1/20/17
Our readings today compare Christ’s New Covenant with the
Old Covenant enacted under Moses in
Chapter 24 of Exodus.
Briefly, a covenant is a unique contract. While in other
contracts the parties exchange money or property of value, in a covenant they
exchange their selves. We see that in marriage where the priest asks, “Have you
come here freely, without reservations, to give yourselves to each other in
marriage.” While in proposing both the
Old and New Covenants God says, “You will be my people, and I will be your God.
In today’s Gospel Jesus left the multitude on the flatland below,
while he called his Apostles u around him. There, he is echoing Exodus 24 where
at Sinai, Moses left the people below when he called the leaders of the Tribes
up around him.
Moses read the Commandments from stone tablets, while in the
“Letter to the Hebrews” we hear God saying, “I will put my laws in their
hearts.”
The people in the Exodus account looked upon blood as life
itself, so when Moses had the young men going through the throng, casting blood
on them all and on God’s altar, the people saw themselves as being welded into
one life with each other and with God.
At the heart of our Mass we hear our echo of that sprinkling
as Jesus says, “this is the cup of my blood of the new and everlasting
covenant.”
Our taking the chalice is the counterpart of the Israelis
all being sprinkled with the same blood.
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