Message from Fr. James - May 31, 2026

God’s covenant in blood with Moses

Dear St. Martin’s Parishioners,

God saves us through covenants. A covenant is a relationship. A covenant means belonging fully to one another. A covenant means experiencing mutual love and freedom. Covenants have conditions that maintain the unity of the relationship. Covenants have consequences if the relationship is betrayed. God used covenants to save us throughout history because covenants are such powerful relationships.

Fr. Dave announced that our Giving Tuesday 2025 project would create an art gallery of God’s covenants. From Sacred Scripture, we chose to paint eight covenants between God and us. The history of our salvation is made in God’s covenants with Adam, Eve, Noah, Abraham, Moses, the tribes of Israel, King David, and, finally, the new and eternal covenant with Jesus Christ. Each of these covenants promised a relationship between God and human kind. Each one expresses God’s love for you. Each covenant saves you from death and sin. The painting of the fifth covenant, with Moses, is now hanging in the parish hall below the church.

The scene is set after God gave the Ten Commandments and before the people worshiped the golden calf. “Moses took the book of the covenant and read it in the presence of all the people. They said, ‘All that the Lord has commanded, we will do and obey.’ Moses took the blood and sprinkled it on the people saying, ‘Behold, the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words’” (Exodus 24:7-8). It is a new paradise. The lawful communion that God had with Adam and Eve after creation and before the fall was restored and expanded to all the people of Israel who had left Egypt. This lawful communion is opened to each of us in the hour when we attend Mass, where we hear the words of the covenant in the Scripture and behold the blood of the new and eternal covenant in the Eucharist. Only God has the power to recreate these moments of heaven on earth, and God wants to do that for you here at St. Martin’s!

In your life, God does not come to earth to exact revenge on Adam’s race again and again for the sin of Adam and Eve. He comes again and again to heal, transform, and save you, me, and all of us. “They saw the God of Israel… but God did not raise his hand against these leaders of Israel. They saw God, and they ate and drank” (Exodus 24:10-11). God wants to see us, and to eat and drink with us. This is God’s final goal. It is God’s motivation. To succeed, God is even willing to sacrifice his own son, “Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead and the ruler of the kings of the earth – He loves us and has washed away our sins with his blood and made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father – To him be glory and power forever and ever! Amen!” (Revelation 1:5-6).

In Christ,

Fr. James