10B24.   Genesis 3:9-15.   In Genesis 2:17, God told Adam that he was not to eat from “the tree of knowledge of good and bad;” otherwise, he would surely be doomed to die.  Once he did eat of the fruit of that tree he felt naked or vulnerable because he recognized that now there was evil in his world that might do him harm. So he felt the need to defend or shield himself from potential harm.  Eve too felt the presence of evil that might harm her with a special enmity between her and the serpent.

Mark 3:20-35.  The scribes claimed that Jesus had power over demons since they said he was in union with Beelzubul, the ruler of the demons.  Jesus answered, if he were in union with the prince of demons, the prince of demons would never allow Jesus to inhibit the work of the demons to do bad things to people. Since Jesus by driving out demons to help the people who being demonized, his power came from God because he was doing good and not evil.  Furthermore, if anyone denied that the Holy Spirit had the power to drive out demons, he would be blaspheming against the Holy Spirit, which is an unforgiveable sin.  Jesus also encountered opposition from his own relatives who thought that Jesus ought to be remaining back in Nazareth and leading a normal acceptable ordinary life instead of being involved in a work that did not even allow him to have his meals.  For his part, Jesus asserted that he was now working to create a new family who were doing the will of God.

2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1. Adam lost paradise for us; Jesus brings us back to paradise.  “We have a building from God, a dwelling not made with hands, eternal in heaven.” “We look not to what is seen but to what is unseen; for what is seen is transitory, but what is unseen is eternal.”

CorpChristiB24.   Exodus 24:3-8.   The blood of the animals sacrificed to God and splashed on the book of the covenant (“all the words and ordinances of the Lord”) and on the people represents life that God has given to his people and to the covenant that binds his people to him.

Mark 14:12-16, 22-26.  Jesus was careful to see to the preparations for the Passover meal.  The sacrificing of the Passover lamb for the Passover meal and his offering himself in the sacrifice on the cross show the drama of our redemption.  Jesus, even though he was physically there, identified himself with the bread and wine: “this is my body;” “this is my blood.”  He used the model of the sacrificial action of the Old Testament world to convey his own offering up of himself as his one unique ‘once and for all’ sacrifice.  By Jesus’ offering himself in the Eucharistic action, he expresses his love for us in the deepest possible way.  We have Jesus himself in the Eucharist.  Jesus is saying to us, “Remain in me, as I remain in you.” (John 15:4a)

Hebrews 9:11-15.  With his own blood he obtained for us eternal redemption.  With our reception of him in Holy Communion, we celebrate both our redemption and our personal ongoing union with him.

CorpChristiB21.     Exodus 24:3-8.   The Israelites offered holocausts and sacrificed “young bulls as peace offerings to the Lord.”  Moses took the blood from the offerings and splashed half on the altar.  I view this blood as a symbol of the people offering their life as the People of God to God. Secondly, Moses took the rest of “the blood and sprinkled it on the people,” symbolizing that God was giving something of his life to the people.  That blood sealed the covenant or union with God. Jesus employed the language or mode of the Old Testament sacrifices, when he offered up himself as a sacrifice.

Mark 14:12-16, 22-26.  Traditionally the Jews celebrated the Feast of Unleavened Bread, because long ago they were preparing to leave Egypt quickly, when they could not wait to leaven their bread.  At that first Passover, they also marked the lintels and the two doorposts with the blood of a lamb to indicate the ones who were the Jews whom the angel would spare from death.   Jesus celebrated that Passover Meal but now offering up himself as the Passover lamb when he took the bread and said: “This is my body” and took the cup and said: “This is my blood of the covenant which will be shed for many.”   In offering up his body and blood he uses the imagery or language of the Old Testament sacrifices to offer up himself at the Passover Meal.  What he does at the Passover meal symbolically but really, he later does physically on the cross.  In receiving the body and blood of Christ at the Eucharist, we receive in a spiritual way Jesus himself into us to be our Messiah and Savior.

Hebrews 9:11-15.   “For if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling of a heifer’s ashes can sanctify those who are defiled so that their flesh is cleansed, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from dead works to worship the living God.”  In giving us his blood to drink, Jesus is pouring into us a share of his life-giving force so that the life we live is infinitely more that the natural life of this world.  It is rather the supernatural life of heaven, while yet we still live physically here on this earth.  His blood, not only spiritually energizes us, but also cleanses and washes away what is not of God so that we may be wholly of God, his holy people.

