Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:01 Well before we get going on the main topic, a lot of people have asked me or made comments about the condition of our country and, and the Supreme Court decision, all that. So I'll just make, uh, a few really brief remarks, but we shouldn't be surprised as our country falls apart. We shouldn't be surprised at all. I mean, the good Lord sent, how many times did the pope's come over here? And if you look at history, Pope's haven't been on tour very often in the past 2000 years. And certainly a bless of John Paul, his second, I known his 1979 visit, another time subsequent to that told us directly America abortion will be the test of your survival as a nation. With that was a test of our survivors. As a nation, we flunk, we flunked with a great big f. So that's not the only one. Um, there's four sins that cry out to heaven for vengeance.
Speaker 0 00:59 Okay? There's the sin that's very popular in San Francisco that cries out for heaven. Vengeance. If that thing, uh, is promoted or not punished, if the people that have suffered from that affliction aren't helped and if we actually promote it like we're doing, that alone is enough to render the end be the end of a country. I mean you saw what happened to the, the cities in the scriptures. They, they died on inflames of fire. Uh, I was talking to a friend of mine two days ago. He's a lawyer. He was telling me he just had to be up recently in Illinois for one of these new kind of marriage cases. And so here you're in the situation. On the other side, they have the ACO, EU Lambda legal two huge Chicago law firms, the attorney general from the state of Illinois who supposed to be offending the law, but he's on other side and the da from Chicago, that's another side and it was him against them.
Speaker 0 02:00 That's just how it's going. The election isn't going to change any of this no matter who gets elected that they've got the momentum. That's how that's going to go. So we've got that. Another scene that cries out to having preventions is a shedding of innocent blood abortion. So we're two for two. The third one is depriving labor of his wages. You know, that's things like slavery or exporting jobs to places, you know, in, in the Chinese system, the Laogai, which is their camps. Every a prison camp has a factory number. Why would that be? Because they're manufacturing stuff for us. So you can get sent to prison for crimes, like be a member of the Legion and Mary be a member of the underground church, I. E. The Catholic Church, and then work for pennies or whatever's that. We can have cheap things. So to fraud in the labor of wages.
Speaker 0 02:53 The fourth one is a Preston widow and the children, we have contraceptive imperialism. If a, if an other nations are going to have any kind of relationship with us, what are we always trying to pressure them to? Contraception, sterilization, abortion, et cetera. Or Four for four nations have to be judged in this life. They don't have any eternal life and God is just, the nations will be judged in this life. And so this shouldn't be a surprise to us as we watch our country fall apart. We have a role to work on our holiness because God put us here to be salt in this particular time in history. He's not surprised. And so we have a very important role to play if even if it's just being faithful when it seems like no one else is. But that is our role. We don't even, we shouldn't get depressed at all.
Speaker 0 03:40 If things are going well, you need to pray for souls but not let it get to us. What, why should we let it get to us? We love our country, but we don't love what's going on. We just need to pray for a purification. We have to be faithful. That doesn't mean we quit fighting or go hole up and you know, crawl in a hole and try to seel ourselves in. You can't get away from it anyway. So we have a charter. Do you know if you have time you could read the city of God. The city of God is really a theology of history is written by that great singer Santa Gustin. And what's he writing? He's writing after the Roman empire collapsed. They couldn't believe it because Roman Empire really was something were small potatoes compared to them. And I love my country, but if we're nothing compared to the kind of, and for them, the amount of time they've lost, all that is as it's collapsing under under the barbarians and whatnot, nobody can believe it since he writes the city of God, which is really a theology of history and it help help you keep things in perspective.
Speaker 0 04:37 If you want to go down that path, I'm not going to go through the whole city of God right now, but we need to be at peace about this. We need to have a peace because important thing is, am I in a state of grace? Am I doing my duty and my state life? Cause if I'm doing my duty in my state life and I'm going to stay to grace, I'm doing what God put me here to do. If everybody did that, we wouldn't have these kinds of things, but we don't have to ask. We have to answer for us. So we got to be peaceful about this. As Catholics, it's not delightful. I don't see as so many jokes, but it's just what it is and we just have to be at peace. He said, thanks to God, I have the true faith and I know what I'm, what I need to do to be saved. I need to stay in a state of grace and do my duty. Am I state in life? And that's what God expects to make and that's what he put me here to do and that's why we come to mass and receive a second. So we have the strength to do this, which would be impossible otherwise. So let's not be disheartened. Okay? That was the sermon before the sermon.
