Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:01 Well, before we get going on the main topic, a lot of people asked me, I made comments about the condition of our country and, and, uh, this pre court decision and all that. So I'll just make a, 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 blesser, John Paul, the second eye known as 1979. Visit another time subsequent to that told us directly America abortion will be the test of your survival as a nation. Well, that was a test of our survival as a nation. We flunked, we flunked with a great big app. So that's not the only one.
Speaker 0 00:00:55 Um, there's four sins that cry out to heaven for vengeance. Okay. There's the sin. That's very popular in San Francisco that cries out for heavy preventions. 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 in be the end of a country. I mean, you saw what happened to the cities in, in the scriptures. They, they died in flames 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 at, in the situation, on the other side, they have the ACL oo Lambda legal, two huge Chicago law firms, their attorney general from the state of Illinois, who's supposed to be fending law, but he's on other side and the da from Chicago, that's on the other side and it was him against them.
Speaker 0 00:01:59 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. Now there's thing that cries out to heaven for vengeance is a shedding of innocent blood abortion. So we're two for two. The third one is depriving labor of his wages. No that's things like slavery or exporting jobs to places, you know, in the Chinese system, the loud guy, which is their camps, every 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 being a member of the Legion of Mary, be a member of the underground church, the Catholic church, and then work for pennies or whatever's that we can have cheap things. So to Friday, the labor of wages, uh, the fourth one is a press and the widow and the children.
Speaker 0 00:02:55 We have contraceptive imperialism. If other nations are going to have any kind of relationship with us, what are we always trying to pressure them to do contraception, sterilization, abortion, et cetera, or for, for, for nations, have to be judged in this life. They don't have any eternal life and God is just so 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, we shouldn't get depressed at all. If things are going down, we need to pray for souls, but not let it get to us.
Speaker 0 00:03:47 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, crawling in a hole and try to seal ourselves in. You can't get away from it anyway. So we have a chopper. Do you know if you have time, you could read the city of God. The city of God is really a theology of history. It's read by that great Saint Saint Augustan. 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 we're nothing compared to the kind of, and for them the Monat time, they've lasted all that as it's collapsing under, under the barbarians and whatnot, nobody couldn't believe this.
Speaker 0 00:04:31 And so he writes the city of God, which is really a theology of history. It would help you help you keep things in perspective. If you, 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 the 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 in a state of 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 gotta be peaceful about this as Catholics. It's not delightful. I don't say this so many jokes, but it's just what it is.
Speaker 0 00:05:11 And we just have to be at peace. He says, thanks. Be to God. I have the true faith. And I know what I, what I need to do to be saved. I need to stay in the state of grace and do my duty and my state in life. And that's what God expects of me. 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, 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 past to be closed by tying together the long elephant grass over the paths. When the travelers encountered this sign, they would stop and ask who is in blood covenant with this try. If someone was fired, even if it were the lowest 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, no one was in covenant with the tribe in the wisp of grass was broken in the party, passed on the trespassers, forfeited their lives and attack weighted them. Perhaps that night or later the trespass would then be driven back the way they came.
Speaker 0 00:06:43 But what does it mean? The blood covenant was a trial. After two men agreed to make a blood covenant with one another. 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 face to common meal was associated with the ceremony. It bombed 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 and peace. When the chief is representative, as tribe entered into blood covenant, it covered the whole trial. When a father, Stan is the head of his family, entered a blood covenant. It covered his entire family. A 400 covenant was adopted member of the tribe with all the same rights.
Speaker 0 00:07:37 Since the two parties were seen as literally sharing in the same life that was in the Burmese Highlands in Africa, while you're searching for dr. Livingston Stanley, the great African Explorer, fond attacks, ambushes, and even cannibalism lurking around every Riverbend and dark trail, unless he was in blood covenant with the chiefs. In which case he and his party could travel freely through even the most hostile cannibal territory right here in the States. The blood covenant was commonly practiced among people as soon Asians among others. Same kind of consequences that you saw in Burma or Africa. The same practice were recorded by early historians and wrong in Greece. In Norway, among the Germanic tribes, blood covenant was practiced in 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 drunk Cowboys. I mean watching it, same kind of thing, but they didn't make it up. You know, it's just a little scary, Washington ice flying around and stuff, but why blood? What's the significance of blood and why is so much important?