CorpChristiB18.  Exodus 24:3-8.  “When Moses came to the people and related all the words and ordinances of the Lord, they all answered with one voice, ‘We will do everything that the Lord has told us.’”  To accept God as one’s God we must submit to his authority over us.  This is not a horizontal relationship between equals but a vertical relationship between those who have been created and their Creator, between those who live in a state of absolute dependence and the One on whom we can utterly depend upon forever.  A second time Moses reads to them the covenant and a second time they accept but this time he sprinkles half of the blood of the sacrifice on them and the other half on the altar to symbolize that God and the people are bound together by the covenant. Blood which symbolizes life or the life-giving force is used to indicate that the covenant is now operative as the life giving relationship between God and his people.

Mark 14:12-16, 22-26.  At their celebration of the Passover, the last meal that Jesus was to eat before dying on the Cross, what we traditionally call ‘The Last Supper,’  Jesus establishes the new covenant that then super cedes that of Old Testament.  Of the bread he shares with the Apostles, Jesus says, “Take it; this is my body.” Then he shared the cup with them saying, “This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many.”  This all precedes his actually offering up himself; body and blood on the cross as a once and for all time sacrifice to God the Father to atone for our sins.  At Mass we re-present that same sacrifice on the cross, since he is not dying over and over again.

Hebrews 9:11-15.  The offering up of the blood of goats and bulls was repeated endlessly in the old covenant to sanctify those who were defiled in any way.  In the new covenant the blood of Christ once offered up, only needs to be re-presented to God the Father to cleanse us from our sins, since the one offering on the cross has infinite, endless value before God.  Jesus is the “mediator of the new covenant,” who presents his sacrifice to his Father for our benefit. In Hebrews 9:24-26  we read, “For Christ did not enter into a sanctuary made by hands, a copy of the true one, but heaven itself, that he might now appear before God on our behalf. Not that he might offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters each year into the sanctuary with blood that is not his own; if that were so, he would have had to suffer repeatedly from the foundation of the world.  But now once for all he has appeared at the end of the ages to take away sin by his sacrifice.” In Romans 5:8- 9, Paul writes, “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.” Jesus said in John 14:6, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Our reception of Jesus in the Eucharist enables us to go to the Father through the Son who is the only way to the Father, in other words, the only way to heaven.

 

TrinityB24.   Exodus 24:3-8.    God has shown himself as God: almighty, awesome, loving, caring, generous, and gracious.  “The Lord is God in the heavens above and on earth below, and that there is no other.”  Let us respect him as the God who alone is our life.

Matthew 28:16-20.  God the Father has put Jesus in charge with the power to accomplish his will, designs and plans.  Jesus said, “Make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”  His commandment is: “As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.” (John 13:34b) Jesus promises to be with us always so to pour his love into us so that we all have love to pour into one another.  Accepting God’s will is accepting God’s love so that we are one with him with his love as our life.

Romans 8:14-17.  “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.”  As members of God’s family, we ought to live with our Father’s love for us as our life and not with this world as our life.  To reject this world as our life’s being we have to suffer this world’s rejection of us.  The source of our joy is the life the Holy Spirit gives us daily and not the earthly pleasures this world gives.

TrinityB21.    Deuteronomy 4:32-34, 39-40.   Moses is calling upon the Hebrews to be captivated by how deeply God has embraced them as His People!  He is their God; they are his People!  This is the Lord, the “God in the heavens above and on earth below.”  “There is no other.”  They have been adopted by him; chosen out of the midst of many other nations.

Matthew 28:16-20.   In Matthew’s gospel the mountain is the height to which one goes up to meet God who comes down to his people.  How is it that they worshipped Jesus whom they met there but doubted at the same time?  My personal interpretation is that they were feeling lost as to where they were to proceed as Apostles from then on.  Jesus clears that up by sending them out to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Trinitarian God and teaching them to obey all that Jesus has commanded.  To be a disciple of Christ means to always follow Christ who is present in our lives through the power of the Spirit.  Baptism is the washing away of all that is not of God so that we belong to God wholly so to become holy.  And then Jesus promises “I am with you always, until the end of the age.”  In Matthew’s gospel Jesus refers to the ‘end’ or the ‘end of the age’ or when “the Son of Man will come” as a way of referring to his Second Coming as King and Judge of the world at the end of time. Although Jesus is not now present physically as he was before the Ascension, he is now present spiritually empowering and directing us through the Holy Spirit to bring the world to him.

