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Exploring the word

10 Jun 2012 - Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi), Cycle B

MY NIECE WAS born with a heart defect and at 10 was deemed eligible for corrective surgery. Every viable family member opened a vein for this little girl and donated blood for the operation. Of course we did. We wanted her to enjoy a long and healthy life. Things went well. My niece is now in medical school and hopes to help others achieve the miracle of life. When we approach blood stories in scripture, we owe respect to the full range of meanings implicit in this sign. Moses dashing bowls of blood against the altar stones at Sinai sounds like a gothic horror story. In the movies bloodletting is sinister, all violence and mayhem. Covenant blood does have a fearful seam: Promises sealed in blood committed both parties to the mortal consequences of breaking their vow. But the primary sign is one of life, not death: “The life of the flesh is in the blood” (Leviticus 17:11). The animal sacrifices its blood because life is what the covenant pledges to deliver. The animal’s death is what we would call collateral damage today, but its death was not the grim purpose of the rite. Blood offering was a hopeful sign that assured the future of the community. Israel’s priests were in the blood business. Handling blood was necessary during circumcision as well as any animal-based sacrificial rites. The anointing of priests and readmittance rites of former lepers involved markings with blood . The reverse was also true for priests: Avoiding the wrong sources of blood was crucial to their profession. A priest, like any other citizen of the community, became ritually unclean by contact with improper blood: women in their lunar cycle, the sores of the sick, and the bodies of the dead. This kind of blood was a harrowing brush with death. If a priest performed rituals of life for the sake of the community, contact with death made him unfit for duty. Letter to the Hebrews scholar Albert Vanhoye notes that Jesus becomes a radically new priest in Israel. If ritual purity was meant to separate the priest from his mortality and unite him with God’s life, Jesus makes the opposite move, uniting himself with humanity—not deeming equality with God something to be grasped. If a priest crossed to the other side of the road to avoid contact with his bloodied fellow citizen in the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus does not shun full immersion in the suffering and death of humanity. Jesus uses his own body and blood to effect the life of a new covenant. Our new priest no longer lends us the promise of longer mortality but of brilliant immortality. The sign of blood will never be the same. Related Scripture links The ritual sin-offering: Lev. 16 Ashes of the heifer: Num. 19:1-10 Covenant stories: Gen. 9:9-17; 15:1-21; Exod. 19:1-8; 2 Sam. 7:8-16; Jer. 31:31-34; Ezek. 34:23-31; Isa. 7:10-15; 49:15; 55:3 Water and blood: Rom. 6:3-4; 1 John 5:6-8 Supper discernment: 1 Cor. 11:23-29 Catechism links Eucharist: CCC 737; 790; 1000; 1088; 1099; 1113-1121; 1210-1211; 1322-1405

Authors Alice Camille

blood offering priest

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28 Feb 2010 - Second Sunday of Lent, Cycle C

The Genesis story utilizes an ancient rite in which the divided animals symbolize the fate of those who break the covenant, and the birds of prey represent anything that might threaten the covenant. The third chapter of the Letter to the Philippians contrasts the false teachers in the Philippian Christian community who deny the full meaning of Christ’s cross and are caught up with earthly matters, with those who imitate Christ and put their faith in more than this world. In the Transfiguration story, Moses and Elijah point to Christ’s messianic fulfillment of God’s promises. Jesus’ “exodus” story mirrors the Israelites’ passage through the Red Sea and threatened destruction to salvation. Homily points Faith means putting our faith in God, not in any particular outcome. Abram trusted in God and received the covenant as a reward for his loyalty. In Israel, blood covenants were intended to restore life and protect the people from the consequences of their sinfulness. Jesus is God’s great testimony that the sinful world is transformed, and we can put our faith in that.