Speaker 1 05:40 Okay?
Speaker 0 05:45 According to missionaries, before, they were driven out by the communists. When strangers entered the highlands, which lie along the Burmese, Chinese border, local chief would the pass to be close by tying together long elephant grass over the paths. When the travelers encountered this sign, they would stop and ask who is in blood covenant with this tribe? If someone was found, even if it were the lowliest porter, his covenant gave entire Party free passage to the principle village. The man would go in as an ambassador to meet with the chief if no one was in covenant with the tribe in the wisp of grass was broken and the party passed on, the trespassers forfeited their lives. I'm gonna attack weighted them. Perhaps that night or later the trespass would then be driven back the way they came, but what does it mean to be in blood covenant with a trial after two men agreed to make a blood covenant with one another.
Speaker 0 06:50 There was a public and som ceremony where blood was drawn from the thigh of each of the men becoming blood brothers. Then it was mixed together. Then each man dipped his finger in the blood and touched it to his lips, sometimes drank it. Typically a phase to common meal was associated with the ceremony. It bond the parties together in the strongest possible way. It's not only an agreement of peace, but a promise of mutual assistance in both war in peace. When the chief standings representative, his tribe entered into a blood covenant. It covered the whole trial. When a father, Stan is the head of his family, entered a blood covenant, they'd covered his entire family. The 400 covenant was an adopted member of the tribe with all the same rights since the two parties were seen as literally sharing in the same life that was in the Burmese highlands and Africa.
Speaker 0 07:46 Will you searching for Dr. Livingston Stanley, the Great African explorer found attacks, ambushes and even cannibalism lurking around every riverbend and dark trail unless he was in blood covenant with the chief, in which case he and his party could travel freely through even the most hostile countable territory right here in the states. The blood covenant was commonly practiced among people as soon nations, among others, same kind of consequences that you saw in Burma or Africa. The same practice were recorded by early historians in Rome and Greece, in Norway. Among the Germanic tribes, blood coveting was practicing Australia, the Pacific islands, South America, Middle East, literally all over the world. I've actually been present at something like that with a couple of trunk cowboys. I mean watched it. Same kind of thing, but they didn't make it up. You know, it's just a little scary watch Nolan ice flying around and stuff. But why blood? What's the significance of blood and why is so much importance attached to it? All the world
Speaker 0 08:56 man share a common view. They see blood is life and so the offering of blood is seen as offering of life and the sharing of blood as the sharing of life. The von created when men sharing each other's blood, when they're blood brothers and they've made a blood covenant, the seed is buying them closer together than even birth brothers. In fact, it seed has given these men a share in the same life and even the same virtues and so they see the breaking of this covenant as this crime worthy of death and throughout the world. Men as also men have also had the notion of the divine acceptance of blood is a divine acceptance of life or the practice of offering up a substitutionary blood sacrifice by killing an animal, point his blood off as a substitution for the man's own blood as a sacrifice to placate their God's men everywhere.
Speaker 0 09:52 Have also had the common idea of being able to establish a blood covenantal relationship with their gods by offering them blood, which is why I want to say it, and worshiper sells his soul. He signs the Compaq and his own pla. He's pledging his life by means of his bloody signature to be bond forever. The demonic life of c next change for certain worldly things and besides being fun in every nation culture, similar beliefs about significance of blood and involved blood covenant or literally found from the beginning to the end of the holy scriptures. How did men all over the world from every tribe and nation get the same general beliefs about blood and becoming blood brothers with one another and even with the gods which are similar to those taught in scripture. The fathers of the church. Now the fathers, we're talking about the early saints who were taught by the pastas or taught by men.
Speaker 0 10:52 They were taught by the Pastas, the fathers. The church. Point out that when we find that men everywhere have similar beliefs or teachings or customs similar to those found in holy scripture. The reason for the similarity is that when men were scattered out all over the world after the town of Babel up after the tower of Babel, they didn't forget all the teachings that have been handed down from Adam through Noah to their fathers. The differences that we see are due to corruption from the weakness of man and the interference of devils, except of course for the case of the people of Israel who are preserved from teaching air by special grace of God. All of this is part of God's providential pan so that men would find it easy to understand the true faith when they were evangelized. So let's stop and take a few look.
