Synagoga and Ecclesia: Old and New Covenant of God

One of my favorite topics in the seminary was Second Temple Cultic Rituals of the Jewish People. When we talk about the word cultic it means ritual not just crazy people gathered together drinking Kool-Aid. In the time of Jesus, the temple had all the sacrifices for different purposes. Some sacrifices were of sheep or goats or bulls or grain. Some were libations of wine. The Jews did all these different sacrifices in order to maintain the covenant or to repair the covenant that was broken so often. It was broken so often that it broke the heart of God! 

Our Lord gave himself to the people of the Old Testament time and time and time again only to have this covenant be broken. And remember this is not a contract. A contract is just a legally binding thing. There are conditions X, Y, and Z that you have to meet. A covenant is a giving of oneself. It is like marriage. Marriage is a covenant not a contract.” If you do not do the dishes every single night after dinner, I am out of here.” That is a contract. That is not how marriage works. A covenant is a giving of oneself. 

Blessed Virgin Mary Holding Christ in Doorway of Strausbourg Cathedral

The art of the church helps us to understand the covenant of God. In the Cathedral of Strausbourg is one of my favorite statuary pieces. It is in the main entrance way. The Cathedral of Strausbourg is a stunning Cathedral with a big arch and big carvings in Strausbourg, France. The central image is the Blessed Mother holding out the Christ Child. Our Blessed Mother is the gate to the life of grace in many ways, for she is the one through whom Christ into the world, so she is there offering her Son to the world. 

Statue of Synagoga at the Strausbourg Cathedral

But on either side, on the pillars, are two statues, one of Synagoga (synagogue) and the other Ecclesia (the Church). The old covenant and the new, the Old Testament and the New Testament. Both are beautiful women. Beautiful. Dressed beautifully. Both obviously made splendid in the eyes of God. But the statue of Synagoga has a light veil across her eyes, blinding her. And although she is dressed regally, she carries a spear that has been snapped in several places, and she is holding onto that spear even though it is broken. 

Statue of Ecclesia at the Strausbourg Cathedral

And then you look at the statue Ecclesia, the Church and she is crowned and she has a mantle upon her and she is clutching a cross but the veil lays not over her eyes but over her hand, that hand which clutches the cross. Why? Because ultimately the covenant of the New Testament, the covenant that was brought by Jesus Christ, is not the covenant that is made by the agreement of the people of God with God himself. There are indeed agreements between God and us at our baptism, but our baptism cannot be broken by our sin. Why? Because the covenant is not by our blood or the blood of lambs or goats or by wine or grain, but it is the covenant of Jesus Christ and HIS blood. While we in the Church cling to the cross of Christ, and while we in the Church are incorporated into that covenant through baptism, it is not a covenant that is dependent upon our actions. No sin that we can commit will break that covenant because the covenant is wrought in the Blood of Christ. It is eternal. It is never ending. It cannot be broken. And so that is the symbolism behind the veil on the hand of the Church. While we cling to it, it is not ours. We cling to the cross of Christ, but it is not us that makes this covenant worthwhile. It is Christ. 

A lot of people look at the statues and say that we are down on the Jews, but that is not what it is at all. The statues are to be a reminder to us. How often do we, who have been incorporated into the Church by baptism, act like that statue of Synagoga? We act as though we cling to a broken spear, to our former ways which have broken our relationship with God time and time again, although they have not broken the covenant. But we have broken our relationship with God through sin and for some reason, we still cling to those sins. We are still blindfolded to the fact that we need to recognize our sin and turn away from it. We still prefer darkness. We do not understand the words that Jesus speaks in the Gospel, “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground it remains just a grain of wheat but if it dies it produces much fruit.” We cling to our grain of wheat that is ourselves, our little protective wall. “I am going to keep my grain of wheat, and I am going to have control over it. I am not going to let God have it because it is mine, and I am not going to let anything touch it, and I am not going to suffer.” 

That statue of Synagoga represents us clinging to something that is less than what God wants us to have. While the statue of Synagoga is beautiful, all she needs to be crowned is to reach up and remove the veil. It seems so simple. There is nothing keeping her from it. She is not a slave. She is not bound. She is free. And so are we. We need to reach up and remove the veil which is our blindness in our hearts to Christ, our blindness to our sin. Confession is the way that we do that. We have to die to ourselves. We cannot have control even over our own lives. We must allow God to have control. We need to make the right choices so that we do not need to worry about when the time is right. We let God worry about us. It is not us but God working through us that frees us. It is God keeping his covenant.

