Sacrifice

Sacrifice:

derived from the Latin word sacrificare (sacrifice; celebrate the Mass)

derived from the Latin word sacrum (sacrifice; sacred vessel; religious rites)

using the Late Latin suffix -ficare

derived from the Latin word facere (to make; act, take action, be active; compose, write; classify; do, make; create; make, build, construct; produce; produce by growth; bring forth)

I heard someone talk about the sacrifices that they make for their children the other day and it got me to thinking about the word sacrifice.

When many people hear that word, they flinch  internally.  Sacrifice brings to mind images of animal slaughter in ancient rites or, at the least, an unpleasant giving up of something one would rather not give up.  In general, the word sacrifice does not have a very good odour in modern day America.  

If, however, we look at the roots of the word, we can see that sacrifice originally meant to make something holy.  Notice all the action verbs in the root: to make, act, take action, do, create etc.  Sacrifice today often implies a passive giving up such as the Lenten sacrifices of modern day Christians but, in its original context, sacrifice implied the doing of something - an action which created something holy. 

If we follow this idea, we have to ask what holy means or meant.

The English word holy dates back to at least the 11th Century with the Old English word hālig, an adjective derived from hāl meaning whole and used to mean 'uninjured, sound, healthy, entire, complete’.

So, with a little etymological jump we can say that a sacrifice is actually the act of making something "uninjured, sound, healthy, entire, complete".  Sacrifice is not a passive act of giving up and putting aside but an active act of healing and completion and wholeness.  Any action that we do to remove our sense of otherness and separateness , any action that we perform to increases our sense that all beings are our relations, is, in the best sense of the word, a sacrifice. 

(Sources for etymology were: