Leviticus — Chapter 3

The peace-offering, or victima pacifica, was offered for the welfare of someone. Unlike the holocaust, its flesh was largely returned to the offerer and priests, and even the female could be offered, since it was less noble a sacrifice. Lapide notes this typologically signifies that Christ's sacrifice produces not only the adoration and glorification of God, but the reconciliation and peace of man with God — the res of the sacrifice returning, as it were, to benefit the offerer.

The fat of the peace-offering is burned upon the altar as an oblation made by fire to the Lord (Lev. 3:5). Lapide: the fat signifies the best of what we have, the richness of our virtue and merit. To burn the fat for God means to consecrate the fullness of our spiritual life — the highest point of our charity, the deepest movement of our soul — entirely to God's honour. As Philo teaches, the fat offered to God should remind us to offer the finest, not the dregs, of our time, talent, and affection.

It shall be a perpetual ordinance for your generations in all your dwellings: you shall eat neither fat nor blood (Lev. 3:17). The prohibition of fat and blood applies to peace-offerings. Lapide: the fat, which was wholly burned to God, signifies the best of all our actions and affections, which must be entirely consecrated to God. Blood, the vehicle of life, must not be consumed. Both prohibitions are perpetual natural-law precepts insofar as they symbolise the total gift of self to God and the sanctity of life.