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For the children, I need to draw your attention to the theme of covenant in the first reading. A covenant is an oath of promise. God always uses a mediator for every covenant and gives a sign. Today’s cites the ancient symbol of war: a bow and arrow, turned on its side to be sign of peace. I also need to explain the changes in the liturgy during Lent. Think of the irony or paradox of the symbols.
1. See the ashes in front of the altar with the crown of thorns. We begin Lent with ashes, which are worthless. We end Lent with the cross He bore and the crown He wore to remind us how much He loved us.
2. The color of vestments is purple, as was the color of the robe wrapped around Him to mock Him as king. Do we recognize Jesus as King?
3. We do not sing the “Gloria” or use the bells at the consecration. Whenever the priests in the temple of Jerusalem sacrificed a lamb they rang a bell three times to signify that the sacrifice was accepted. During Lent we offer our sacrifices with His to make them acceptable to the Father. Do we know what “sacrifice” means; are we doing it?
4. Are we ready to sing the Gloria with the angels, or do we have much more to do here on earth?
The rest of this homily is for adults. It is intended as a “grand overview” of the Old Testament readings we will hear each Sunday in Lent, as well as of our Catholic faith.
Before Judaism (monotheism) which culture epitomized “religions?” Egypt! They blended many gods from many cultures. They worshiped the elements of the universe, to pharaoh, but never saw God in the common man or woman. What united these religions? They spoke of distinctions of pure vs. impure; profane vs. sacred. God and nature were indistinguishable. There was never any thought about “false” gods. One pharaoh tried to get rid of all gods and to only have worship of Aton, but when he died, so did his monotheism. Therefore the Greeks could have adaptations from Egypt, and the Romans from the Greeks, as the rise of cultures moved from the east to the west.
Why was Judaism so radical? Its God claimed truth, which defined false gods permanently for the first time in world history. Judaism redefined reality: what was truth, and what was false. This transcendent but personal God entered into oaths of fidelity, called covenants, with His people: Noah,
Abraham, Moses, and the prophets like Jeremiah who will speak to us on the last Sunday of Lent about a new an everlasting covenant.
Search the Old and New Testaments and one will never see the word “sacrament” but will see “covenant” used time and again. Jesus will speak at the Last Supper of the new and everlasting covenant.
For three hundred years the church spoke as one voice regarding Jesus and was violently persecuted by the Roman Empire. When soldiers went into the army they made an oath, or covenant, to serve Caesar. They promised to serve only him, and Caesar promised to repay them. This covenant was called in Latin, “sacramentum.” The first Christians used the term to describe their covenant with Jesus. Baptism, Eucharist, Confirmation, (covenants of initiation), Marriage, Priesthood, (covenants of vocation), Confession and Anointing of the Sick (covenants of healing) were meant to be a bridge for us from this life to the next. Remember the first heresies denied Jesus humanity.
Christianity was defined within the first three hundred years as Catholic (in Greek “kata holos” – concerning the whole) because it wanted not just to embrace Judaism, but all cultures. The next three hundred years the church was no longer persecuted by the empire but grew and spoke as one voice against a heresy that denied Jesus divinity. The church was the only institution that claimed to guarantee salvation. She began to develop and articulate her beliefs in one schema, much like algebra, geometry or physics present one schema.
After six hundred years, Islam came on the scene. It was a not a new religion. It was Catholicism simplified.1 Mohammed kept the major beliefs about God, the soul, judgment, and justice. The incarnation was denied, and therefore the priesthood and all sacraments and sacramentals. He even alludes to the Immaculate Conception. (Gibbon in “The Rise and the Fall of the Roman Empire” claims Christianity received this theology from Islam rather than the other way around. He was a French anti-cleric, and obviously did not know the writings of the Church Fathers or simply overlooks them.) Mohammed states that Jesus will be there at the Last Judgment, not himself. Remember that Christianity did not evangelize outside the boundaries of the empire, except once when St. Patrick went to
Ireland. Mohammed would have known the religion of the empire. When he died, he left no male heir. Islam began to fall into factions and stopped its attack on the Mediterranean world, but it had taken over what was the cradle of Catholic Christianity in Egypt, Israel, Syria, and North Africa. It would not rise up again to attack Europe until the middle Ages when one man unites Islam, the caliph.
In the meantime Christendom was being torn apart by the Protestant Reformation. These were not new religions either. They merely took parts of the schema of Catholicism and accentuated some components. That is why they still stand today just as if one would take some of the schema of geometry or physics. What was the only doctrine that held the Protestant faiths together? They each had to deny the unity and the one voice of authority.2 In this way, each could be “true” even if they totally contradicted each other. This is why the Episcopalians, the Lutherans, and the Methodists can have a structure of “priest/minister and bishop” with the Eucharist and some sacraments and sacramentals. While the Baptists, the Presbyterians, and Evangelicals radically deny these things and focus on baptism and the scriptures. They each are “right” because they together deny the one voice of authority and the unity.
How has all this affected our world in 2006? What is the point of all this history? We live in a society that does not recognize the one voice of unity. Sometime it is united under the religion of “patriotism,” as was England for a time, but that is coming unraveled here too. It is a society losing its sense of truth and what is false. What is the common good and who defines it: politicians, movie stars? It is a society that is becoming very interested in the gods of Egypt as we see a rise in superstition, horoscopes, and magic: from magazines, newspapers, novels, and the Internet. My point is that secular society has taken us back to Egypt.3 In this society Jesus asks us to proclaim the truth of the Gospel; to proclaim repentance. What a difficult task!
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