Albert Barnes Commentary Joel 1:9

"The meal-offering and the drink-offering are cut off from the house of Jehovah; the priests, Jehovah`s ministers, mourn." — Joel 1:9 (ASV)

The meat offering and the drink offering is cut off — The meat offering and drink offering were part of every sacrifice. If the materials for these, the grain and wine, ceased through locusts, drought, or the devastation of war, the sacrifice would become mangled and imperfect. The priests were to mourn for the defects of the sacrifice; they also lost their own subsistence, since the altar was, for them, in place of all other inheritance.

The meat and drink offerings were emblems of the materials of the Holy Eucharist, by which Malachi foretold that, when God had rejected the offering of the Jews, there would be a “pure offering” among the pagans (Joel 1:11).

So when holy communions become rare, the meat and drink offering are literally cut off from the house of the Lord, and those who are indeed priests, the ministers of the Lord, should mourn. Joel foretells that, however love should wax cold, there would always be such priests.

He foresees and foretells simultaneously the failure and the grief of the priests. Nor is it an idle regret that he foretells, but a mourning to their God: “Both meat offering and drink offering have perished from the house of God, not in actual substance but in terms of reverence, because, amidst the prevailing iniquity, there is scarcely anyone found in the Church who duly celebrates or receives the sacraments.”