Speaker 0 00:08:54 All the world men share a common view. They see blood is life that's. The offering of blood is seen as the offering of life and the sharing of blood as the sharing of life. The vine created when men share in each other's blood, when they're blood brothers and they've made a blood covenant is seen as buying them closer together that even birth brothers. In fact, it's seen as giving these men a share in the same life and even the same virtues. And so they see the breaking of this covenant as a crime worthy of death and throughout the world, men it's 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 out as a substitution for the man's own blood, as a sacrifice to placate their guides men everywhere.
Speaker 0 00:09:52 I've also had the common idea of being able to establish a blood covenantal relationship with their gods by offering them blood, which is why when a Satan worshiper sells his soul, he signs the compact in his own blood. He's pledging his life by means of his bloody signature to be bond forever. The demonic life of Satan in exchange for certain worldly things besides being fun and every nation and culture, similar beliefs about significance of blood involved blood covenanting are 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, the church. Now the fathers were talking about the early saints who are taught by the pauses or taught by men that were taught by the apostles, the fathers at 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.
Speaker 0 00:11:17 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 were preserved from teaching air by special grace of God, all this is part of God's providential pan, so that men would find it easy to understand the true faith when they were evangelize. So let's stop and take a few look quick, look at a few blood covenant examples we find in sacred scripture, look at three examples from the new Testament, look at from the 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. When he entered into a blood covenant with God, the sign of this blood covenant circumcision, maybe you wonder what the point of circumcision is.
Speaker 0 00:12:11 The point is that God Abraham, it gives God of his personal blood from the very source of his fatherhood. When Abraham is doing it, God's command is pleasuring himself and his sea. 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 couldn't exchange blood with his beloved Abraham because he didn't have any blood takes change. The accepts Abraham's blood sacrifice and rewards it by freeing all those who enter into that covenant from original sin jumped to the time of Moses. When the Jews were being held and varnished to Pharaoh, and Moses was calling down the plagues on Egypt, remember how they were protected from the angel of death and the night of the Passover.
Speaker 0 00:13:07 They had to take a spotless lamb. They had to sacrifice them to God. And then they had to take his blood in Mark his door poles, according to the rabbis, it was done by Mark and the top and the bottom line. This then the two sides like that. And we can think about that. The sign of the blood covenant with God was the sign of the cross made with the blood of a spotless lamb, dedicated to God. Then they had to cook and eat that lamb, the covenantal meal, if they didn't Mark their doors with the sign of the cross Mark with the Lamb's blood. And if they did need the entire land, then they weren't protected by the blood. And the angel of death would kill their first board sons. So there we see both that notion of a common meal and also that idea of protection from harm of safe passage.
Speaker 0 00:13:55 Give it 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 and 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 heard of us offer. He had more, it was a Ram or a ball. It costs something. Our Lord hadn't shed his precious blood yet. So they went up to confess their sins to the priests. 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.
Speaker 0 00:14:53 He'd go behind the veil, into 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 SAC twice on the curtain and on the arc, the substitutionary blood of the covenant to make atonement for his sins and the sins of all people since the high priest is representative of all the people before God. So he stood in place. The people justice, as the chief stands for the tribe or Abraham stood for his descendants. When the high priest did this, he had little bells tied the hemline of his cast. It could a rope tied to one ankle. Why if the Bell's quit jingling, the men on the other side, avail would otherwise you'd done something wrong and had been struck.
Speaker 0 00:15:39 Yeah. 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 it blood covenant with God or the priesthood of God is not without danger outside. During all this, a piece of scout oil 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 him by the priests 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 goat. And then that goal was led out of the city walls by agenda tile and thrown over a cliff. This goat was known as escape goat when escape goat died, the blood red cloth, right before the eyes entire congregation would turn white reminds us of what God it says in Isaiah one 18.
Speaker 0 00:16:38 If your sins be as Scarlet, they shall be made white as snow. If they be red as Crimson, they should be this wall, this visible public miracle. And it was a visible, a visible public miracle happen every year are on the day of <inaudible> and that people would be overjoyed since they knew the sacrifice had been acceptable to God. The debt of life, they owed to God for their sins had been paid for by the blood of escape code because his blood had been acceptable. Their blood you're no longer owed to God for sin. As the Bible says, without the shedding of blood, there's no remission of sins taking a very quick look at a few of the blood clots and it teaches in the old Testament. Now let's look quickly at the fulfillment of these incidents in the new Testament. First, the day of atonement, the Scarlet cloth and the scapegoat, the Talmud.
