Speaking of Sunday readings

I realize we're not all on the Catholic liturgical calendar, but any Christian (or person interested in Christianity) can offer thoughtful comment on what the readings have to say... So, without further ado:

Reading 1
Ex 24:3-8

When Moses came to the people
and related all the words and ordinances of the LORD,
they all answered with one voice,
"We will do everything that the LORD has told us."
Moses then wrote down all the words of the LORD and,
rising early the next day,
he erected at the foot of the mountain an altar
and twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel.
Then, having sent certain young men of the Israelites
to offer holocausts and sacrifice young bulls
as peace offerings to the LORD,
Moses took half of the blood and put it in large bowls;
the other half he splashed on the altar.
Taking the book of the covenant, he read it aloud to the people,
who answered, "All that the LORD has said, we will heed and do."
Then he took the blood and sprinkled it on the people, saying,
"This is the blood of the covenant
that the LORD has made with you
in accordance with all these words of his."

Reading II
Heb 9:11-15

Brothers and sisters:
When Christ came as high priest
of the good things that have come to be,
passing through the greater and more perfect tabernacle
not made by hands, that is, not belonging to this creation,
he entered once for all into the sanctuary,
not with the blood of goats and calves
but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.
For if the blood of goats and bulls
and the sprinkling of a heifer's ashes
can sanctify those who are defiled
so that their flesh is cleansed,
how much more will the blood of Christ,
who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God,
cleanse our consciences from dead works
to worship the living God.

For this reason he is mediator of a new covenant:
since a death has taken place for deliverance
from transgressions under the first covenant,
those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance.


Gospel
Mk 14:12-16, 22-26

On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread,
when they sacrificed the Passover lamb,
Jesus' disciples said to him,
"Where do you want us to go
and prepare for you to eat the Passover?"
He sent two of his disciples and said to them,
"Go into the city and a man will meet you,
carrying a jar of water.
Follow him.
Wherever he enters, say to the master of the house,
'The Teacher says, "Where is my guest room
where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?"'
Then he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready.
Make the preparations for us there."
The disciples then went off, entered the city,
and found it just as he had told them;
and they prepared the Passover.
While they were eating,
he took bread, said the blessing,
broke it, gave it to them, and said,
"Take it; this is my body."
Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them,
and they all drank from it.
He said to them,
"This is my blood of the covenant,
which will be shed for many.
Amen, I say to you,
I shall not drink again the fruit of the vine
until the day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God."
Then, after singing a hymn,
they went out to the Mount of Olives.

What does it mean to be cleansed by blood?

The passage from Paul reminded me of the sprinkling of the congregation with water. We think of water as cleaning--the world washed clean by the Flood, people washed clean in baptism.

But Moses sprinkles blood on the people, and it is being washed in Christ's blood that renders us clean for eternal life. THAT'S the new covenant.

It's also, pardon, kind of an icky image. A metaphor? Okay, but still, a very strange image. You think of Lady Macbeth trying to wash the blood out, and here Christ is washing the blood in. (?)

..."washed in the blood" really gets emphasised amoung Southern Chrisitians. I was listening to a country song (yes, I enjoy some country music) and this phrased was used. The song was about a young man wanting to date an young lady and, the young lady's Dad wanted to know if the lad was "washed in the blood".

That is one thing I have to say for country music, it is probably the last place in popular culture where Christianity is openly expressed.

But, getting back to the phrase, "washed in the blood". It obviously ties into the sacracfice that produced the new covenant. I don't know if there is any benefit to over thinking this to the point where we draw the image seen in "Carrie".

Maybe this comes to the same point as transublanation. I must confess, I get a bit confused because of the explanation of how it is the Body of Christ but not actually flesh. So, I just put my head down and except that the Eucharist is the body of Christ, however it happens. My focus is always that I am being joined to Christ when I receive.

called A Conflict of Visions, by Thomas Sowell. In it, he lays out what he calls the "constrained" and "unconstrained" visions of life (basically, the former believes man is fallen, the latter that man is perfectible, the former that the world will never have perfect anything, the latter that so long as any one person is suffering we need to reform society, etc.). Anyway, one hallmark of the "constrained" vision that he discusses is that those who think along these lines trust tradition and the common sense of society and so don't need every last thing articulated and explained to them, whereas the "unconstrained" vision requires that everything must be articulated clearly and logically before they will give an idea or belief any credence. The former believe that social processes and systems are far wiser than the work of any one person's or committee's intellect, where the latter assume that the social system, being blind and not articulately designed, ought to be tossed out and replaced by a logical system of our own making--us being the intellectuals, the best and the brightest.

