What do we mean by "Sacrifice"? (Sunday Forum)

by CathyT , Adelaide, South Australia, Monday, May 25, 2009, 13:56 (1462 days ago) @ Brian Coyne

Thank you Brian for bringing this post to our attention. I somehow managed to miss it when Peter first posted it.

And of course, many thanks to you, Peter, for this well-thought-out, insightful reflection on the meaning of the Eucharist. You are spot-on about the Eucharist being part of every aspect of our daily lives. I particularly liked the way you included that poem, "If a Child Lives With...". This poem was a major inspiration for my husband and me all throughout our parenting years.

The problem for me, though, is, what exactly does "sacrifice" mean in this context? I agree with you, Peter, that self-sacrifice is inevitable if we are serious about living the Eucharist in our daily lives. You sum it up well you define a human being as "a person-in-relation-to-others" and, when you add the experience of faith, this becomes "a person-in-a-death-resurrection-relationship-to-others". My problem is with the way that people commonly understand the term "sacrifice". It is usually taken to mean putting other people's needs, desires and general well-being ahead of your own. Once again, this may seem fine, but the important point here is that people should NEVER take this to mean that their own needs and well-being are unimportant, or that it is somehow "holy" and "Christ-like" to ALWAYS put other people first. I supppose I'm talking about the fine line between being a genuinely unselfish person and being a doormat! What I find a particular worry is when this idea of "sacrifice" and "self-sacrificing love" is used (often unconsciously) as a tool to reinforce social injustice. In other words, the oppressed group is made to feel that, if they stand up for their rights, they are being "selfish", they are putting their own needs and rights ahead of other people's etc. etc. This sort of rhetoric has of course often been used against trade unionists and feminists. For people who strive to live by Christian principles, having this sort of "guilt trip" put on them can cause a lot of confusion and anguish.

I think all this is also very relevant when we're talking about what it means to be self-sacrificing in a marriage or other close personal relationship. When I hear people say that you should always put your partner first, it always strikes me that this is, in fact, logically impossible. If each of you is trying to put the other first - how is that going to work?! I have discovered that the way to have a truly Christian marriage is simply to take to heart Jesus' words: "The two shall become one". This doesn't mean that you each lose your own identity, or even that you necessarily have to give up your own needs or desires or dreams. It means that you strive to work as "one", not as two disparate individuals. In other words, whenever conflicts of interests or any sort of issue arises, you try to work it out within the framework of, "how can we come up with a solution that we will BOTH be happy with, that will meet the needs of BOTH of us?".

In a way, this leads me to my next point. I said above that I don't think anyone should feel they HAVE TO sacrifice their own needs and well-being. Yet sometimes people might feel a strong call from God to do something drastic, in fact to live like Jesus in a more literal and dramatic way than most of us do. In this case, they probably will be called on to sacrifice their own comfort, even their own safety. These are the people who go to live and work among the poorest of the poor, and who give their lives totally to those they serve, in some cases, even literally giving up their lives. (I'm sure that very recently, maybe even today, I read a story on Catholica about a priest who was this sort of martyr - I had an idea that you posted it, Peter - but I can't for the life of me find where this story is!) Undoubtedly, people who respond to this sort of call do so with complete freedom, and, despite all the hardship they suffer, they must get a lot of fulfilment and satisfaction from it too.

It's often said that you can't have the resuurection without the death. I think, equally, you can't have the death without the resurrection. In other words, if you are to "die to self" in the Christian sense, this does NOT mean that you become a worn-out, miserable doormat with little sense of yourself as a person. In fact, it means that you become MORE of a person than you would otherwise have been, some-one who knows the fulfilment of following Jesus and helping to promote his kingdom.

Peter, let me hasten to add, I realise you weren't implying in your post that "sacrifice" meant people should become doormats or have miserable lives or anything like that. However, it's been an on-going concern of mine that it's always so easy for the Christian ideal of "sacrifice" to become a "guilt trip" for people who think that they're being selfish and un-Christian if they EVER put their own needs first in any way, and that it can also become a way of reinforcing, and even sanctifying, inequality and injustice. This can so easily happen without people being aware of it, so I think it's important to discuss it publicly.

Cathy Taggart

I splash in my poetry puddle
and try to keep God amused. - James Broughton