We Are a Covenant People

Undated

Created for God

We have all heard these beautiful words of St. Augustine: "you have made us for you, O God, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you."

In vain do men seek to satisfy that hunger and thirst for happiness in the things of this world. St. Augustine, before his conversion went that route and ended up in sin and disgust.

But he also saw with delight, in his quest for happiness, the beauty of the world God had made, and he interrogated the creatures of God: sun, moon, stars, flowers and trees, the sea and the mountains, the animals and the birds... Each in turn replied: I am not he, I am not your God. Finally, Augustine asked, "If you are not God, tell me something of him." And they all cried out in a loud voice, "We did not make ourselves but he made us, who abides forever." (Confessions, Ch. 9 and 10)

We could not reach God, so in his love he reached down to us. Now you may ask, how can we reach this God for whom we were created and be with him? The answer is, we can't. But God can reach down to us, get intimately involved in our life, be a father and a friend to us. And that is what he did.

As far back as the Old Testament, beginning with Abraham and finally with Moses on Mt. Sinai, God made a Covenant with man, a sort of mutual friendship pact or agreement. The initiative for this could come only from God, but man had to accept God's offer freely. In making this covenant God was saying to his people: I will be your God and you will be my people. I will love you and protect you if only you keep your part of the covenant and obey my commandments.

The first reading of today's Mass relates how such a covenant was enacted by the mutual agreement of God and his people in the days of Moses.

Moses had just received from Yahweh the commandments men were to live by. He came down from Mt. Sinai and read the commandments to the people assembled, and told them: These are the terms of the covenant God is proposing to you. The people declared with one voice, " All that the Lord bas said, we will do." Thus they accepted the covenant of God. Finally, the covenant was ratified and sealed by the offering of a sacrifice.

WHY A SACRIFICE?

Because a sacrifice was an expression of man's total submission to God. When the Jews offered sacrifices of animals to God, they took something that belonged to them; something like animals and fruit that they could use as food to sustain their own life, henceforth something that signified the offering of their own life to God. They parted with something intimately linked with their very life, a sign they were submitting their whole llfe to God Almighty. Thus did they seal their covenant with God.

SPRINKLING OF BLOOD.

You may have noticed, also, in the first reading, how Moses took the blood of slain animals and sprinkled half of it on the altar (representing God) and other half on the people, to signify the bond between God and his people.

A New Covenant in the Blood of Jesus

When Jesus came, he enacted a new and everlasting covenant between God & man. By sinning, man had broken his covenant with God and lost his friendship with him. By shedding his blood on the cross, Jesus took away our sins and restored us to friendship with God. The New Covenant was sealed in blood, the blood of Jesus shed on the cross. That is why, as we read in the Letter to the Hebrews, "he is the mediator of a new Covenant."

We, too, like the Israelites of old, are a covenant people. God has bound himself to us by a covenant of love. "If you are faithful to me, if you keep my commandments, I will be a father to you, and you shall be my children. I will protect you and feed you and lead you to everlasting life."

Baptism, our entry into the Covenant.

But each and everyone of us must accept this covenant. We did so when we were baptized. Like the Israelites at the foot of Mt. Sinai, we said to God, "All that the Lord has said, we will do." That is the meaning of our Baptismal vows that we renew every year at the Easter Vigil.

The Sacrifice of the Mass, Ratification of the Covenant

But Jesus also gave us a sacrifice, the sacrifice of the Mass, whereby we could ratify our commitment to God. Whenever we consecrate the cup of wine at Mass, the priest repeats these words of Jesus: "This is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant," as we read in today's Gospel. The New Covenant, as well as the Old, is sealed with blood, but this time it is the blood of Jesus Christ. Oh what love, what sacrifice he made so that we would become once again a Covenant people, the object of God's fatherly love. How we should love him in return!

Every time we celebrate the Eucharist especially today on the feast of Corpus Christi, we celebrate the sacrifice of the New Covenant in the blood of Christ and we ratify our covenant with God. Let us do so with joy this morning, surrendering our whole life to God, eager to do his will.

Sermons on the Eucharist Index