--Father Jacob Meyer

Fishers of Men and Fishes of Faithful

18 As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the lake—for they were fishermen. ¹⁹And he said to them, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.’ ²⁰Immediately they left their nets and followed him. ²¹As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. ²²Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him. (Matthew 4: 18-22)

Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.

This reading is always very nostalgic for any priest because it is the Lord calling his first priests, in fact, his first bishops of the Church. He is calling them out of the work of the world and setting them aside for a special mission and purpose, that is for gathering all of the people into God’s holy Church that he might rescue us, pull us out of the dangerous sea and get us to the place that he has prepared for us. The bark of Peter is that ship that takes us unto our heavenly home. So that is a wonderful thing.

And I was praying about this Gospel this week, I have to admit that, although I do not generally have attention deficit disorder, I do when I pray, because as I am praying and thinking about the Gospel, I would love to be caught up in the glories of heaven. But in my prayer, when thinking I was called to be a fisher of men, the only thing I could think of was the movie Finding Nemo. Which fish would I be? Because even though I am called to be a fisher of men, at one and the same time, I am also called to be a fish. We are all called to be fish! And I was not exactly thrilled about that idea. I do not like fish. I do not want to be a fish. And thinking about being caught in a net—I did not like that imagery. I was struggling with that. 

Finding Nemo

Of course, all analogies have their limits. None are perfect. However, I do think that realization of being caught in the net of Christ is a good image. While I was grappling with it, I realized two things: one is that if I was going to be a fish, I would be one of those puff fish with the spikes that expand so that, if someone is trying to eat you, they cannot. 

That realization was not important but this one is. I was thinking that this beauty of being caught, the beauty of being within the net of the Lord, is probably the most counter cultural understanding of the faith. We who so desire to be free, we who so desire to be the arbitrators of our own destiny, we who wish to follow our own path and do things our way, would actually desire to be caught in a net, to give up the mastery of our own lives and and give mastery to Christ. It seems very much unlike us at first because we think of this mastery in terms of the world. When we give up our freedom and give it to someone else, we can be abused. And we see that time and time again. Throughout the history of man, people abuse their mastery over others.

But the difference between that mastery and ultimately what God is calling us to is that, when we are caught in this net, our master becomes the one who knows us better than anyone else, who knows the very workings of our hearts, who made us, who loves us beyond all other things that are desirable. He wants the best for us. So, in other words, who else would we want to lead us? Ultimately there is the realization that we would rather be a slave to Christ then be free in the world. For in that slavery to Christ we find our truest freedom. That is the paradox of the Christian life, for when we are slaves to Christ we become who we are meant to be. Christ sees us and desires us to be who we are, who he created us to be, for he is the one who made us. And this is so important.

If I can't see the danger, is it really there?

But at the same time, the reality is that the net is not all-encompassing. As all fishermen know, there is always the fish that got away. We do not have to be caught. We do not have to let ourselves be caught. We as fish have the ability to swim deeper. And, as you know, in deep water, you can go deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper, and it is darker and darker and darker and the dangers increase, but you are, in a sense, free in the ways of the world. The danger is that if you stay in these deep waters eventually you do not even see the light because you are so used to the darkness. That is the nature of fish.  Some fish like to be in the dark and that is because they are used to it. Think of the Lord of the Rings, of Gollum, that little weird gray guy. “The sun! It hurts us.”

How often do we find goodness painful? How often do we, when we leave someone who has radically surrendered themselves to God, how often do we call those people the goody two shoes? Or we say, “That is just someone who is really into it. They are a little bit on the edge.” In reality, they have embraced that goodness, they have come out into the sun. And we who are so used to dwelling in the shadow of sin, sometimes we cannot take that sun, not all at once. But we know we need it. And so this is the invitation that God is making to us--to repent and to believe in the Gospel, to turn away from sin, to come towards the light, to recognize that ultimately we are destined to give ourselves to God in a radical way, to allow our lives to be led in that way that might label us the crazy ones, the fish that want to be in the net. We desire it.

