Readings:
This Sunday's Mass
readings conclude a four-week meditation on the Eucharist.
The 12 apostles in
today's Gospel are asked to make a choice -- either to believe and accept the
new covenant He offers in His body and blood, or return to their former ways of
life.
Their choice is
prefigured by the decision Joshua asks the 12 tribes to make in today's First
Reading.
Joshua gathers them at
Shechem -- where God first appeared to their father Abraham, promising to make
his descendants a great nation in a new land (seeGenesis 12:1-9). And he issues a blunt
challenge -- either renew their covenant with God or serve the alien gods of
the surrounding nations.
We too are being asked
today to decide whom we will serve. For four weeks we have been presented in
the liturgy with the mystery of the Eucharist -- a daily miracle far greater
than those performed by God in bringing the Israelites out of the land of
Egypt.
He has promised us a new
homeland, eternal life, and offered us bread from heaven to strengthen us on
our journey. He has told us that unless we eat His flesh and drink His blood we
will have no life in us.
It is a hard saying, as
many murmur in today's Gospel. Yet He has given us the words of eternal life.
We must believe, as Peter
says today, that He is the Holy One of God, who handed himself over for us,
gave His flesh for the life of the world.
As we hear in today's
Epistle, Jesus did this that we might be sanctified, made holy, through the
water and word of baptism by which we enter into His new covenant. Through the
Eucharist, He nourishes and cherishes us, making us His own flesh and blood, as
husband and wife become one flesh.
Let us renew our covenant
today, approaching the altar with confidence that, as we sing in today's Psalm,
the Lord will redeem the lives of His servants.
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