Defining a Sacrifice

From what is common in all these expressions, we can extract the dictionary definition of sacrifice: “the surrender of something of value for the sake of something else.” That is a good definition, but in terms of its understanding as prayer and as Eucharist, more must be added. Saint Augustine defined sacrifice by saying that it is an act, any act, through which we enter into deeper communion with God and each other, and that the sacrifice opens us to deeper communion by changing and stretching the heart of the one offering it.

When we add Augustine definition to that of the…