Speaker 0 11:44 Go quick. Look at a few blood covenant examples we find and sacred scripture. Look at three examples from the new testament. Look at her from Old Testament. Then we'll look at a few examples from the new testament and we'll go and we'll close at that point. So the Old Testament first, let's consider the Covenant of Abraham, what he enters into a blood covenant with God, the sign of this blood covenant, circumcision. Have you wondered what the point is? Circumcision is. The point is that God, Abraham, it gives God of his personal blood from the very source of his fatherhood. When Abraham is doing at God's command is pledging himself and his see the tribe of all those who shall be descended from him into this blood covenantal relationship with God. In other words, Abraham stands for his descendants, like the Burmese chief stood for his tribe, and so this one man enters into the blood covenant with God on behalf of himself and all his descendants. Obviously God can exchange blood with his beloved Abraham because he didn't have any blood takes change except Abraham's blood sacrifice and rewards it by freeing all those who enter into that covenant from original sin.
Speaker 1 12:54 Okay,
Speaker 0 12:54 jump to the time of Moses when the Jews were being held in bondage to Pharaoh and Moses was calling down the plagues on Egypt. Remember how they were protected from the angel of death in the night of the Passover? They had to take a spotless lamb. They had to sacrifice him to God, and then they had to take his blood and mark his door pose. According the rabbis, it was done by Martin, the top and the bottom like this than the two sides like that. And we can think about that. The sign of the blood covenant with God was this sign of the cross made with the blood of a spotless lamb dedicated to God. Then they had to cook and eat that land, the covenantal meal. If they didn't mark their doorways with the sign, the cross market, the lamb's blood, that they didn't eat the entire lamb, then they weren't protected by the blood and the angel of death would kill their first born sons.
Speaker 0 13:47 So there we see both that notion of a common meal and also that idea of protection from harm of safe passage given to those who are in a blood covenant. Finally, for the Old Testament purposes, let's take a look at the day of Atonement. It's one of the major feasts in the Jewish calendar. In preparation for the ceremonies on this day, the Jews went up to the tadpole and confess their sins to the priest. Confession is nothing new in the old covenant. It costs you something. What did you have to do in the old covenant? You had to have a sin offering so it costs you. If you were poor, you had to have turtle. Those offer, he had more. It was a ram or a ball. It cost something. Our Lord hadn't shed his precious blood yet, so they went up to confess their sins to the priest.
Speaker 0 14:38 During that day, a man had to go behind the veil of the temple. There's only one man in the world who could go behind the veil and only after all kinds of careful preparations and purifications and he could only do it on this. One day that man was a high priest. He'd go behind the veil and the holiest place in the temple, the room called the holy of holies, where the Ark of the covenant had been placed. Why? Why did he go in there? He went in to sprinkle the blood of the sacrifice on the curtain and on the arc, the substitutionary blood of the covenant to make a tone for his sins and the sins of all people. Since the high priest was representative of all the people before God, so he's stood in place. The people just as a chief stands for the tribe or Abraham's stood for his descendants.
Speaker 0 15:26 When the high priest did this, he had little bells tied to hemline of his cast. It can rope tied to one ankle. Why if the bells quit Jingling, the men on other side avail would realize he had done something wrong. He'd been struck dip so they could pull his body out with the row. That's the punishment for old fashioned liturgical abuse. When the high priest survived, you'd have a big feast for his friends because the blood covenant with God or the priesthood of God is now without danger. Outside. During all this, a piece of Scott Wall had been pinned up in view of the congregation. Two goats were selected, one was sacrificed and the other had the sins of Israel liturgically laid upon them by the priest. It was like this pressing down on his head said, take his hand. You can see the cross made by a thumbs, and they press down on the head of that go and then that goat was led out of the city walls by a gentile and thrown over a cliff.
