Festal Gathering

In today’s first reading, Heb. 12: 18-19, 21-24, we are presented with two different experiences of God: one is terrifying, that of “a blazing fire and gloomy darkness and storm and a trumpet blast and a voice speaking words such that those who heard begged that no message be further addressed to them.”  The other, “Mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem,…[where dwell] countless angels in festal gathering, and the assembly of the firstborn enrolled in heaven, and God the judge of all, and the spirits of the just made perfect, and Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and the sprinkled Blood that speaks more eloquently than that of Abel.”

I am deeply touched by the words “the spirits of the just [are] made perfect” and that this is the place where Jesus, our mediator’s, Blood “speaks more eloquently than that of Abel” or any other person martyred for the faith. You and I, God willing and God does will it, will join this “festal gathering.”  We, too, will be “made perfect,” a perfection begun here on this earth through what we suffer, as was true of Jesus: “He learned obedience through what He suffered” (Heb. 5:8).   This is our faith. This is the hope that strengthens us as we journey to “the Promised Land.”