These gifts symbolize the life of each one who is sharing in the sacrifice that is being offered. They are not simply external symbols being lifted up in a devotional way. The bread and wine, food and drink, symbolize life itself. The bread is made from many grains of wheat, the wine from many grapes. To produce bread and wine, both wheat and grapes must be crushed and broken.
Life is like that.
Each one comes with a history of crushing and bruising experiences. Bread and wine symbolize not simply life in the abstract, but life with all its bruising, crushing and painful experiences. Every person offering the Eucharist has a share in the pain of life with all its hurtful dimensions. It is these experiences that produce the need to forgive so much, so deeply and so often. Therefore, before we reach for forgiveness, we offer our lives to the Father in union with the broken and suffering Jesus, the Crucified.