Catholic Church along with Fr. Mike Schmitz in his podcast, The Catechism in a Year. Catechism paragraph 310 is deeply intriguing me (emphasis and [notes] added):

But why did God not create a world so perfect that no evil could exist in it? [That’s the question everybody wants answered.] With infinite power God could always create something better. But with infinite wisdom and goodness God freely willed to create a world “in a state of journeying” toward its ultimate perfection. In God’s plan this process of becoming involves the appearance of certain beings and the disappearance of others, the existence of the more perfect alongside the less perfect, both constructive and destructive forces of nature.With physical good there exists also physical evil as long as creation has not reached perfection.

So, tropical islands exist alongside volcanic destruction, kindness exists alongside cruelty, because Creation isn’t finished yet. There have been innumerable stages along the way, from The Big Bang, through countless stellar formations and implosions, the forming, breaking, and reforming of planets, up to this point in the history of Creation. God’s plan is always for good, for perfect good. Perfection is the aim of Creation in this journey we call life, the ultimate perfection that will be fulfilled in Heaven. So we aren’t perfect yet, we’re journeying toward that perfection.

And the journey can be rough.

The Catechism reminds us, however, that all-powerful God can make good come out of any evil, of any bad or difficult situation — even though the thing itself remains bad, its consequences become good through the providential care and intervention of God. As St. Paul says, “We know that in everything God works for good for those who love him.”*

And that’s the key right there: God’s plan is to make everything work for good for those who love Him. That’s the crucial setup to the meaning of “offering it up.”

Our Part in God’s Plan

The Catechism paragraph 306 states: “God is the sovereign master of his plan. But to carry it out he also makes use of his creatures’ cooperation.”

Okay. That means us. God makes use of our cooperation.

We humans are living at an extremely important stage in the journey of Creation, because God created us human creatures with immortal souls, with free will and intellect so that we may actively participate in His plan of Creation.

But why would God use our cooperation to fulfill His plan? Returning to the Catechism, para 306:

This use is not a sign of weakness, but rather a token of almighty God’s greatness and goodness. For God grants his creatures not only their existence, but also the dignity of acting on their own, of being causes and principles for each other, and thus of cooperating in the accomplishment of his plan.

So, there is divine dignity in cooperating with the will of God. We are divinely given an exquisite and eternal goodness that comes from the ultimate fruition of our ability to make choices and willingly take action. There is a downside to this gift, however. When we choose poorly, we add to the difficulties of God’s Creation, going against God’s plan and jeopardizing our own eternal fulfillment. This is sin.

Enter Jesus.

Jesus offers up Himself to be our Savior, the Son of God assumes our human nature and offers His life for us on the Cross in the divinely mysterious act of atonement, the ultimate act of reparation for sin, to counteract, if you will, all of the destructive choices that we have made (and will make) that are contrary to God’s plan.

Now, did you catch the critical phrase in that wordy paragraph? “Jesus offers up Himself.” That’s how we are to understand the concept of “offering up” — offering up ourselves in union with Jesus to God, Our Father, for the reparation of sins, our sins and the sins of the world. That’s our cooperation. We do what Jesus tells us to do: “Take up your cross and follow me.”

Participation in Christ’s Cross is the work of fulfilling God’s plan, of participating in Christ’s Glory.

Again from the catechism (emphasis added):

Though often unconscious collaborators with God’s will, they can also enter deliberately into the divine plan by their actions, their prayers, and their sufferings. They then fully become “God’s fellow workers” and co-workers for his kingdom.

We actively become God’s fellow workers by deliberately making daily offerings of ourselves to God through all of the crosses that we bear. But we’re also called to imitate Christ by offering up our thanks and praise to God at every meal and celebration that we share and by offering ourselves in caring for widows and orphans, the sick, the needy, the imprisoned, and the marginalized, as Jesus did. We offer ourselves up through Christ to God, Our Father, in our prayers, especially offering ourselves in, with, and through Jesus at the Mass when His ultimate sacrifice is re-presented in unbloody manner.

I might be getting closer to understanding a little bit more of the mysteries of God and redemptive suffering. I’m starting to see that “offering it up” is eternal blessedness, participation in the glory of God.

I still have a ton of questions. But I am, after all, still in a state of becoming.

The prayer I want to pray:

My Lord and my God, in everything You are working for good for those who love You. I love You, and I allow You to work in me and through me. I give to You everything I have and am. Use me however You wish in the fulfillment of Your loving plan. Amen.

© 2025 Christina Chase

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Feature Photo by Frantisek Duris on Unsplash

*Romans 8:28

Read more of the Catechism of the Catholic Church by clicking HERE.