[stephenkhoo]

KEEPING OUR PROMISES

SCRIPTURE READINGS: EX 24:3-8; PS 115:12-13,15-18;HEB 9:11-15; MK 14:12-16.22-26

We all expect people to keep their commitments; otherwise it would be impossible to trust them. Without trust, nothing can be achieved in life.  At the most basic level of commitment is the keeping of promises.  When a promise with consequences is made between two persons, it is called a contract.  Christians have an even higher level of contract which we call “Covenant.”  A covenant, unlike a contract, is not between two equal parties, as in the case of God and us.  We read of such a covenant in the first reading between the Israelites and God.

However, today many people cannot keep their promises, vows or contracts.  Again and again, we experience betrayals by those who have not kept their promises to us.  Of course, on our part, we also fail to keep our promises.  This is particularly true not just in friendships, business or work, but even in marriage and religious vows.  Marriages do not last.  The beautiful vows made at the wedding are broken within the first few years of marriage.  So, too, religious vows not kept and the evangelical counsels not observed, whether it is with regard to poverty, chastity or obedience.  Indeed, we are just like the Israelites in the Old Testament.  We know from their history that they broke the commandments time and again, during their sojourn in the desert and later in the Promised Land.  They failed to keep the Covenant the Lord made with them.  Despite all the solemn promises made through the rituals, like the one we read in today’s first reading, the commitments were never kept.

Why are we not able to keep our promises even though they are given to the Lord?  The truth is that quite often we do not interiorize the promises we make.  We do not fully understand the implications of what we have committed ourselves to.   Without an inner conviction, we will not be able to carry out what we do.  The rituals that we perform are merely external to us.  They look beautiful and nice on the outside but how many of us really seek to be faithful to the rituals we celebrate?  Take the Ordination rite for example. It is so inspiring and moving to have the candidate for ordination prostrate before the altar as a symbol of total surrender and sacrifice; manifested in a life of obedience, poverty and chastity.  But how many really live out this act of surrender that was made at ordination when they prostrated before the Lord?  Of course, this is also true in marriage as well.

We presume that all who take the vows are as sincere as were the Israelites.  The real obstacle is that we lack the capacity to observe the vows we make, no matter how beautiful they might be.  We are weak and selfish.  We are easily tempted and strayed.  So often, not only do we disappoint others, but we also disappoint ourselves.  Like St Peter, we often feel so ashamed of ourselves and are unable even to look into the eyes of the Lord because of our unworthiness.  We are after all sinners.

For this reason, another covenant was required.  The second reading says, “Now Christ has come, as the high priest of all the blessings which were to come. He has passed through the greater, the more perfect tent, which is better than one made by men’s hands because it is not of this created order; and he has entered the sanctuary once and for all, taking with him not the blood of goats and bull calves, but his own blood, having won an eternal redemption for us.”  In other words, only Jesus can lead the way and give us the capacity to do what He did.  How is the New Covenant effective in transforming our lives and making it possible for us to be committed?

Firstly, Jesus shows us the way by His life, passion, death and resurrection.  He is our sacrifice, the priest and the victim.  Instead of offering the blood of bulls and goats, He offered Himself, His own blood and body for our salvation.  In other words, He did not use any animals as substitute but offered His very self.   By His incarnation, stripped of His divinity, and then stripped again of his humanity at His death, Jesus showed Himself as our sacrifice to the Father.  He gave Himself to us in total obedience to the Father’s will.   In this way, He fulfilled the Father’s will by being the expression of His Father’s unconditional love and mercy for us.   The author of Hebrew says, “The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer are sprinkled on those who have incurred defilement and they restore the holiness of their outward lives; how much more effectively the blood of Christ, who offered himself as the perfect sacrifice to God through the eternal Spirit, can purify our inner self from dead actions so that we do our service to the living God.”

Indeed, as He said, there is no greater love a man can give, than to lay down his life for his friends, and greater still, for his enemies.  The greatest sacrifice is not external offerings, not even the giving of money and gifts.  All these remain good and important but they are still extrinsic.  To give oneself, which includes all the gifts, especially of one’s will, convenience and time for others, is the highest form of self-sacrifice, especially when it entails death to self.   This explains why martyrs and those who gave up their lives for the service of God, country and the poor are highly honoured; not those who are rich and powerful.  Only good people who put others before themselves will be remembered for ever in history; not those who serve themselves.  Jesus, by His death, assures us that our sins are forgiven.  “He brings a new covenant, as the mediator, only so that the people who were called to an eternal inheritance may actually receive what was promised: his death took place to cancel the sins that infringed the earlier covenant.”

Indeed, today we are called to do the same.  We are called to make the sacrifice of Jesus ours as well.  This was what He instructed the disciples at the Last Supper when He said, “’Take it,’ he said ‘this is my body.’ Then he took a cup, and when he had returned thanks he gave it to them, and all drank from it, and he said to them, ‘This is my blood, the blood of the covenant, which is to be poured out for many.”  It is not sufficient to watch Jesus being offered at mass as our sacrifice. We are called to join ourselves in this sacrifice of His, for He said, “Do this in memory of me!”   To do this in memory of Him is more than just reenacting the sacrifice of Christ at Calvary but also to live out that sacrifice in our daily life by offering ourselves in love and service for God, our country and our fellowmen in humble and selfless giving.   We cannot be mere spectators of this sublime sacrifice of Christ.  We, too, must shed our blood for others and give up our body for them.

Jesus has given us the inner motive to offer ourselves in union with Him.  However, this is still insufficient because we still cannot do what He did.  Selfless charity and service is not something that is possible with human strength.  Indeed, when St Francis encountered the leper, his immediate reaction was to run away as he was overwhelmed by fear and was repulsed by the sight of the leper.   It was a natural reaction.   But just as he was running away, the Holy Spirit filled him with the love of Christ, and plucking courage from the supernatural grace he received from Christ, he ran back to hug the leper.  We, too, cannot repeat what Jesus did unless He empowers us.  

How?  This was the same question raised by the psalmist.  How can I repay the Lord for his goodness to me?  The cup of salvation I will raise; I will call on the Lord’s name.” Indeed, we must turn to the Lord to give us the capacity to respond in thanksgiving for the goodness we have received from Him.  “O precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his faithful. Your servant, Lord, your servant am I; you have loosened my bonds.”

Jesus not only gave us His body and blood on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins but He wants to give us the same Spirit of His Father whom He has received.  How?  By inviting us to receive His body and blood!  In receiving His body and blood in the Eucharist, we receive the Holy Spirit into our lives again.  To drink His blood is to be connected to His divine life; and to be fed by His body is to be fed with the Word of God.  Blood, after all, is the symbol of life, and bread is the symbol of food.  Eating His body and drinking His blood, we receive the Holy Spirit anew each time when we commune with the Lord in Holy Communion.  

It is within this context that the Church celebrates the Feast of Corpus Christi, the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, His real presence in the Eucharist. Only because He is truly present, could He feed us with His life and love.   The Eucharist, we know, is another word for thanksgiving.  So with the psalmist, we say, “A thanksgiving sacrifice I make; I will call on the Lord’s name. My vows to the Lord I will fulfil before all his people.”   In celebrating the Eucharist and adoring our Lord in the most Blessed Sacrament and in receiving Him, we become like Him in love and service.  As we adore Him in the Blessed Sacrament, we imitate Him in His passion and death; and as we receive Him in communion, we are strengthened in our union with Him.   For this reason, the Eucharist is the summit of the Church’s faith, and from the Eucharist, we derive the strength and the grace of the Holy Spirit to offer ourselves like Christ, as bread broken for the world, and blood shed for humanity.