Speaker 0 16:24 This goat was known as escape goat. When escape coat died, the blood red cloth right before the eyes, entire congregation would turn white. Reminds us of what God says in Isaiah one 18 if your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made white as snow. If they'd be red as crimson, they should be white as wool. This visible publical miracle, and it was visible. A visible public miracle happen every year on the day of Atonement, and then people be overjoyed since they knew the sacrifice had been acceptable to God and the dead of life they owed to God for their sins had been paid for by the blood of the scapegoat because his blood had been acceptable. Their blood, their lives are no longer owed to God for sin, and the Bible says, without the shedding of blood, there's no remission of sins. We've taken a very quick look at a few of the blood covenant teachers in the Old Testament.
Speaker 0 17:19 Now let's look quickly at the fulfillment of these incidents in the new testament. First the day of Atonement, the scarlet cloth and escape go the towel mode. Now, those are books written by the rabbis and they're holy to the Jews describes this very ceremony and it knows that for some reason this visible and public miracle ended 40 years before the destruction of the temple. The cloth remained scarlet, which was a sign that that people remained in their sins, that the sacrifice escape goat was not pleasing to God. Oh my. What? What happened? Well, the temple was destroyed by the Roman legions in 70 80 so do the math. 40 years before the high priest, Caiaphas speaking in the name of the people. So it was fitting that one man should die for the sins of the people. That one man was Jesus Christ himself who became escaped or not just for the sins of the Jews, the men who are already in blood covenant with God to Abraham, but also for the gentiles.
Speaker 0 18:28 All the other nations of the world. He became a scapegoat during his agony in the garden when he took upon himself all our sins, every single sin from the first sin in the garden to last in, there'll be committed before the crack of doom. You attended off rough. His precious blood is life, the life of God, and he literally sweat blood thinking how many people for whom he was pouring out his precious blood for who you pour out his life to save them from their sins. He literally sweat blood. Thinking of how many of them would turn away and plunge over the cliff into that sea of eternal fire, and he took those sins pressed down by the cross just like the cross had been pressed on on the scapegoat and carried that burden outside of the walls that Drusen being led to his death by the gentile Roman soldiers.
Speaker 0 19:21 Just like a Chantelle with a scapegoat burden with the sins of the Jews to his death outside the walls of the city. Remember how the high priest laid his hands would lay the sins of the people on the scapegoat like this? This sign is still done and at the Honky Jeter, when the boys ring the bell right before they go up for the consecration, that's exactly what the priest is doing over the bread and wine. That's the exact position the priest hands have over the sacrifice, but to be consecrated. Remember how the high priest had to pass behind the veil and the holy of holies? We know as we heard in today's Gospel about our Lord, sacred heart being pierced and outflow the blood and water, the precious blood, the blood of God. The Lifeblood of God is that Florida float up his knee, eternal pleasing sacrifice. We know that when a sacred heart was pierced, the veil in the temple, the veil of the holy of holies was torn open.
Speaker 0 20:18 No longer would men have to turn to the sacrifice of animals and a sprinkling of their blood by descendant of Aaron to redeem men from their sins. Now, blood covenant opened to all men was established between God man, a blood covenant made with the precious blood of God himself. Something that was not possible in the Times of Abraham. Just as the Burmese chief stood for his tribe or Abraham for his descendants, Jesus Christ, the eternal high priest stood in for all mankind. Saint Paul explains in his letter to the Hebrews that when Christ came, his high priest, he had her once for all into the sanctuary. Now the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood, thus obtained eternal redemption for Christ, did not enter a sanctuary made by hands the copy of the true one, but having itself that he might not appear before God on our behalf. Once for all these appeared to take away sin by his sacrifice. Do you know what our Lord is doing right now at this very minute? He's past once for all that heavenly sanctuary as our high priest. He's interceding for us before they have any father. He's showing his wounds and he doesn't have to have bells on his cas and a rope around his ankle.
Speaker 3 21:43 Okay?
Speaker 0 21:44 He's interceding for us. He lives to intercede for us. Remember how the Burmese man and blood covenant with the chief will be the ambassador for his party going through the barrier to secure safe passage for his party. Christ, our Lord is our investor. He's one in substance with the father and he's gone through the barrier into the heavenly city to secure safe passage for his blood brothers here on earth.
