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| Thomas More by Hans Holbein the Younger. |
TWO YEAR
LECTIONARY
PATRISTIC
VIGILS
READINGS
Editions Exordium
Books 1982, Augustine Press2001
LENT
YEAR 2
Monday of the
Third Week in Lent Year II
First
Reading
From the book of Exodus (24:1-18)
Sirach
45:5-6; Acts 7:38
Responsory
God allowed Moses to hear his
voice and led him into the cloud.
– Face to face he
gave him his commandments,
that he might teach Jacob
his precepts and Israel his decrees.
In the desert
assembly
Moses was the
mediator between our ancestors and the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai
– Face to face ...
Second Reading
From A
Treatise upon the Passion by Saint Thomas More
(Chapter
4, sermon 1. Partially modernized)
More's Treatise (or as we should say
today "homilies") upon the Passion was probably written in the early
months of 1534. This extract from it contrasts the old covenant and the new.
The first was ratified by the blood of an animal, the second by the blood of a
man who was also God. Through that blood, which he gives us to drink in the
blessed sacrament, our sins are forgiven.
In
the twenty-fourth chapter of Exodus it is related that Moses, in confirmation
of the old law, put half the blood of the sacrifice into a cup, and the other
half he shed upon the altar. And after the book of the law had been read he
sprinkled the blood upon the people, and said unto them: This is the blood
of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in all these words. And so
was the Old Testament ratified and confirmed with blood. And in like manner was
the New Testament confirmed with blood, saving that, in order to declare the
greater excellence of the New Testament brought by the Son of God, above the
Old Testament brought by the prophet Moses, whereas the Old Testament was
ratified with the blood of a brute beast, the New Testament was ratified with
the blood of a reasonable man, and of that man who was also God, that is to
say, with the blessed blood of our holy Saviour himself. And that self-same
blood did our Lord here give unto his apostles in this blessed sacrament, as he
plainly declared himself, saying: This is my blood of the New Testament,
or: This is the chalice of the New Testament in my blood which
shall be shed for you and for all for the remission of sins.
When
our Lord said this, he declared therein the efficacy of the New Testament above
the old, in that the old law in the blood of beasts could only promise the
remission of sin that was to come later. For as Saint Paul says: It was
impossible that sin should be taken away by the blood of brute beasts. But the
new law with the blood of Christ does perform the thing that the old law
promised, that is, the remission of sin And therefore our Saviour said: This is
the chalice of the New Testament in my blood – that is, to be
confirmed in my blood – which shall be shed for the remission of sins.
His
words also declared the wonderful excellence of this new blessed sacrament
above the sacrifice of the paschal lamb, in these words: For you and for
all. For in these words our Saviour spoke, says Saint Chrysostom, as though
he meant to say: The blood of the paschal Lamb was shed only for the first-born
among the children of Israel, but this blood of mine shall be shed for the
remission of the sin of all the whole world
Responsory Revelation 5:9; Psalm 85:9
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