Thursday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Today's Mass Readings

In today's first reading from the Prophet Jeremiah, we read about a new covenant whose laws are written on our hearts. The Lord specifically contrasts this new covenant with the old covenant forged with the Israelites at Mount Sinai in Exodus. Jeremiah 31:31 is the only place in the Old Testament where we find explicit mention of a new covenant. In the New Testament, that phrase, new covenant, only appears on Jesus' lips at one instance, at the Last Supper where Jesus explains that the Eucharist is the new covenant in His blood (Luke 22:20). It is especially at the Eucharist then that we renew this new covenant, a new covenant forged with us at our baptism which is a participation in the death and resurrection of Jesus, the death and resurrection which initiated the new covenant. The old covenant was forged with the death of sacrificial animals, and sealed with circumcision. The new covenant is forged with Jesus' sacrificial death, and baptism is the new covenant form of circumcision.

What does this say for us today? Circumcision was meant to be a physical representation of an inward reality. St. Paul talks about the circumcision of the heart (Romans 2:29), just as the Old Testament also spoke of such an inward "circumcision" (e.g., Deuteronomy 10:12 and 30:6). We need to be consecrated to God inwardly, which is manifest especially in our loving actions toward others. We should examine our conscience, since the Law of God is written on our hearts as Jeremiah explains in his discussion of our new covenant. Have we fallen short in our relationship with God and with others? If so, we need to repent, to turn back to God, again and again.

The prayer from today's responsorial psalm, Psalm 51, is a great way to begin. Let us strive constantly to live out lives of love and holiness in our new covenant relationship with God. And when we fall down, let us get right back up again and turn back to God.

- Jeff Morrow