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Like blossoms, every one a beautiful individual
The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ
Year B
June 10, 2012
Reading I: Exodus 24:3-8
Responsorial Psalm: 116:12-13, 15-16, 17-18
Reading II: Hebrews 9:11-15
Gospel: Mark 14:12-16, 22-26
http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/061012.cfm
Selections from the readings (Jerusalem Bible translation):
Reading 1
Moses went and told the people all Yahweh's words and all the laws, and all the people answered with one voice, 'All the words Yahweh has spoken we will carry out!'
Moses put all Yahweh's words into writing, and early next morning he built an altar at the foot of the mountain, with twelve standing-stones for the twelve tribes of Israel.
Then he sent certain young Israelites to offer burnt offerings and sacrifice bullocks to Yahweh as communion sacrifices.
Moses then took half the blood and put it into basins, and the other half he sprinkled on the altar.
Then, taking the Book of the Covenant, he read it to the listening people, who then said, 'We shall do everything that Yahweh has said; we shall obey.'
Moses then took the blood and sprinkled it over the people, saying, 'This is the blood of the covenant which Yahweh has made with you, entailing all these stipulations.'
Gospel
Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, and they all drank from it.
He said to them, "This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many.
He said to them, "This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many.
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More and more on this forum we see contributors declaring where they stand. When all's said and done, what matters is the personal attitude each one has to the Mystery of Life that we call 'god'. The same goes for the Eucharist: what matters is that we each respond to this mystery at a personal level with conviction and commitment, whatever form it may take.
In the readings for this Sunday the focus is on the New Covenant. Do we ever wonder what that means? I don't know why there is so little teaching and discussion about this central feature which hinges on the text in the prophet Jeremiah:
"Surely the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new
covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. This is the
covenant I shall make with them: I will plant my law within them and I
will write it on their hearts and I will be their God and they will be
my people. No longer shall they teach one another or say to one another,
"Know the Lord," for they shall all know me from the least of them to
the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity and
remember their sin no more."(Jer 3 I :31-34 Jerusalem Bible)
Compared with the covenant formalised by Moses (first reading), the new covenant is not a set of laws setting out rights and duties. Such laws, put in writing, are the permanent standard that members of a community or a state must measure up to, the standard against which conduct is judged.
The new covenant is different. It is internal, written in the heart. It seems to me that this means that it is applied to each one individually. Hence it is not like a treaty that a nation makes with another nation, which binds every citizen from the simple fact of being a member of that nation. This is more like the covenant that we find in our domestic community. In families the ties that bind are not written, yet they are firmly fixed for they are embedded in the conscience and expressed in the intimate relationships within the home. Our response is utterly personal and must be totally sincere, while the written law formulated in society for the common good only requires outward compliance.
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It is depressing to think of so much discussion, disagreement and dispute indulged in by christians about how the eucharist works. Like a youngster pulling a computer to bits, hoping to find out how it works, over-analysing the eucharist will destroy it. Regardless of technical explanations, the main point of the celebration highlighted in today's readings is that we take and drink of the pledging cup of the new covenant.
Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them,
and they all drank from it.
He said to them, "This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many."
and they all drank from it.
He said to them, "This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many."
What are we thinking of as we take that cup and raise it to our lips?
In that gesture I am saying Yes to the covenant described by the prophet. I am saying Yes to the law written by the spirit in my conscience. I am saying Yes to the knowledge of truth and justice that I find there, undeniable, unavoidable, inescapable - that compelling truth that is light, and enlightening, unless I cloud it for selfish or evil purposes.
Jesus made his life-blood the seal of this covenant. At the risk of his life he affirmed the truth publicly before the High Priest and the Civil Governor. He stood his ground when they threatened to destroy him. He remained true to the end. That is how you witness to the truth; that is what is written in our hearts; that is what we drink to in taking the eucharistic cup. That is the stuff of the new covenant.
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Now for a question: Is the new covenant made directly with the individual, or is it made made with the church institution and the community as such?
This covenant which is sealed by the gift of the spirit in the conscience of the individual seems to be prior to the forming of community. While it would be natural for people of the new covenant to form up in communities for mutual support, the idea that the community itself should take priority over the individual may be a foreign concept.
While you become a citizen of the state by being born in the country, you cannot become a member of the christian community by being born into it. Entry is an individual thing, by invitation, via baptism that seals you with the spirit after you say: Yes I do believe; and in Eucharist when you drink to the New Covenant from the cup offered by Jesus.
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Currently in the liturgy the expression 'for many' has replaced the 'for all' which, the experts tell us, accurately expressed the idea. The expression 'for many' was a Semitic way of encompassing a big mob, virtually everybody. (I have a faint idea that something similar is found among the aboriginal peoples of Australia.) However, thinking about this Semitic expression has led me to wonder if perhaps the 'many' indicates an awareness of the individuals in the crowd, which our abstract universal, 'all', may tend to lose sight of. If instead of saying 'the whole crowd', for example, I say 'lots and lots of people' I am pointing out that the whole crowd contains all these individuals. When we say 'for many' can we remember that in the 'all' there are only individuals like you and me, and we are invited individually to say Yes to the cup of the covenant?
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The covenant of marriage is the only covenant most of us will ever have experience of, and it too is planted in the heart, a most personal commitment. Perhaps marriage the most authentic model of the New Covenant. Everyone knows that their marriage covenant is re-affirmed every day and a thousand times a day in a myriad of ways. So too the New Covenant that Jesus calls his followers to embrace.
The next time I join a community celebrating the eucharist it will be for many purposes: to gather with a local community of believers, to hear the Word of God and learn something fresh - or re-learn, to remember the passing over of Jesus by a symbolic re-enactment of his last passover meal.
But above all it will be to commit myself afresh to the new covenant in drinking from the pledging cup. If I don't make this totally personal commitment, then all the rest is merely play and all the men and women merely players.
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