Faith abram blood offering

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Exploring the word

25 Feb 2018 - Second Sunday of Lent, Cycle B

Let’s have a show of hands: Who gave up something for Lent this year? For many Catholics, the Lenten sacrifice is part and parcel of these 40 days. It’s another reason to wear penitential purple: 40 days without chocolate. Without dessert. Without coffee. But we know that sacrifice doesn’t necessarily involve the rejection of material things. This year, some of us may be giving up gossip or using cuss words or spending the evening parked in front of the TV or complaining. These are good practices that hopefully will take root in Lent and become standard behavior. Some people may have decided to go all out and give up large sums of money in a generous demonstration of Christian charity. We could certainly use more of those! But some folks have given up on “giving up” as a spiritual practice. They are trying instead to do something positive and proactive: spending more time in prayer or with their kids or caring for their health in exercise or pledging involvement with social concerns. The “giving up” business focused too hard on the negative for these people, and they are trying a new approach to the disciplines of Lent. But what if we stopped thinking of ourselves altogether? What if we gave up thinking about Lent as a kind of moral self-improvement program and considered the root meaning of sacrifice? The ancient practice of sacrifice Sacrifice shares a root with the word sacred. A sacrifice is an act that makes one holy—that is, a sharer in the nature of God. Every religious tradition includes sacrificial practices intended to bring worshipers closer to the Divine. The goal is not to become better people but to experience union with God. All ancient sacrifice involved offering a gift of some kind, and the gift invariably was alive. Life, understood to reside in the blood, was offered to God because it is the most precious thing there is. Every sacrifice therefore consisted of an animal sacrifice, plus grains and “first fruits” to set a full banquet before the Lord. When the blood was poured, sprinkled, or splashed against the altar, the sacrifice was considered complete. Sacrifices came in different varieties, depending on the occasion. Some were peace offerings, celebratory events of the good relationship between God and the community. In this celebration, after the spattering of the blood, everyone enjoyed the ritual meal. Other sacrifices were intended as sin or guilt offerings; no one but the priests ate the partially burnt meal, which they did for God by proxy to express its acceptance. A third kind of sacrifice was the “whole burnt offering.” This was a supreme form of adoration. In this ritual, God accepted the entire gift in thanks for blessings received or anticipated. The whole burnt offering was suitable on the occasion of a leper being declared clean, at the consecration of priests, to consecrate the new temple, or at the sealing ceremony for the covenant at Sinai, among others. Human sacrifices, rare even in ancient cultures, fell into the third category as whole burnt offerings. The ultimate gift was rendered to God as a testimony of perfect confidence and praise. That business at Moriah Every parent I know shrinks at the story of Abraham and Isaac in the land of Moriah. What kind of father agrees to sacrifice his child to God in cold blood, under any conceivable circumstances? It does not help matters to point out that God sent an angel at the last minute to stop the sacrifice, nor to compare this event with the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. No parent, the compassionate heart insists, should be called upon to kill his or her child. Period. The story of the sacrifice of Isaac was told, in fact, to underscore that very idea. This God, Abraham’s God, was after something very different from what other gods may have been looking for from their adherents. Abraham, we recall, started out life as a pagan in Ur of the Chaldees. Though he agreed in later years to follow a new God with singular loyalty, a good part of his life had been surrendered to the pursuit of other gods and their demands. We can imagine the temptation to prove himself and his fidelity to this exclusive God would have been strong. Strong enough to offer the life of his long-awaited son? The storyteller styles this event as a test of Abraham’s character before God. But the story was most likely told to later generations as an example of God’s character before humanity. The God of Abraham was not looking for the supreme sacrifice of life from us. God had higher dreams for human life than to see it splashed against an altar. Related scripture links The blood is the life: Lev. 17:11 Complete laws regarding sacrifice: Lev. chs. 1-7 God’s servant as lamb of sacrifice: Isa. 53; John 1:29 Jesus as the sacrifice: Heb. 9:11-10:18 Christian life as sacrifice: Rom. 12:1; Phil. 2:17, 4:18 Catechism links Images of God: CCC 35; 203; 210; 214221; 284; 369370 Transfiguration: CCC 554556; 568

Authors Alice Camille

sacrifices Abraham 40 days offerings

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Homily stories

25 Feb 2018 - Second Sunday of Lent, Cycle B

Every few years, yet another corporate scandal spurs a new round of calls for tough legislation against corporate greed and promises from CEOs to clean up their acts and police themselves. But mass firings and major restructurings seem to be the only fixes they ever propose. Like Abraham in his offering of Isaac, companies offer grandiose sacrifices they think will be pleasing to consumers and legislators, but their efforts are actually far wide of the mark. What people want are companies they can trust. They want to know that the people with whom they work or whose services they contract or products they buy have a basic level of decency that would make lying and theiving unthinkable. What will it take to achieve this modest goal? We must start with our own daily choices—the ones that shape who we are and what we will tolerate in ourselves and others. How do we treat our clients, customers, and coworkers? Do we recognize their humanity? Do we consider how our actions are going to affect them directly or indirectly? Do we care? If not, then that’s where the problem begins. Paul tells the Romans: “If God is for us, who can be against us?” Live in honesty and truth, and there’ll be no need for sweeping promises to change.

Authors Patrice J. Tuohy

corporate greed Abraham sacrifice offering Honesty

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02 Jun 2024 - Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi), Cycle B

I was in my friend Billy’s kitchen waiting for him to come downstairs so we could go out and play. Billy was the oldest of nine kids. Dinner was over, and his mother stood at the kitchen counter and dealt out the bread for eight sandwiches—12 pieces of bread, side by side, for the six kids who were in school, and four more pieces next to them to make the two sandwiches her husband would take to work with him. One after another she spread mustard on the left-hand slice of bread, and one-by-one she placed two slabs of bologna on the right-hand side. Swiftly and deftly she brought the two parts of the sandwich together and wrapped the bundle tightly in waxed paper. She placed each sandwich in a bag with two cookies and an apple and lined the bags in rows in their refrigerator, her husband’s on the top shelf. Years later when I was making sandwiches for my daughters I thought of Billy’s mom and wondered just how many sandwiches she has made in her lifetime. In one of writer Andre Dubus’ short stories, a father reflects on the simple act of making sandwiches for his kids. He draws a connection between his offering of bread and lunch meat with Jesus’ self-offering in the bread and wine of the Eucharist. Is it such a far stretch? Not when we do this in remembrance of Him.

Authors Tom McGrath

self-offering

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