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The Time After Pentecost
the courage and confidence which once made St. Paul say: “Who shall accuse against the elect
of God? God that justifieth. Who is he that shall condemn? Christ Jesus that died yea that is
risen also again, who is at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us” (Rom
8:33 f.). If only we, too, could speak with St. Paul the language of a courageous and confident
Christianity, how blessed we would be.
Prayer
Almighty and merciful God, of whose gift it cometh that Thy faithful people do unto Thee true
and laudable service; grant, we beseech Thee, that we may run without hindrance toward the
attainment of Thy promises. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Thursday
The liturgy of the Mass for the twelfth Sunday after Pentecost presents to us Moses, the mediator
of the Old Covenant, interceding before God’s majesty and imploring His mercy for a faithless
and sinful people. “And the Lord was appeased from doing the evil which He had spoken of
doing against His people” (Offertory).
“If the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more the ministration of justice aboundeth
in glory” (Epistle). Moses, the mediator of the Old Covenant, remained on Mount Sinai, conversing
intimately with God. Since he remained so long on the mountain, the people waiting at
the foot of the mountain thought they had been deceived. The people took the golden earrings
from their ears and brought them to Aaron. “And when he had received them, he fashioned
them by founder’s work, and made of them a molten calf. And they said: These are thy gods, O
Israel, that have brought thee out of the land of Egypt” (Ex 32:4). They then sacrificed to the
false god, and “sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. And the Lord spoke to Moses,
saying: Go, get thee down, thy people . . . have made to themselves a molten calf, and have adored
it, and sacrific[ed] victims to it. . . . See that this people is stiff-necked. Let Me alone that My
wrath may be kindled against them, and that I may destroy them. . . . But Moses besought the
Lord his God, saying: Why, O Lord, is Thy indignation enkindled against Thy people, whom
Thou hast brought out of the land of Egypt? . . . Let not the Egyptians say, I beseech Thee: He
craftily brought them out that He might kill them in the mountains and destroy them from the
earth. Let Thy anger cease. . . . Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Thy servants, to whom
Thou sworest by Thy own Self, saying: I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven. . . . And
the Lord was appeased from doing the evil which he had spoken against His people” (Ex 32:6
ff.). The glory of the service which Moses, the mediator of the Old Covenant, rendered was that
he, by his intercession before God and by his prayers, saved his people from the wrath of God
and the terrible punishment they had merited because of their apostasy. Even the ministration
of the Old Covenant, “the ministration of death,” was able to achieve so much.
“If the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more the ministration of justice
aboundeth in glory”: this ministration of the Holy Sacrifice which we possess in the New
Covenant and which we daily celebrate. Here it is no longer Moses, but rather Christ, the high
priest, the Son of God, who intercedes for His people, the faithful, before His Father. Offering
an infinitely more valuable gift of sacrifice, His own blood, His passion and death, He implores
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