Romans 8:14-17.  “Brothers and sisters: Those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.”  “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.”  Through the day, each day, we must choose to be led by our bodies, the influence of the world around us and the devil OR by the Holy Spirit.  If we choose to follow the Spirit out of the power that the Spirit gives us to break free from the hold of all those forces that are not of the Spirit, we then become “children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.” It is not easy to break free from the forces of this world. To follow Christ will cause us suffering but, nonetheless, lead us to “also be glorified with him.”

TrinityB18.   Deuteronomy 4:32-34, 39-40.

Moses explains to the people how wondrous is their God, caring for them and looking after them like no other god.  “This is why you must now know, and fix in your heart, that the Lord is God in the heavens above and on earth below, and that there is no other.”  He deserves your obedience to him and will reward you greatly, if you act as a people who belong to him.

Matthew 28:16-20.  “They worshiped (him) but they doubted.”  The doubt, I believe, was that they were unsure of what was to follow, after Jesus was to leave them, and that made them uneasy.  Jesus said, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.   And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”  I believe that Jesus, in announcing to them that he has received all power was saying that he is God and that what he was commanding them to do comes from him out of his authority as God and as the almighty God in his infinite power he will be with them without fail until the end of time in all the church’s work of making “disciples of all nations.”  Jesus commands that they are to baptize in the name of the Triune God.  The clarity of this statement makes it clear that God sees himself as three Persons but one God.  In saying this, Jesus reveals, beyond what is given in the Old Testament, that the One God is, not only love, but a relationship of infinite love so giving of each Person to the other that the three become one.  The three persons of the Trinity are so infinitely given to each other in love that they are not three gods but one God.  This mystery can be so disturbing for many but we, who are human, finite or so limited in comparison to what is infinite, divine or without human limitations, are incapable of fully grasping, taking ahold of, comprehending or understanding the limitless, almighty God.  It would be like trying to fit the whole ocean into a tiny cup.

Psalm 33:4-5, 6, 9, 18-19 20, 22.   “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made.”  “He commanded, and it stood forth.”  He is so almighty that with just a word the whole universe, the whole natural world is created by him.  Nevertheless he deeply cares for us who are so insignificant.  He “is our help and our shield.  May your kindness, O Lord, be upon us who have put our hope in you.”

Romans 8:14-17.  “The spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.” The Holy Spirit joins himself to our spirit to proclaim that, as God is love and bound together as one by love, we are taken into God’s family because we are loved. All of the saints in heaven are God’s family able to call God, our Father, and one another, our brothers and sisters. In following Jesus to heaven, we must follow him, accepting our crosses of submission to his Will and dying to our own will, as we go with him to the resurrection.  We are heirs to both his death and resurrection.

PentB24.  Acts of the Apostles 2:1-11.   For Jesus’ disciples “there appeared to them tongues of fire.” “They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.”  The Holy Spirit was empowering them to communicate both the news of and the heartfelt goodness of Jesus.  The devout Jews visiting Jerusalem were enabled to “hear them speaking” “of the mighty acts of God.”

John 20:19-23 & 15:26-27; 16:12-15.  Jesus said to his disciples, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”  As God the Father commissioned Jesus to bring the love of God to believers, so too Jesus commissions and empowers his believers with the Holy Spirit.  They administered the forgiveness of sins to enable believers to relinquish and dissolve the barriers that separated them from the love of God.  So too God the Father sends the Spirit to enable us to live with Jesus as the love of our lives.

1 Corinthians 12:3b-7, 12-13 & Galatians 5:16-25.  “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’, except by the Holy Spirit.”  The Holy Spirit empowers us to live spiritually, which is beyond our earthly bodily capabilities.  The “Spirit of truth” reveals the fullness of the reality that is eternal; whereas our bodies only enable us to see the earthly realities that end in the grave.  Living in the Spirit enables us to live beyond the demands of our bodies.  The Spirit gives to each individual “different forms of service” or special capabilities to bring Christ to the world.  “To each individual, the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit” to the Church.

 

PentB21.     Acts of the Apostles 2:1-11.    With the entrance of the Holy Spirit, divine power was released in its fullness, “like a strong driving wind.” “Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire.”  “And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.”  When Jesus was physically present, he was there outside of them, in front of them.  However, The Spirit came as a force, energy, divine life, as God himself within them.  God testified to his presence within them, by giving those proclaiming the Lord, the power to be understood by each of the hearers “in his native language.”

