God's Lasting Covenant!

Today's first reading, Hebrews 10: 11-18, speaks about Jesus, who "offered one sacrifice for sins, and [then] took his seat forever at the right hand of God; now he waits until his enemies are made his footstool. For by one offering he has made perfect forever those who are being consecrated...."

Those being consecrated, being sanctified, purified, forgiven are you and me!  On the cross, Jesus offered His life, once and for all, that we, who believe in Him, serve Him by living just lives, doing good, loving tenderly (compare Micah 6:8)  and repent of any wrongdoing,  will not suffer eternal death.  Jesus, Paul reminds us in this letter to the Hebrews,  crowned his covenant with us by putting His "laws [on our] hearts, and...[writing] them upon [our] minds...[Our] sins and [our] evildoing [Jesus remembers] no more. Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer offering for sin."

What a loving, faithful, caring God! Before His death on the cross and before returning to His Father in heaven at His ascension, Jesus left us the Eucharist, His body and blood, soul and divinity, as food for our journey. He is with us always until the end of the world! God walks beside us, holding us by the right hand, protecting us from evil, strengthening us in our weakness, enlightening us in our darkness and comforting us in our sorrow. He never abandons us in good times or bad! We are his and we belong to Him through our baptisms into Christ Jesus!

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O, the Greatness, the Generosity, the Mercy and the Love of our God

In today’s first reading, 1 Cor 11¨17-26, 33, St. Paul reminds us that what he received from the Lord Jesus he hands on to us, namely, “that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, ‘This is my Body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, ‘This is the cup of the new covenant in my Blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.”

At every Eucharist, we remember what God has done for us on Calvary. We give thanks through Jesus Christ and we take and eat in obedience to His teaching that “the bread that  I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world….Anyone who does eat my flesh and drink my blood has eternal life, and I shall raise that person on the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me and I live in that person.”

At every Mass the Holy Spirit changes the bread and wine into Jesus through the consecrated hands of the priest.  “It is the Lord,” each of us at Mass can say as we ponder the act of consecration and what happens on the altar when the words of Consecration are said. At that moment, God comes down from heaven to visit us in person, to share the fullness of His life with us and the gift of reconciliation with our God. In the Eucharist, God transforms us, purifies us, recreates us into the persons God designed us to be in His creation of us and in His molding of us in our mother’s womb! O, what a gift is Eucharist! O, what a gift is the Mass! O, the greatness and the generosity and the mercy and the love of our God!