Before the Offertory, deacons will have prepared the offerings to present as a thanksgiving sacrifice to our God: bread and wine which by God's grace and the descent of the Holy Spirit upon them become the Holy Body and Blood of the Lord.

Bring to the Lord the glory of His name;
Take up sacrifices and enter into His courts;

— Psalm (LXX) 95:8

As the Lord Jesus offered Himself as a sacrifice of love to God the Father on our behalf, we ought to offer ourselves totally — through our unity with Him — as His own body.

By the Offertory, the Church declares her acceptance of the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus, and her willingness to offer her life as a sacrifice of love for Him. We offer ourselves and our lives in Jesus Christ.

He, Christ, raised His saints on high with Him. And offered them as an oblation to His Father.

— The Fraction Prayer of the Easter

The liturgy is not a repetition of the cross but its continuation. Our life — together with our labour, joys, sorrows, hopes, ambitions, and hardships — is represented by the offering of the bread and wine. We present a spiritual effort and a sacred toil, an offering of love.

Bring to the Lord, O you sons of God,
Bring to the Lord the sons of rams;
Bring to the Lord glory and honour.

— Psalm (LXX) 29:1

This is prophesied across the Old Testament. Malachi says from the rising of the sun to its setting, and in every place, not just in Jerusalem, the name of the Lord will be glorified. He specifies the people as the nations and that the offering is “pure” and there is none pure and holy but God alone, our Lord Jesus.

For from the rising of the sun even to its going down, My name has been glorified among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered to My name, and a pure offering, for My name shall be great among the Gentiles,” says the Lord Almighty.

— Malachi 1:11

We present a spiritual effort and a sacred toil, an offering of love. The vigil, fasting, effort in service, the effort spent in studying the Holy Scriptures, caring for orphans, widows, the absent, and the lost — all the effort exerted for the glory of God, the construction of His holy Church, and the salvation of souls — are considered a spiritual sacrifice accepted before God.

that I might be a minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God, that the offering of the Gentiles might be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.

— Romans 15:16

You can present an acceptable offering to God when you turn a sinner away from his deviation or guide a lost soul to the knowledge of the divine truth.

As with St Paul, let us believe that it is better to offer abundant fruits for the glory and edification of the Church — beloved souls for God and lovers of God.

Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit that abounds to your account.

— Philippians 4:17

The Lord Christ specifically chose the fruit of the vine, wine, to be transformed into His Holy Blood. The resemblance of Christ and the Church to the grapevine is repeated throughout Holy Scripture.

Every local church is a bunch of grapes in this vine, and the believing members are the grapes. The universal Church is the huge vine that includes all these bunches. Christ is the root and origin.

Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.

“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.

— John 15:4-5

I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.

— John 15:1

We see a lot of types and prophecies of the Eucharist in many Old Testament passages.

The people of God were brought out of the land of Egypt by the Lord. And Moses speaks of the blessing that God will give to His people. The “choicest wheat” is the holy Body taken in the form of bread and the blood of the grape is a clear indication of the blood of Christ taken in the form of wine.

You removed a vineyard from Egypt;
You cast out the nations and planted it.

— Psalm 79:9

With the choicest wheat;
And you drank wine, the blood of grapes.

— Deuteronomy 32:14

Wheat also symbolises the Church, as Jesus compared Himself to wheat. He speaks of His death and burial through figurative language. And the abundant crop refers to believers in His holy name — we are God's wheat.

So we’re conformed to the image of Christ when we are born again through Holy Baptism. We take this pledge of His image in baptism, and it is completed in us through spiritual struggle, so we transform into it gradually, from glory to glory.

And it is finally and truly completed in the resurrection, in the eternal bliss.

who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.

— Philippians 3:21

And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man.

— 1 Corinthians 15:49

His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

— Matthew 3:12

Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.

— John 12:24

I am God’s wheat, and I shall be ground by the teeth of wild beasts to become pure bread for Christ.

— St Ignatius of Antioch

In the sacrament, the grains of wheat are gathered together in one sacrifice. And the individual grapes are gathered in one cup. This symbolises the nature of the united Church: many individuals who have become one in and through Christ.

As this broken bread was scattered on the mountains and then gathered, so let your Church be gathered from the ends of the earth into Your kingdom.

— The Didache

For when the Lord calls bread, which is combined by the union of many grains, His body, He indicates our people whom He bore as being united; and when He calls the wine, which is pressed from many grapes and clusters and collected together, His blood, He also signifies our flock linked together by the mingling of a united multitude.

— St Cyprian