The Offertory

The Eucharist is something which is done, not said.  It is an action centred on the bread and wine, and that action does not really begin until what is called the Offertory.  This is the point in the service when bread and wine are offered to God by the priest.  The offering is on behalf of the priest and the people.  Everything which has gone before – the Prayers of Penitence, the Gloria, the Collect, the readings before the Gospel and the Gospel itself, the Creed and the Intercessions – forms a preparation for the main action.  In fact, you’ll remember that much of the first part of the service, the Liturgy of the Word, comes from the synagogue service that Jesus used to attend in Palestine.

But, as you will also remember, the Last Supper itself began when Jesus took bread at the table; and it is at the Offertory that the priest, in obedience to Jesus’ command, takes bread at the altar.  What follows now is the continuation of the fellowship meals which Jesus held every week with his disciples, until the last one on Maundy Thursday which he left us as a pattern for the Eucharist.

Bringing the bread and wine

At one time the people used to bring their own offering of bread and wine to church, and at the Offertory they went up in single file to the altar where each one put his or her piece of bread in a dish, and poured wine from a little flask into a larger ewer or jug.  In this way the offering of bread and wine presented to God by the priest was the actual offering brought by the people.  In course of time, however, this custom was given up and instead the server, acting for the whole congregation, brought the bread and wine from the credence table and presented them to the priest.  This still happens in some churches, especially at a Said Eucharist.  But today in many churches, during a Sung Eucharist, the bread and wine are brought up to the altar from the back of the church by two members of the congregation.  They come up in an Offertory procession during the singing of the Offertory hymn.