(Ex 11:10-12:14; Mt 12:1-8)
It seems I’ve spent my summer being schooled in the law, both religious
and secular. In June I spent two weeks
at the School of Canon Law in Washington, DC learning how to apply the Law to
the Marriage Tribunal procedures; and this week I was released from 3 days of
jury duty, as the court worked the law to identifying 18 jurors for a
first-degree murder case. Now, while I
found the application of the law very interesting in both systems, it did leave
me wrestling interiorly between respect for the law and my identity.
This week’s Old Testament readings have been leading up to the actual
exodus from Egypt. God intervenes in
ways that could not be imagined, and God’s final act of power is the springboard to Israel’s eventual
freedom. If that first Passover and
God’s saving power are forgotten, the people will forget their identity. Thus, it is memorialized in a detailed annual
ritual. The danger is that something done so
often and far removed from the original event will lose its meaning in the
rubrics of carrying it out. God has made
the Israelites a people all his own.
That identity is crucial to their existence. They must enter into the memory so that it
continues to save them and to form them.
In the Gospel, the Pharisees, quick to condemn the actions of the
hungry disciples, they are very concerned about rubrics, rules, and order
(“right practice”) on the sabbath. Jesus
must remind them again that the sabbath is for people, that he is greater than
the sabbath, that He is Lord of the sabbath.
When we celebrate the memorial of the new covenant in Jesus’ blood,
grounded in mercy and service, like Israel, we must not forget our origins, our
identity in Christ, as the new people of God. In the Eucharist, we remember Jesus’ paschal
journey and make present our relationship with God in Christ. The
danger is that if our participation is done so often and far removed
from the original event, we will lose its meaning in the rubrics and routine of
participation.
I was reminded as we spoke the refrain of the Psalm today, “I will take
the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord” of the book “Can You Drink This Cup?" by Henri Nouwen. Nouwen asks the
question, “How do we
drink the cup of salvation?” He says we have to drink our
cup slowly, tasting every mouthful, and by using three concrete disciplines we
can connect this ritual with our identity, to find spiritual freedom. The
disciplines are silence, work, and action. Silence is where we confront our true selves,
word to share our faith walk with others, and action where we put
into practice the intent of
God’s law which is love and mercy for all his adopted children.
When we worship and approach the mystery of
the Eucharist, we must enter into the memory of the event, be connected to its
root, for our formation and our salvation.
This is our identity with God in Christ.
Let us go live it in our actions of mercy and service
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