Your comment about not having a clear explanation of the eucharist but putting your head down and accepting its truth seems perfectly in keeping with the "constrained" vision (which Sowell, and yours truly, would consider the wiser vision). There is something to be said for faith that hasn't been perfectly, logically articulated.

On the other hand, I still find the image of washing in blood as counter-intuitive, since blood is icky, sticky, smelly....

...having the constrained view (have I got that right?). Having been a HAC, you described my former attitute to the "T". I wouldn't budge on anything unless I had a complete understianding of it.

My updated view of our Catholic Mysteries (you previously had a great thread on this) is part in parcel with the constrained view. It is the simple acceptance of knowing that one will never know it all in this World.

I think the phrase "washed in the Blood" is poetic because, it is another way of saying "I believe in the sacrifice".

Thanks for suggesting the book. I have read Sowell's work before. He is a sharp guy.

I am stuck in Lewis's "Miracles" and have decided to move on to "The Great Divorce" after reading Austen's description of that book.

It reminds me of when I read Michner's "Alaska", I read five other books before I finished it.

I also got stuck in Miracles and stopped reading. LOL

...after I started "Miracles" , I had to start reading a beginners guide to philosophy (I got stuck in that too).

I think I have pushed the envelope of my intellect. I am not as smart as I thought I was. (closest thing to a moron emoticon).

Actually, you getting stuck means I am in some pretty elite company. Thank you.

where we try to shock each other by books we started but never finished, or books we never read at all. Like Moby Dick or Ulysses.

Cradle and I used to do that game in grad school.

I also do it with movies. I've never seen E.T. or Titanic or The Road Warrior or Blade Runner, etc.

I think it's good to keep a constant eye on what you haven't read or seen.

I also started Lewis' autobiography Surprised by Joy and could not finish it. I started Screwtape and put it down. I love Lewis, but maybe not everything.

a great movie in E.T. A 3 year old and a 93 year old can thoroughly enjoy the movie and you can't find many movies that fit that bill unless they are animated. It would be a great two hours of well spent time with your kids IMO.

I had intended to start a list of what I have and haven't read. I should do it with movies too.

A couple of years ago I started picking up some classics. I read "Last of the Mohicans" about 10 years ago (before the movie). A couple of interesting things, it took a couple of chapters to get use to his style of prose. People today simply don't talk like that. "I am a man with no cross in his blood."

I thought it was cool that most of the story takes place in NY (Lake George area). I also though it was cool that the story was written only a decade or two from the time when the story would have taken place. The story contained some anti-racist ideas that would have been very radical for the time.

I digressed. Those three movies you mentioned, I saw them. Blade runner was a bit cultish, the other two were more popular culture. You should see Titanic if for no other reason you get more of an apprecation for the sinking of the Green Day floating stage in Lake SpringField....."Gentlemen it has been an honor to play with you." I'm king of the world.

Hope you all don't mind chatting about movies.

Did any of you see an animated movie called "Chicken Run"? It was done by the guy that did "Wallace and Gomet".

Anyway, Mel does the voice of one of the lead characters. In the begining of the movie he is flying through the air in some contraption, yelling, "FREEEEDOOOM". This was the last word yelled by his character William Wallace at the end of "Brave Heart". I believe Chicken Run was his next movie following Brave Heart which means, his last line in Brave Heart was his opening line in Chicken Run.

I thought, "Mel doesn't take himself too seriously." That is a good thing.

"and years from now, dying in your beds, what would you give for one chance, just one chance to come back here and tell our enemies, "You can take our lives but you'll never take our FREEDOM!"

is "The Patriot" in which his character plays a Francis Marion (The Swamp Fox) type character during The American Revolution in the backwoods of The Carolinas. Although gruesome in some scenes the movie is well done and takes us all the way to Cornwallis' surrender at Yorktown.

.....really had a nice run of movies there promoting the same thing, real life people who embodied greatness and sacrifice. Brave Heart, The Patriot and We were Soldiers. Of course the umtimate (which he did not star in) the Passion of the Christ.