Quam oblationem…….
benedictam +adscriptam + ratam +
“They have pierced my hands and my feet” – (psalm 22:16).
First, three crosses – understood as invoking the Trinity – are made over the elements together. Then, one more is made over each element for a total of five crosses.
With the movement of the priest’s hand and arm in signing the oblation, one can almost picture the pounding of the nails into the sacred Body of our Lord, a scene which Anne C. Emmerich described as the “dreadful process [which] caused our Lord indescribable agony; his breast heaved, and his legs were quite contracted. They…knelt upon him, tied down his arms, and drove the second nail into his left hand; his blood flowed afresh, and his feeble groans were once more heard between the blows of the hammer…”
The sacrificing priest, in the blessing of the “Quam oblationem”, asks of God that the elements of bread and wine be changed into the Body and Blood of our Redeemer – that the bread be changed into the Sacred Body hung on the cross, and the wine into His most Precious Blood poured out for our salvation.
Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, who wouldst for my sake be nailed on the cross and on the same didst fasten the handwriting of sin and death that was against me; pierce, I beseech Thee, my body with Thy holy fear, that, firmly adhering to Thy precepts, I may forever be fastened by cords of love with Thee to Thy Cross.” Amen.
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The corresponding part in the N.O. is this: “Bless and approve our offering; make it acceptable to you, an offering in spirit and in truth. Let it become for us the body and blood of Jesus Christ, your only Son, our Lord.”
The word “offering”, which has different meanings, including “something that is available for sale or use”, replaces the sacrificial term “oblation”, a word which has a purely religious connotation. Other religious terminology, (benedictam, adscriptam, ratam, rationabilem – words invested with deep theological significance) was eliminated. Gihr wrote over two pages on the meaning of those words alone. Also, the 5 signs of the cross were suppressed in the N.O. missal.