John 20:19-23.  The Apostles were trembling in fear.  Look what happened to Jesus!  They were fearful because it could also happen to them.  In contrast to the trembling of the Apostles, Jesus appeared in the power of his divine peacefulness.  “Peace be with you.  As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”  He sends them out to bring his loving divine presence to the entire world by empowering them with the Holy Spirit.  Through the power of the Holy Spirit they are to bring the breathe and the life of God’s holiness to those who wish to be released from their sinfulness.

John 15:26-27, 16:12-15.  Jesus says, “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.  But when he comes, the Spirit of truth he will guide you to all truth.”  The Holy Spirit speaks in unity with the Trinity so that no one divine person speaks ever on his own, but in union with the others.  This world only thinks of what goes from the ‘cradle to the grave’ but the genuine truth that God gives is present and eternal reality.  The glory that the Spirit gives to the Son and the Son to the Father is the recognition of their spectacular, magnificent divinity.

1 Corinthians 12:3b-7, 12-13.   “Brothers and sisters: No one can say, ”Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.”  As the branches cannot have life without being connected to the divine vine, so too, it is only by the Spirit that we are able to do anything that is truly good.  God, and only God, is the root source of all goodness.  Without God nothing that is genuinely good is able to occur.  In our individual functions in the Church we draw our capacity to truly benefit the Church from the action of the Spirit within us.

Galatians 5:16-25.   “Brothers and sisters: live by the Spirit and you will certainly not gratify the desire of the flesh.” “Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified their flesh with its passions and desires.  If we live in the Spirit, let us also follow the Spirit.”  Under whose authority and demands do we live our lives, God or our body?  The natural instincts of our bodies have no spiritual morality, only physical gratification.  It is a true moral crucifixion to live in submission to God and in rejection of the physical desires of our bodies that are not in accord with God’s Will.

PentB18.   Acts of the Apostles 2:1-11.  Jesus, the Love, the Center, the Light of their lives had ascended, gone away into the heavens.  They were now without him. Jesus had promised the Spirit and so they waited.  When the Holy Spirit came, he came in great power. “Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them.”  The Holy Spirit came to set their tongues on fire so that their words might instill a burning desire in their hearers to be devoted to Jesus as their life-giving God.  The Apostles spoke to a crowd of vastly different languages, yet they heard “them speaking in (their) own tongues of the mighty acts of God.”  The Spirit works today, ordinarily not with such a spectacular show, nonetheless with great, quiet power for those whose hearts welcome him.

John 20:19-23 & 15:26-27; 16:12-15.  John’s gospel has Pentecost and Easter occurring on the same day.  For John, Jesus comes on Easter to give the Holy Spirit to the Apostles so that they may go and bring to holiness those who wished to be saved from their sins.  In the second Gospel option, Jesus says, “the Spirit of truth” “will guide you to all truth,” which he receives from the Son who had received it from the Father, the Trinity working together as the one God.  In John’s gospel the word ‘truth’ is used 52 times, and yet even more times in the epistles.  The ‘truth’ means that we belong to what is genuinely real for all eternity, not what people would like to call the truth but what is only invented to make them feel good, or what they would like to think, or what is in fashion today.  That latter so called ‘truth’ are the lies which the devil uses to deliver us to his realm of darkness, away from the light that is God himself.  The truth that the Spirit brings to us is a continuation of what Jesus had brought to his followers when he was on earth.  God, the Holy Spirit uses the bible, the Church’s magisterium or teaching authority and all forms of teaching as instruments to guide us to all truth.

1 Corinthians 12:3b-7, 12-13.  “No one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit.”  All good that is truly good comes radically from God, the only true source of genuine goodness.  All that we do, think or say that is good comes from the work of God. In Matthew 16: 16-17, “Simon Peter said in reply, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’ Jesus said to him in reply, ‘Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.’”  In other words, Peter did not figure this all out on his own but God moved him to recognize the truth of who Jesus was.  If the preacher preaches in such a way that we are moved to be a holier people, that is the work of the Spirit in the preacher and in those who hear his words and not something they do on their own apart from God.  To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit.  It is the work of the Spirit to build up the church by giving different gifts to different individuals.  It is the “same God who produces all of them in everyone.” “We are all given to drink of one Spirit.”

Galatians 5:16-25.  “Live by the Spirit and you will certainly not gratify the desire of the flesh.”  Here Paul is not writing about the necessary, nutritional demands our bodies make on us to live from day to day but on the illicit cravings that our bodily nature might tempt us to.  The fruit of the Spirit are the good actions that God calls us to.  “Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified their flesh with its passions and desires.  If we live in the Spirit, let us also follow the Spirit.”