Speaker 3 22:08 Okay,
Speaker 0 22:09 now the Passover. Remember the sign of the Old Testament blood covenant with God was a sign of the cross made with the blood of a spotless lamb dedicated to God. Then the entire lamb had to be the covenantal meal. Saint John the Baptist tells us who the real lamb of God was, who came to take away not just the sins of the Jews, but the sins of the whole world. And at that last supper that last Passover supper deposits entered into the new and everlasting blood covenant with Jesus Christ by eating the flesh and drinking the precious blood of the eternal animal, God in the most placid sacrament of the alter. We've also entered into the new testament blood covenant by our baptism and our communion and everyone who's blood covenanted Jesus shares in his nature. We shared his virtues, his divine virtues, if we're in right covenantal relationship with him, if we've allowed that precious blood to wash over us and through us, wash away the sin and wickedness, Ensnares Snares, the Devil, if we let it strengthen us in virtue, the supernatural versus the supernatural powers that God has placed in us by virtue of this covenant powers like faith, hope, and shared their supernatural, especially that supernatural life of grace, which makes it possible for us to get to heaven when we die and to live there.
Speaker 0 23:36 Once we got there, we Sharon, and we have one in the same life. That divine life of Jesus when we're in a state of grace, because Jesus was circumcised according to the law, he entered in the blood covenant between God and the seed of Abraham. So by living through him and in his life, by our baptism, we become heirs of Abraham and his promises, the promises rejected by Caiaphas so long ago. That's why the Canada mass, we can talk about Abraham as being our father in the faith. And it's literally true because we have the life of Christ in us and he's a son of Abraham. We become members of Christ's body. It's mystical body of Christ. He's the head and we're the members who share in the same life, the same supernatural life, more enlivened by the same precious blood. See, the Catholic church is Jesus Christ, living in his mystical body, living and working in his members to save men from sin. And if we're in blood covenant with Christ, if we're his blood brothers and we die without betraying, or perhaps if we have betrayed him, but we've gone sacrament confession. Been washed clean again, his precious blood, we can pass through the veil into that heavenly city and no one else can.
Speaker 0 25:07 If you're not in blood covenant with our Lord when you die, we haven't even, we haven't betrayed him. He can't pass through the veil. It's totally impossible. There's no technological means to reach heaven. Can't build a big bridge there. Can't shoot a rocket there. No mark technology, willpower, ingenuity can get a man through that barrier. It is totally supernatural. It's utterly and totally beyond our power. It is only possible in Christ,
Speaker 4 25:41 okay?
Speaker 0 25:41 It is only possible in Christ. There's no salvation outside of him. He's the only ambassador that can possibly lead us through that barrier. Let's close. Today we've taken a real quick look at a fraction of the blood covenant teachings in the Old Testament. She had circumcision involving shedding blood from the very source of fatherhood is this sign and means of the blood covenant between Abraham and God and Abraham's descendants. We've seen that the Jews were protected from attack by the death angel by making the sign of the cross with blood of the past lamb. On the doorpost biting whole entire Pascal lamb. We've seen the high priest passing through the veil to offer blood to God and the holy of holies. We've seen a man standing place of all the people in the case of the Covenant of Abraham or the Day of Atonement, we've seen a flesh and blood of a spotless lamb or of a goat protecting people.
Speaker 0 26:41 In the case of the Passover, the Toman, we've also taken a quick look at the fulfillment of these blood covenant incidents in the New Testament. We see how Jesus became the perfect and eternal scapegoat by taking all the sins upon himself from the garden. We've seen how he's the eternal high priest who passed behind the veil into the heavenly holy of holies and his continued presenting his precious blood to the heavenly father. We've seen how he's the spotless eternal lamb of God whose cross protects and saves us from eternal death and whom we receive whole an entire body, blood, soul, and divinity, most plus it's sacrament of the author. We've seen how by entering into the new and eternal covenant of blood with Christ, we become members of his body and airs to the promises of Abraham. And finally, we've seen others, no salvation outside of Christ since he alone can pass to the Heavenly Vale and be the investor on our behalf today. Let us renewed our devotion to our Lord. Let us thank God these established us and his blood covenant with him, but a speech serious, very serious about us. Each one of us keeping heart blood covenant with the little.
