I sincerely realize that I’m ‘preaching to the choir’ here. Sometimes a little self-reflection can be healthy or even rewarding. Have we, me, you allowed the world (willingly or not) to make our faith life just another agreement?… With God?? **Has influences in or out of our family caused our spirituality to become lukewarm? **In our first scripture Exodus 19:2-6, we hear that God, through Moses, is informing the Israelites that ‘HE’ has chosen ‘them’, to be His OWN. This Covenant will be based on words, deeds, and daily commitment to God and God alone.
“Thus shall you say to the house of Jacob; tell the Israelites: You have seen for yourselves how I treated the Egyptians and how I bore you up on eagle wings and brought you here to myself. *Therefore, if you hearken to my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my special possession, dearer to me than all other people, though all the earth is mine. You shall be to me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.”
***Life is a daily series of 100 decisions, varying in the degrees of importance. Doesn’t God deserve to be more of a conscious, mindful, all-in choice- Covenant? Please don’t dismiss your covenant with God just because the dry cleaning is ready to be picked up.
Romans 5:6-11, 1500 years later we have a different generation, so also the need for a new Covenant, a covenant of blood. St. Paul encourages the Romans & us, “Brothers and sisters: Christ, while we were still sinners, died at the appointed time for us, the ungodly. Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person! Though perhaps for a good person, one might even find courage to die. **But God proves His love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. How much more then, since we are now justified by His blood, will we be saved through Him from the wrath.
With ‘blood’, the action of making and keeping a Covenant takes on a more urgent human seriousness. Engaged are the mind, the will, our very souls and actions. By comparison, Commitments these days seem all too temporary, fleeting. Not even mentioning any level of depth or ‘seriousness’, upon which the commitment hinges.
**In our Gospel today, Jesus wraps up all aspects of the New Covenant. He Himself, will bleed and die for our sins. But not before He teaches both Apostles and disciples the foundation of this blood covenant… ACTION. Matt 9:36-10:8, “Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.’ **Then he summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits to drive them out and to cure every disease and every illness.”
The Apostles were given authority over unclean spirits, diseases and even death itself. Today, the Apostles (Peter’s) direct line representative (The Pope) cannot do these things, at all. **Is it because we’ve strayed from the covenant. **Is it because the church is no longer poorly financed or generous with widows & orphans? **Who is our, and the Pope’s ‘master’, in this loosely termed ‘covenant’? Are we serving God, mammon, or the world?
“Freely you received so freely you shall give.” **I believe in the Blessed Trinity, Eucharist & God’s Love, the Passion of our Lord Jesus, the Christ and I believe in Apostolic teaching. Finally, I believe that my immense faith has been given to me ‘freely’, so freely, I quest to spread God’s message. ***Thank you for your time. JOY- JOY- JOY, Bro. BLU, MARK GATES..
