Passion Sunday 25.3.07
The epistle speaks of the superior nature of Christ’s sacrifice as against bulls and goats etc. His blood is far more effective in cleansing from sin. So the new covenant is superior to the old.
We offer this blood every time we celebrate the Mass.
We are very fortunate to have such an effective ‘bargaining tool’.
We can come before our Heavenly Father and say, Father I have sinned, but I can give You something which is going to be pleasing to You. It is the fragrant offering of Your Son.
He is highly likely to forgive us when we have such a powerful sacrifice advocating for us.
Yet, just offering a sacrifice may not be enough. We know from the Old Testament that God often rejected the burnt offerings of the Israelites – because they were not sincere, just going through the motions.
They saw the sacrifices as a way of buying their way out of trouble, but they had no intention of changing their lives.
As we offer the sacrifice in Mass we must get two things right.
1) The sacrifice will ‘work’ for us only when we align ourselves with the qualities of the Victim.
We cannot offer a humble, loving Christ if we are ourselves proud and resentful.
We must change ourselves to be the same as that which we offer!
The Victim is meant to represent us. He cannot do that if we are not interested in being represented in that way.
2) Also that we must be consonant with His manner of offering. His blood is poured out on the ground. We do not have to do that at Mass, but we should at least be prepared to invest ourselves in the process. His blood is spilled for us. We must be willing to put all of ourselves on the altar with Him. How can we offer the Mass half-heartedly, casually, as though there were nothing at stake?
We have to get down on our knees and weep and wail a little bit, at least figuratively.
Be really sorry for our sins, really grateful for mercy, really determined to eradicate faults.
Perhaps we would like to be forgiven but not to change anything about ourselves. Ah, that is the temptation is it not?
To offer the sacrifice in a perfunctory way: not really having our hearts in it.
In the Gospel today we see a typical passage indicating how much Our Lord had to struggle to get through to people. How they opposed Him at every point and resisted the obvious graces He was offering.
His blood is shed in vain for those who will not accept Him.
He wants to save them, but they put themselves out of reach
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As I reflect on 25 years of priesthood, I think of the eucharistic sacrifice, this central plank of priesthood and the life of the Church.
I must have offered Mass at least 10000 times, and in my life received Holy Communion many times more again!
Yet, what good has it done me? I know that in none of those times have I been as fully receptive of Our Lord as say one of the great saints, such as St Therese of Lisieux.
There is always progress to be made. That I, and each one of us, can enter the sacrifice more fully, with more Christlike qualities, and with more intensity of offering.
It is so easy simply to ‘do’ Mass, and to be the same when we finish as when we started.
This must not be. We are to be transformed by this close encounter with the Lord Himself and be made into pure bread ourselves, free from sin, fully given over to the Lord as victims with Him.
The power of Christ, Priest and Victim, can make us so.
