Through Jesus, let us continually offer God a sacrifice of praise,
that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name.
Jesus himself chose to become our "merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God" (see Hebrews 2:17) in order to atone for sin and destroy death. Before he did so, the animal sacrifices that were offered could never achieve their desired effect because, "it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins" (see Hebrews 10:4). Yet the obligation to sacrifice remained as a reminder of the need for an internal transformation. But this internal transformative sacrificial offering was never perfected until the one sacrifice of Jesus himself. Now that this has in fact taken place, however, everything is different. We have been made a "royal priesthood" (see First Peter 2:9) called to offer our very lives as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God (see Romans 12:1). It is because our lives in our physical human bodies are the place that we make this offering that our bodies are temples, for the temple is not only the place of God's abiding presence, but also the place of sacrifice (see First Corinthians 6:19).
Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have;
God is pleased by sacrifices of that kind.
We are called not only to communion with God but also to ""share" [koinōnia]"¹ with others. The fruit of the Eucharistic sacrifice of Jesus thus overflows into our own lives, transforming those mundane acts of goodness and charity into sacrifices that advance the peace and salvation of the entire world, just as Jesus' own sacrifice did, because our small acts now participate in his one offering, as windows and doors allowing his grace and power to shine forth.
Obey your leaders and defer to them,
for they keep watch over you and will have to give an account
It isn't always easy to obey those rightfully in positions of leadership over us. We often imagine the very different ways that we ourselves would speak and act if we were the ones in charge. But thank God we are not, for it is they and not we who "will have to give an account". Submitting to genuine authority is one more way we can offer a small sacrifice pleasing to the Lord, and to do so can even help make our leaders more fruitful at fulfilling their task with joy. This is not to say there cannot be situations where conscience proscribes our cooperation with authority. But this is not the usual case. It is more often a matter of surrendering personal preference, managing affronts, not to morality or truth, but to our own pride, that we have to manage in submitting to our leaders. The genuine purification that can result from sacrifices such as these are in fact one of the primary pillars of religious life.
May the God of peace, who brought up from the dead
the great shepherd of the sheep
by the Blood of the eternal covenant,
furnish you with all that is good, that you may do his will.
Even the most mundane, the most tedious aspects of our lives, can become the means by which we are furnished and equipped to do God's will. This is because we ourselves have first been united with Jesus our great high priest. And it is now God himself who carries out in us what is pleasing to him through Jesus Christ.
for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure (see Philippians 2:13).
Jesus himself is the good shepherd whose heart is moved with pity for crowds who do not know him. His rod and his staff give us to courage to have the same heart for all who are troubled and abandoned. It is not necessarily by great works that we assist in bringing these sheep into the fold. It is rather by the small and hidden sacrifices we choose to make for them that Jesus himself acts through us, that his own love and mercy is manifest.
People were coming and going in great numbers,
and they had no opportunity even to eat.
¹ Healy, Mary. Hebrews (Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture) (p. 296). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
No comments:
Post a Comment