And people might think that you are crazy, that you are giving up your freedom in the ways of the world. No! We are gaining so much more than we are giving up because here is a reality, if I can take this analogy a little farther. Those of us who are the fish caught in the net-- we are not going to your local seafood restaurant. We are not going to be in a butter cream sauce. The Lord is taking us fish, you who are caught in the net, to the aquarium that is prepared for us. He is going to take us, not to enslave us, not to fry us up, but to a place where we will be safe, where we have everything that we need. We will have creation as it ought to have been, free of all danger. 

Boundaries don't hem me in. They keep me safe.

And so our first step is to repent, to allow the fisherman to catch us, to allow ourselves to dwell in the net and not leap out. Everyone who is sitting here at Mass hearing me preach is in the net. My words are holding you captive now. I am giving this homily in church. You can’t get out! Do not leave Mass early! Why are you in this net? Are you caught in this net because you want to be here? Did you jump into the net or are you here because your parents woke you up and dragged you out of your bed with various threats and got you into the car to come here? Are you here simply because you know you are supposed to be, but you would rather be out there? Where are you in your relationship with God?

If you want to be in a better place, a happier place, then hear the words of God and follow. Repent. Believe in the Gospel. Do not believe in only a part of the Gospel. Do not believe in the Gospel as it suits you. Do not believe in the Gospel whenever it is nice or easy, but actually believe in the Gospel and change your life. Start small. Start with confession. People say, “Well, Father, you are preaching about confession all the time.” Well, yes! Because on those Saturdays when I sitting in the box, I am only all alone. I want to see more people! People think that you can measure the health of a parish if no one is coming to confession because that means everyone is a saint! No! As priests, we measure the health of the parish by how many people are struggling to repent and believe in the Gospel, how many people are struggling to put aside sin, to swim out of the darkness into the net and into the light, even though it is hard. How many people are struggling, for it is in struggling that we will be perfected. So there is nothing more devastating to a priest than to sit in the confessional bored out of our minds. Because essentially that means that our fish are happy in the dangers of the world and do not even desire the light. So pack me full on Saturday. Give me what I deserve. You want to be busy, Father? We’ll show you. You’ll be hearing confessions until you go to bed! Praise God!

And so, repent. Let us begin that journey. We are a world that has turned away from God. Let us listen to the words of the Lord and repent and stave off the evil that awaits us if we remain in the darkness.

Father Jacob Meyer, Visitor, Confraternity of Penitents

Letter to a Dying Woman Who Needs to Make Peace with God

The Confraternity of Penitents received this urgent prayer request for a woman who was dying. We reproduce the request here but have changed the name for privacy sake:

Please pray for Janine who is dying because of liver failure, that she would have the grace of true
repentance for her sins and complete trust in Jesus, our savior and friend. May God bless you for your faithful devotion and prayers.
In His service,
Jill

One woman who received this prayer request took the time to write back her thoughts and encouragement to Janine. Her letter is reproduced just as it was written.

Dear Janine,

I heard about your terrible suffering and wanted to communicate this message to you. God created your soul to live with Him eternally in the happiness of Heaven and He Loves you completely and entirely! All people are created in God's image and likeness - we are all made for Heaven!! We all know this Truth when we are conceived in the womb and reminded of it in the sacrament of Baptism, but this world is far from being heaven and makes many of us forget our Divine Creator and Heavenly Home. God understands this tragedy and extends us His Divine Mercy and Grace to Help save our souls - but we must accept it and turn to Him in humility in order to Receive It.

Please ask to speak with a Catholic Priest and do a confession and attend Catholic Holy Mass ASAP - it's best to do this in person but there are daily masses online if you can't go in person. Turning to God during your life - before your death - does more to save your soul and assure your eternal happiness than all the prayers said for you after your death. If you want to go to heaven then you must ask for God's Help, seek His Mercy and Grace and be humble, loving and kind before Him Who created you - and Who created the entire universe. 

Hating others who have hurt or wronged you is like trying to throw them off of a cliff - the problem is that when you throw them off you automatically go over yourself... Life is like a mirror in that way - "you get what you give". So Shift attention to God and His Divine Love which is a Reward in Itself - and thereby you will no longer suffer eternally. If it helps, you can feel sorry for those who are so hurt themselves that they have hurt you in your life. It's very important to shift your focus to the love of God if you want to go to Heaven. 

