5th Week of Easter, Thursday, 5-2-24, Year B
Readings: 1st Reading: Acts 15:17-21; Psalm: 96:1-3, 10; Gospel: Jn 15:9-11
Memorial: St. Athanasius, Bishop, Doctor of the Church
Theme: A New and Everlasting Covenant
At the highest point in the Mass, our most holy public prayer, during the consecration of the bread and wine, the priest says,
“Take this, all of you, and drink from it,
for this is the chalice of my blood,
the blood of the new and everlasting covenant,
which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.
Do this in memory of me.”
It is at this moment that the bread (consecrated just prior) and the wine are transubstantiated into the true body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ. This is the “new and everlasting covenant” which now displaces and supersedes all other covenants from the beginning of creation.
Jesus Himself is the final and last covenant that will ever be made between mankind and God Himself. There is no need for any more covenants as Jesus sealed this final covenant on the cross through His suffering, death, and resurrection for our salvation.
Does this mean that all the laws and precepts that existed before Jesus in the Old Testament are discarded and made obsolete? No. They are now fulfilled in Jesus Himself. Those old laws are now transformed and recreated into the teachings of Jesus’s Gospel message. In everything Jesus ever said, did, or instructed us lies in those laws and precepts, now in a new covenant form that is all-inclusive and representative of how all mankind should live going forward.
For example: In the first reading we see the debate with the Jewish apostles about whether the Gentiles (non-Jews) need to be circumcised in order to be allowed into the new Way and become followers of Jesus. It was an old Jewish law that for centuries was the custom of initiation into God’s people. It was a sign God asked of the Hebrew people so that everyone would know they were God’s chosen race, set apart for God as His own.
But now, in the new covenant set by Jesus, through Baptism, the gift of the Holy Spirit becomes the new circumcision for the people. Through Baptism, the people are indelibly marked as adopted sons and daughters of God Himself. The old covenant of circumcision is now the new covenant of Baptism.
Peter makes this argument that God, through His gift of the Holy Spirit, brought the Gentiles into His fold and made them equal to the Jewish disciples without the physical act of circumcision. Peter argues that who are we to question God’s new covenant with mankind? All are now God’s children who believe in Christ and are baptized into His flock with the gift and seal of the Holy Spirit. No other act, either physical or spiritual, is required.
This is just one of the many examples of the transformation and fulfillment of the old laws and covenants into the new covenant within Jesus’s Gospel.
St. Athanasius understood very well the new and final covenant set by Christ and that it is incapable of being changed or reset because of the latest debates about who Christ Himself is. During his forty-five years as Bishop of Alexandria, St. Athanasius fought fearlessly against the Arian heresy, was champion of the Council of Nicaea in 325, composed many doctrinal writings, and led by example until he died in 373 at the age of 78. Because of his belief in Jesus’s new covenant, he became one of the four great doctors of the Church.
Through His words in today’s Gospel, Jesus tells us that He is the new and everlasting covenant,
“As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.”
If you believe in the new and everlasting covenant of Christ, then the joy of Christ Himself will be your joy too. How awesome is that!
Saint James Catholic Church 