Covenant: what covenant?

5th Sunday of Lent

John 12:20-33

Unless we understand that the faith is about the "Covenant", we shall not understand why we are practicing it in the first place.

We have defined the Catholic faith as going to mass every Sunday, receiving the sacraments once in a while, and being good and avoiding evil.  Inasmuch as these are good, the underlying reality of all these is "the Covenant", that God is our God and we are his people.  This unblemished reality, we will find hard to fathom because our main preoccupation in life is about our work and income, our family, ourselves, this covid19, and nothing else.  God becomes someone whom we should pray to only in times of need and not as a reason for offering our lives to.  We shall not know the depth of the Catholic faith.

The Covenant entail the following three realities:

The Law. We shall not know that the covenant involves strict adherence to the Law established by God to us; the law that binds us to him and to one another in an unbreakable bond of love.  We would feel restricted by the law, not knowing that that Law will bring us to true freedom for all and genuine responsibility and compassion for everyone.  We need to reflect how the Law would be planted in our hearts, enabling us to love unconditionally.

Second, offering.  We shall not know the genuine meaning of offering.  We shall forever be skeptical of giving ourselves for free or giving a portion of our time, talent, and treasure for the Church and for the Lord, without realizing the we have contributed so little or none at all, as compared with Jesus who  offered everything of himself, even dying on the cross for us.  We would not know what it means for a grain of wheat to die and how it can bear much fruit.  Thus, our path leads to death instead of life, simply because we fail to even offer a little of ourselves joyfully and voluntarily for a truly noble cause - the cause of heaven itself.

Third, obedience.  We would not understand that the way to realizing the Covenant is through unconditional obedience, with the obedience of Jesus "who was obedient unto death, death on the cross."  But with this obedience, God highly exulted him, giving him glory above any other name.

But no matter how we understand so little about the Law, the Covenant, the Offering, and Obedience, still, Jesus would continue to offer himself on our behalf until all evil is eradicated, and the Son of Man be glorified, and he will take us with him to the Father.  This is the real celebration of a Christian, not the momentary comforts that the world offers.  Today, the world may be doomed to destruction, but we  who have faith will be saved.