New Covenant...

New Covenant...



During this Lent, we are meditating on God’s covenant with his people in the first readings. Today the first reading is from Jeremiah. God sent him to his people to guide them to follow God’s ways. Of course, they ignored the prophets and chose to follow their ways. Today’s reading is just before the Babylonian invasion. Israelites constantly violated the covenant they made with God at Mount Sinai. But God still loved them and walked with them. The prophet explains how God will replace the Old Covenant of Judgment with a New Covenant of Forgiveness of Sins. The New Covenant promised by God would not be written on tablets of stone but on the human heart.

Six hundred years later, Jesus established the New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:31) at the Last Supper. Jesus says, “This chalice is poured out for you in the new covenant in my blood.” Lk22:20). The new Covenant Christ established in the Upper Room was formed first between himself and twelve Apostles, twelve tribes of the New Israel. The New Covenant is through the coming of the Holy Spirit through the Sacraments, which we see in the Upper Room on the evening of Easter when Jesus met with the twelve and breathed on them and asked them to “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (John 20:22-23). Jeremiah prophesied that the New Covenant would be written in the heart of his people (Jeremiah 31:33-34). The gift of the Holy Spirit: 1) engraves the law of the Lord in the heart of the believers. We read in Romans 5:5, “Hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” 2) Infuses in believers experimental knowledge of God. We read in Romans 8:15-16, “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of sonship. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it’s the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” 3) Cleanses us from sin. We read in Romans 8:2, “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death.” We renew the New Covenant with Jesus every time we come to the Mass. The New and Eternal Covenant established by Christ replaced the Old Covenant of the Mosaic Law.

In the second reading, St. Paul tells the Hebrews that it is by Jesus’ suffering and death, in obedience to His Father’s will, that he established the New Covenant. In the Eucharist, we share the “Blood of the new and  everlasting covenant.” Using metaphors of the ‘sown wheat grain’ and the ‘spent life’, in today’s gospel, Jesus teaches the same lesson.

In the Gospel, Christ announced that his “hour” had come. The time for the supreme Sacrifices of his passion and death. His words indicate that his full knowledge and consent to accept the Father’s will to offer the   sacrifice. The grain of wheat points to the Eucharist in which the sacrifice of Christ becomes present.

The grain of wheat – talks about the constant death that needs to happen in our daily lives. Jesus says, “If it dies, it bears much fruit.” In other words, it is the way of living the Eucharist. When we die in union with  Jesus, especially in the sacrament of Eucharist, we become Christ for others. We know that the world owes everything to people who have spent their time and talents for God and their fellow human beings. Mother Teresa, every day spent an hour before the Blessed Sacrament and the celebration of the Eucharist and went out to do the missionary work. She says she found the face of Christ in those in need. In the words of the Secretary General of the U.N., Mother became the most powerful woman in the world. We see similar cases in the history of great saints, scientists, and benefactors of mankind in all walks of life. Every Christian is called to place Christ at the center of all our activity through our effort to grow in holiness. In other words, we gather around the Altar to celebrate the Eucharist and are sent out to live it in our daily lives.

I would like to take a moment to congratulate our RCIA candidate who is preparing to receive the Sacrament of Confirmation at Easter Vigil. Let us keep the candidate, sponsor, and her family in our prayers.