There's another good side effect to doing this - you may recover if it is God's Will and completely regain your health after turning to God with love and confessing your sins and truly repenting of them and asking for God's Help - and in fact many, many people have! Sin leads to suffering and death - hatred purchases suffering and death whereas Loving God and Loving others brings Life in this life and the next. 

You can read about the miracles brought about by conversions to the Catholic or Christian faith associated with any of the Saints including St. Brother Andre of Montreal. One man was bed ridden for years and was near death and finally did a confession with a Catholic priest and received other Catholic sacraments (the 7 Sacraments are Gifts from God for our health and happiness) and he went on to completely recover and live many years longer in good health! 

You will always be happy for lovingly asking God for His Help at this time and repenting of your sins and offering up your suffering in atonement for your sins and also to save the souls of poor sinners. Your anxiety will disappear once you are reconciled with God! Once you confess your sins, the Priest will give you some penance to do in atonement for your sins which may be to say a few short prayers to God. You will never regret doing this during your life whereas you may regret it eternally if you don't or it will significantly lengthen and intensify your purgatory which will not be fun. You may recover completely if it is God's Will so that you may glorify the Lord and your testimony will help others to save their souls - and that is what I am praying for Janine but either way you will be happy if you do this!

May God bless you Janine and may you embrace the Love and Mercy of God and find eternal salvation and hopefully recover too!!!

 Blessings in Christ,

Suzanne

At the Well with Jesus and the Samaritan Woman

4 Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John— ² although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. ³ So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.

⁴ Now he had to go through Samaria. ⁵ So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶ Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

⁷ When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” ⁸ (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

⁹ The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.^[a])

¹⁰ Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

¹¹ “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? ¹² Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”

¹³ Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

¹⁵ The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

¹⁶ He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

¹⁷ “I have no husband,” she replied.

Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. ¹⁸ The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”

¹⁹ “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet.²⁰ Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

²¹ “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ²² You Samaritans worship what you do not know;we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.²³ Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. ²⁴ God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

²⁵ The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

²⁶ Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

²⁷ Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”

²⁸ Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, ²⁹ “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” ³⁰ They came out of the town and made their way toward him.

³¹ Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”

³² But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”

³³ Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”

³⁴ “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. ³⁵ Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. ³⁶ Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. ³⁷ Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. ³⁸ I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”

³⁹ Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” ⁴⁰ So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. ⁴¹ And because of his words many more became believers.

⁴² They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.” (John 4: 1-42)

Many of us have been in the situation of Jesus at the well. We get caught in the ultimate family feud. Something insignificant has happened and no one gives in. Things happened so long ago that we do not even know what they are and what everyone is fighting about, but no one is going to give in. The Samaritan woman remembers the feud. She says to Jesus, “Why are you asking for a drink of water from me? You know the rules. Samaritans do not talk to Jews.”

The Samaritans had turned to idol worship and entered into mixed marriages with pagans. They tried to come back to Israel, but the situation got complicated when the Israelites were sent into the Babylonian exile. When they returned to Israel, the two peoples had developed in different ways.

Do we practice love when someone is venting under so much anger? Do we offer an olive branch? Do I desire an olive branch, to come back into fellowship with you after you have offended me? After Jesus’ resurrection, the Samaritans came back into observance. Jesus drew every single person into a relationship with himself. He came to bring all people to God.

What is needed to receive others with love? We need to enter into great trust in God and have him handle our anger. Jesus got the Samaritan woman to know herself, and by recognizing herself to come to know God. We need to put words to our sacrifices. We need this before we come to our just Savior. We have sinfulness in ourselves. We have some big items to bring to Jesus. If we put words to our sinfulness, Jesus will heal us.

How did the woman feel when she just owned up to her sins? Jesus did not trim her down. He forgave her. The woman was engaged in promiscuity which is something celebrated today, unfortunately. The woman came to the well to draw water to comfort her thirst. She came at a time when no one else would see her. But Jesus was there. People come to Christ for comfort and conversion. We have received the living waters in baptism, and Jesus promised this woman living water. God offers us living water in the sacraments of the Church. We receive God himself in the Eucharist. Jesus gives all of himself for everyone. He comes to those who confess their sins. They receive the fruits of that confession, His Body and Blood. You already showed your faith in Jesus Christ when you come to church. The woman at the well believed Jesus. We believe what we have heard. Draw close to the well so you can be free and receive the living water that is Jesus. When you drink of Him you will not be thirsty again.

--Father Jacob Meyer, Visitor, Confraternity of Penitents