new covenant

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Thursday, 7 February 2013 : 4th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Hebrews 12 : 18-19,21-24

What you have come to is nothing known to the senses : nor heat of a blazing fire, darkness and gloom and storms, blasts of trumpets or such a voice that the people pleaded that no further word be spoken.

The sight was so terrifying that Moses said : I tremble with fear. But you came near to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, to the heavenly Jerusalem with its innumerable angels. You have come to the solemn feast, the assembly of the firstborn of God, whose names are written in heaven. There is God, Judge of all, with the spirits of the upright brought to perfection.

There is Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, with the sprinkled blood that cries out more effectively than Abel’s.

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Monday, 28 January 2013 : 3rd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Thomas Aquinas, Priest and Doctor of the Church (First Reading)

Hebrews 9 : 15, 24-28

So Christ is the mediator of a new covenant or testament. His death made atonement for the sins committed under the old testament, and the promise is handed over to all who are called to the everlasting inheritance.

Christ did not enter some sanctuary made by hands, a copy of the true one, but heaven itself. He is now in the presence of God on our behalf. He had not to offer Himself many times, as the High Priest does : he who may return every year, because the blood is not his own.

Otherwise He would have suffered many times from the creation of the world. But no, He manifested Himself only now at the end of the ages, to take away sins by sacrifice, and, as humans die only once and afterwards are judged, in the same way Christ sacrificed Himself once to take away the sins of the multitude.

There will be no further question of sin when He comes again to save those waiting for Him.