Immersed in Christ: March 1, 2021
Monday of the Second Week in Lent
Daniel 9:4-10; Psalm 79; Luke 6:36-38
Our Father By Covenant
God, you who keep your merciful covenant… Daniel 9:4
Edmund Burke defined society as “a covenant between the great dead, the now living, and the yet unborn” (Reflections on the Revolution in France). The Church is this. We have a commitment, not only to God, but to Christians past, present, and future. We call it the “communion of saints.”
The Covenant is founded on the fidelity of God—who defines himself as “steadfast love” (Exodus 34:6; John 1:14, 17). For us to live in conscious faith-full-ness to the Covenant is a “fruit of the Holy Spirit” (Galatians 5:22).
The powerful don’t have to negotiate; they dictate. But our all-powerful God has entered into a covenant with us: “You will be my people, and I will be your God” (Exodus 4; Deuteronomy 7:6ff.; Jeremiah 11:2).
And not just our God: our Father.
Our Covenant with God and each other is more than an agreement. It is a reality of our being. Like the bond between parents and children, it is inscribed in our flesh and blood. Because through Baptism we died and rose in Christ, we are bonded to our Father by the gift of his own divine life within us. Bonded by blood.
Jesus said at the Last Supper, “This cup poured out for you is the New Covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20).
ACTION: Obey God as Father in conscious fidelity to the Covenant.
PRAYER: Absorb reflectively at Mass: “This is my blood, of the new and eternal Covenant, poured out for you.”