Optional Memorial: St Vincent of Saragossa<\/em><\/p>\n (Heb 6:10-20; Ps 111; Mk 2:23-28)<\/p>\n ************************************************<\/p>\n \u201cGod is ever mindful of his covenant.\u201d<\/p>\n That sentence from today\u2019s psalm, along with the two disparate readings (the first reading and the gospel are not as connected as usual), combine to invite us to be a people in a covenant relationship with God filled with hope and centered on the law of love.<\/p>\n God has from the very beginning desired to have an intimate covenant relationship with God\u2019s people. The first covenant was with a couple, Adam and Eve. To them God promised that a woman would bear a child who would overcome the snake. The next covenant was with a family – Noah was ordered to take his whole family into the ark as the world was cleansed. Then God made a covenant with a tribe \u2013 ordering Abraham to take his whole tribe and set out on a journey of faith, not even knowing where he was going to, which is why we call him our father in faith. The first reading describes that covenant as a promise to Abraham guaranteed by an oath.<\/p>\n After that, God made a covenant with a nation \u2013 the people of Israel at Mt. Sinai through Moses and the 10 commandments. They were to be icons of God here on earth, drawing all the other nations to God. That, we know, they always failed to do, consistently falling for the false gods of possessions, prestige and power.<\/p>\n Then God made a different covenant with David. God swore to him that God would be faithful to him no matter what he did. And David did fall short, acting out of lust, then arranging a murder to cover up his adultery. However, when confronted by the prophet Nathan, David admitted his guilt, repented, and experienced God\u2019s unconditional love through forgiveness of his sins. That transformed David into the only true king Israel ever had.<\/p>\n King David<\/p><\/div>\n That is why Jesus is always referred to as Son of David, of the house and line of David, born in the city of David. He is never referred to as Son of Moses, Elijah or any other prophet. And in today\u2019s gospel, Jesus speaks about a time when David actually broke the priestly temple rules, just as Jesus would often break the Sabbath to heal.<\/p>\n David did what he did because he knew he was truly loved by God, and had been given kingly energy by God. Entering the temple and eating the Bread of Presence was a prophetic gesture demonstrating that he was acting in the name of God, who had made him king. He was proclaiming if God was there at that moment, that is what God would have done \u2013 so secure was he in the Father\u2019s love. In that way, David is a prefiguring of Jesus, the true king of Israel, and the final covenant of God\u2019s love for us through the sacrificial love of Jesus for us on the cross.<\/p>\n The first reading mentions this covenant is a source of hope, a steadfast anchor to the soul. Pierre Olivier Trembley OMI, recently named a bishop, states the youth he encountered in his ministry at a university lack hope. They lack hope because they don\u2019t have an infinite horizon, a mega-narrative a bigger picture provided by faith into which they can place the events of their so often confused lives. All they are left with is today, and if something negative happens, like a break up of a relationship, they despair and some even take their own lives.<\/p>\n Something as simple as the old catechism question, \u201cWhy did God make us?\u201d and it\u2019s answer, \u201cTo know, love and serve God in this life, and to be eternally happy with him in the next\u201d provides us with that infinite horizon. It is like the woman who asked, in her will, to be buried with a fork in her hand because her mother always told her, \u201cKeep your fork \u2013 the best is yet to come.\u201d When we know the best is yet to come, that our final home is not in this life, we can put up with failure, disappointments and frustration, because we are living in hope undergirded with faith.<\/p>\n The psalm also serves to strengthen our hope in this covenant love of God who is gracious, merciful, always mindful of his covenant forever. Our response is to be grateful praise and hope. Even today\u2019s Gospel Acclamation picks up that theme: \u201cSee how great is the hope to which we have been called.\u201d<\/p>\n In the gospel, we see tension between the Pharisees and Jesus centered around keeping the Sabbath law. They were scandalized at the casual attitude taken by Jesus and his disciples towards not working on the Sabbath.<\/p>\n The Word Among Us offers some insightful thoughts on this matter. Like rules for a young child, the sabbath guidelines that Jesus talks about in today\u2019s gospel were meant to help God\u2019s people make a habit of choosing God\u2019s ways. They were meant to instill the practice of prayer and rest into the rhythm of life. Obeying the law in itself wasn\u2019t the goal. Staying close to God was the goal \u2013 loving God and giving God time and space in their lives. This is just as true for us as it was for ancient Israel. God did not create us to slavishly observe sabbath law. He created the Sabbath to help us grow into mature believers who live to worship God and follow God\u2019s law of love.<\/p>\n Today\u2019s optional memorial is for St. Vincent, an example for us of someone who understood covenant love and hope. The first Spanish martyr, Vincent was a deacon in Saragossa, Spain, in the 3rd<\/sup>century. Deacons were responsible for the local church\u2019s works of charity and mercy \u2013 most often the only form of organized relief in those days \u2013 and preaching was often part of this work. Vincent excelled in his duties and became known to hostile Roman authorities. He was arrested with his bishop, tortured, imprisoned and killed in 304. He is patron of wine producers, sailors and brick makers.<\/p>\n St Vincent of Saragossa<\/p><\/div>\n The Eucharist is a share in that covenant love of Jesus, and truly an act of praise to our God for God\u2019s love made known to us by his Son.<\/p>\n May our celebration empower us to develop an even deeper covenant relationship with Jesus, and empower us to express that covenant through lives of hope and loving service like St. Vincent.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" WEEK 02 02 Covenants of Hope and Love Optional Memorial: St Vincent of Saragossa (Heb 6:10-20; Ps 111; Mk 2:23-28) ************************************************ \u201cGod is ever mindful of his covenant.\u201d That sentence from today\u2019s psalm, along with the two disparate readings (the first reading and the gospel are not as connected as usual), combine to invite us […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,4,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-homilies","category-ordinary-time"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1944"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1947,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1944\/revisions\/1947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/King-David-246x300.jpg\")
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