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The Liturgy of the Eucharist opens with the Preparation of the Gifts — what older missals called the Offertory. Bread and wine are brought forward, often by representatives of the assembly in a simple procession. The collection is taken at this same moment, expressing in tangible form that the assembly's offering includes both their material support of the Church's mission and the bread and wine that will become the Body and Blood of Christ.
The priest receives the gifts at the altar with a brief prayer of blessing — "Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation, for through your goodness we have received the bread we offer you: fruit of the earth and work of human hands, it will become for us the bread of life." The same blessing is offered over the wine. These prayers are adapted from ancient Jewish blessings (the berakhah) and root the Mass deeply in the Jewish liturgical tradition that Jesus himself prayed at the Last Supper.
The Preparation also includes a private prayer the priest says quietly as he washes his hands: "Wash me, O Lord, from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin." It is a small moment of personal preparation before the central act of the Mass begins. The assembly is invited into the same preparation through the priest's spoken invitation: "Pray, brothers and sisters, that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father." The assembly's response — "May the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands, for the praise and glory of his name, for our good and the good of all his holy Church" — explicitly acknowledges that what is about to happen is the Church's offering, not the priest's alone.
The Preparation closes with the Prayer Over the Offerings, sealing this preparatory phase before the Eucharistic Prayer begins.