Speaker 0 00:17:30 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 time, the reason this visible and public miracle ended 40 years before the destruction of the temple, the cloth remains Scarlet, which was a sign that the people in their sins to the sacrifice escape goat was not pleasing to God on my why, what happened? Well, the temple was destroyed by the Roman legions in 78. So do the math 40 years before the high priest Caiaphas speaking in the name of the people said it was fitting that one man should die for the sins of the people. That one man was Jesus Christ himself who became the scapegoat, not just for the sins of the Jews, the men who were already in blood covenant with God, to Abraham, but also for the Gentiles, all the other nations of the world.
Speaker 0 00:18:30 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 sin, there'll be committed before the crack of doom. He had tinted off rough, his precious blood, his life, the life of God. And he literally sweat blood, uh, thinking how many people for whom he was pouring out his precious blood for who he 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 have been pressed on, on the scapegoat and carried that burden outside of the walls of Jerusalem being led to his death by the Gentile Roman soldiers, just like a Gentile with the scapegoat burden, with the sins of the Jews, to his death, outside the walls of the city.
Speaker 0 00:19:28 And 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 teacher, when the boys ring the bell right before they got 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 bought to be consecrated. Remember how the high priest had to pass behind the veil into 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 life blood of God is what that Florida flowed out as an 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 00:20:18 No Longwood 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 open to all men was established between God and man, a blood covenant made with the precious blood of God, himself, something that was not possible in the times of Abraham, just as a Burmese, chief stood for his tribe or Abraham for his Jesus Christ. The eternal high priest stood in for all mankind. Saint Paul explains in his letter to the Hebrews that when Christ came as high priest, he had her once for all into the sanctuary now that the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood, thus obtaining 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.
Speaker 0 00:21:16 Once for all, he's appeared to take away sin by his sacrifice. Do you know what our Lord is doing right now? This very minute he's passed 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 fellows on his casket and a rope around his ankle. 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 ambassador. 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. Now the Passover, remember the sign of the old Testament blood covenant with God was assigned to the cross, made with the blood of a spotless lamb, dedicated to God.
Speaker 0 00:22:19 Then the entire lamb had to be eat 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, the apostles entered into the new and everlasting blood covenant with Jesus Christ, by eating the flesh and drinking the precious blood of the eternal animal of God. In the most blessed sacrament of the altar, we've also entered into the new Testament, blood covenant by our baptism and our communion and everyone whose blood covenant did 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 and 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 charity, they're 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 00:23:36 Once we got there, we Sharon and we have one in the same life that divine life of Jesus when we're in this 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 Kaifas so long ago. That's why in the Canada masks, 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, the mystical body of Christ. He's the head. And we're the members we share in the same life, the same supernatural life. And we're enlivened by the same precious blood. See the Catholic church is Jesus Christ living on 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 as 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.
Speaker 1 00:25:02 And no one else can,
Speaker 0 00:25:07 If you're not in blood covenant with our Lord, when you die, we haven't, 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 mob technology willpower ingenuity can get a man for that barrier. It is totally supernatural. It's utterly and totally beyond our powers. It is only possible in Christ. It is only profitable 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 a sign of means of the blood covenant between Abraham and God. And Abraham's descendants. We've seen it.
Speaker 0 00:26:16 The Jews were protected from attack by the death angel by making the sign of the cross with the blood of the past lamb on the doorpost and the 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 in 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 of a goat protecting people in the case of the Passover. Then Tom, then we've also taken a quick look at the fulfillment of his blood covenant incidence 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.
Speaker 0 00:27:06 We've seen how he's this spotlessly eternal lamb of God. Who's Christ protects and saves us from eternal death in whom we receive whole and entire body blood soul and divinity, most blessed sacrament of the altar. We've seen how by entering into the new and eternal covenant of blood with Christ become members of his body and heirs to the promises of Abraham. And finally, we've seen how there's no salvation outside of Christ since he alone could pass to them and the veil and be the ambassador on our behalf today, let us renew our devotion to our Lord. That is thank God. These established us this blood covenant with him, but a speech serious, very serious about us. Each one of us keeping heart blood covenant with the law.
