Covenantal Love

“For this reason he is mediator of a new covenant:
since a death has taken place for deliverance
from transgressions under the first covenant,
those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance.”

Hebrews 9:15

On the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ or “Corpus Christi” we highlight one of the greatest mystery of our faith: the Eucharist. Coming from the Greek word ευχαριστία meaning “thanksgiving,” the Eucharist is the “source and summit of the Christian life” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1324). The Eucharist is the “Bread of Life,” that which sustains us and nourishes. The Eucharist is Jesus Himself.

At the Last Supper Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to His disciple and took the cup with the wine and said “this is the blood of the covenant.” Covenant. We hear often of covenants in the Old Testament — the covenant God made with Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David. When God gave the tablets containing the Ten Commandments, God made a covenant with the people, saying that they will be His People and He will be their God, their One and Only God. But, as we know the People became unfaithful and fell into sin and idolatry time and again, to the point of being captured by other nations and powers. They forgot about God, but God never forgot about them. God sent prophets to remind the people that God hears them and that He will deliver them from their captors and that they will rejoice once again. Although the Israelites abandoned their covenant with God, God remained faithful and in due time He made it new.

When the fullness of time had arrived, God sent His Son into the world so that all who believed and will come to believe might be saved. God became man and suffered and died, so that just as the blood of the lamb on the doorposts prevented the angel of death from killing the firstborn that first Passover night, so too the blood of the True Lamb of God will save His People from death once and for all. Jesus Christ is the Paschal Lamb that was sacrificed for us so that we who were dead in sin might have life, life eternal. That was the price of God’s love for us, a ransom He willingly paid. We are inheritors of the New Covenant. We who are baptized are given a share of the inheritance of Jesus, and this inheritance of Christ is eternal life, the dare to be co-heirs with Him. But to be co-heirs we must remain steadfast in Christ, and knowing that the world will try to sway us away from our inheritance, He chose to remain with us in a tangible way, a way that reminds us that He is always with us, that He is the source of our lives, and that He seeks to sustain us and nurture us — and that is the Eucharist, the Bread of Life, Jesus Christ Himself. He is the New Covenant, and how blessed are we to be invited to be partakers in His covenant of love.

Watch this week’s reflection below.