V SUNDAY OF LENT
THE NEW COVENANT
By our Pastor, Fr. Carmelo Jiménez
We are already in the fifth Sunday of Lent and next Sunday we begin Holy Week. Looking back at the third Sunday of Lent, the triple Covenant appeared between God and his people: with Noah, with Abraham and with Moses. It is the prophet Jeremiah who gives us a new point in the history of salvation: “The days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.” (Jer. 31:31)
This is the context of all of the readings for this Sunday: THE NEW COVENANT. This new Covenant will bring us to the hope of salvation for us sinners, as it is expressed in the letter to the Hebrews: “Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered; and when he was made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.” (Heb. 5:8-9) It is as if an old covenant is being renewed by the promise of a covenant that will be signed not with the blood of animals, but rather with the Immaculate Lamb who takes away the sins of the world: Jesus Christ. This is the New Covenant that was foretold, the one that Christ comes to seal with his redeeming blood.
But we should not remain only as spectators of a people who lived centuries ago. It would seem as though the people of Israel: Abraham, Moses, celebrating the covenant with God, have stayed on the far horizon of history. The great invitation is to see ourselves as making history. Today we are the people that have inherited the promises of Abraham, the commitments of Moses, the renewals of the prophets.
May we approach Holy Week, not with memories of history, but rather with a commitment in the present, feeling that I, with my name, just as I am – with all my sins and misery, with all my hopes and dreams, with all my projects and failures, with all my pain and joy – me, my family, my people, here where I live, not where I came from; in this concrete moment in history is where we will celebrate the covenant with God.
Christ becomes salvation for everyone who obeys him, which is why in the consecration of the wine we say: “The Blood of the new and eternal covenant, which will be poured out for you and for many, for the forgiveness of sins.” And so we put all our hope in Christ since he was subjected to death and from death he passed to life. The gospel affirms: “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.” (Jn. 12:24) Therefore, a resurrected Christ without having gone through death would not have the value it has now. A passion and death without the resurrection would have been a decisive failure. The NEW COVENANT is fulfilled with the Paschal Mystery, in which we should live our faith and our hope.
Looking ahead to Holy Week next week, may we live this last week of Lent intensely, with great joy and well prepared, to live the Paschal mystery. May God grant us more grace, faith and love, knowing that we die to sin with Christ and that we will be raised up like Him to eternal life. Amen.