In Episode 07, we talked about the unity of the texts of the Mass. A reflection I wrote on the 12th Sunday after Pentecost, provides a splendid example of a Mass with a unified theme. By the parable of the Good Samaritan, the Church raises before our eyes Christ, the new Moses, who establishes the true and perfect worship that has power to save us from sin and Satan.
Jesus: New Moses in the Parable of the Good Samaritan
"He went over to him," we read of the Good Samaritan, "and poured oil and wine of the wounds of injured man."What is this oil and wine? Is it not our anointing with the Holy Spirit and our being fed with the body and blood of the Lord? And what is that but our spiritual worship. We, adopted as children of God, and given the seal of salvation, offer with, in, and through Christ the one sacrifice pleasing to God: His own son, under the form of bread and wine.
The old law of Moses was not able to save a man. We, injured by the side of the road, could not be saved by the priest of the old law, for whom ritual purity forbade his ministration. The priests of Levites of the Mosaic law of worship could not heal us. Only the true worship instituted by Christ has power to restore what the thieves have taken.
In order to show us that this is what the Church puts in front of us by the parable of the Good Samaritan, we are given a Epistle, from Second Corinthians. Paul, claiming to be a minister of the New Covenant, the spiritual Covenant that brings life, contrasts Moses' Covenant, a death-bring Covenant, with that of Christ's, and he proves the superiority of the new.
"If the ministry of promulgating a Law written on stone was surrounded by such splendor that the Israelites could not look Moses in the face, will not the ministry by which we propagate the Spirit be far more glorious still?"
But, lest we miss what the Church would have us focus on, the Church makes it clear directly in the Offertory:
"Moses prayed in the sight of the Lord his God and said: Why, Lord, art thou angry with Thy people? Put thy wrath from thy heart: remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to whom Thou didst swear to give a land flowing with milk and honey. And the Lord was appeased and refrained from the mischief He said he would do to His people."
The Liturgy Applies to Us
We, O Christian, are the one injured and robed by the side of the road. It is not the first Moses, but the second who is our priest. He prays for us, offering the bread and wine of His own body and blood, and the Lord hears Him and is appeased . Pouring wine and oil into our wounds, He heals us. This ministration far surpasses the old ministration that we cry out, in the words of the gradual:"I will bless the Lord at all times, His praises ever on my lips. My heart shall find its glory in the Lord, let the lowly hear and be glad. Lord, God of my salvation, day and night have I cried before Thee. Alleluia!"
It is the injured man, cured by the water and wine, who has cried day and night, who has been heard, who has been saved; it is on his lips that the praises of God ever abide. Though once so lowly he lay abandoned at the side of the Lord, the law of old unable to save him, not he is saved. And thus he offers to God, in the words of the secret, "the offerings placed on the altar", the offerings of the New Covenant in His blood, begging "that through [God's] generous forgiveness, they may honor [His] name."
That this offering is the very wine Christ had poured into his wounds in the parable of the Good Samaritan is brought out by the Communion verse:
"With the fruit of Thy works, Lord, shall the earth by filled, to bring forth food from the soil and wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to give him a joyful countenance, and bread to strengthen his heart."
It has not been without effect that the Church prayed in the Collect at the beginning of the Mass:
"Almighty and merciful God"--almighty because He saved us, merciful because he looks upon us in our misery, beaten and bruised by the side of the road--"by whose gift Thy faithful are able to serve and praise Thee,"--the gift is the pouring of wine and oil, and by this gift we can serve Him, which in liturgical terms means to offer Him liturgical service, for He is the New Moses, who has established a new and efficacious worship--"grant, we beg thee, that we may run without failing towards Thy promises"--run, as athletes, who have, in the ancient tradition, been anointed with oil.
We can see how this prayer has been fulfilled mysteriously in the celebration of Mass, and thus we pray in the post-communion prayer: "may the participation in this holy mystery [the one now offered] give us expiation and protection", expiation because we were the ones wounded by sin, and protection because, having been rescued, we long to never again be left to die by sin and Satan.
God has indeed, in the words of the Introit, "come to [our] aid", for though our enemies sought our life, God has made them tremble and perish.
Suaviter Disponensque Omnia--Sweetly Providence Places All in Order
In the marvelous workings of providence and the beauty of the Liturgical Calendar, the feast of the Transfiguration is placed near this Sunday. In that feast, we see the greater glory of Christ, the new lawgiver, than that of Moses.And in another happy event, the Matins readings for today, the readings for the first Sunday of August, is the beginning of Proverbs, where we read: "Hear, my son, the discipline of thy father and dismiss not the law of thy mother." How can we, reading this on this Sunday, see anything else in this than Christ, the new lawgiver, speaking to us, urging us to follow the way of life He has set before us by His teaching and example (discipline) and submit our heart to the traditions maintained in the Church, our mother?
As we continue to contemplate the Transfiguration this week, let us recall the manner in which Christ gave us the new law of Eucharistic worship and healed us and anointed us that we may run unfailingly, and let us turn to this law, preserved in Mother Church, and submit our life and heart to the discipline of her liturgical worship.
