Lesson V. Isaiah describes Salvation. (Isaiah 54:5-14 & 55: 1-11)
1. God in Christ is offering an everlasting covenant to man. Through him, as the true David, the true King of Israel, God is ready to give more abundant gifts to men than the human mind can conceive. In the Paschal Sacraments he is preparing to bestow upon men the very life of God himself.
2. God gives away this incomprehensible gift freely -- "without money and without price". He lavishes salvation upon men and demands nothing in return, nothing except repentance -- "Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts" -- and faith "Ho everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters".
3. Note that the Christian in the early Church really longed for salvation in a way that we ought to long for it, but don't. The hart desiring the water brooks was a constant subject of painting and carving. The procession to the font in the traditional rite is still made to the Sicut cervus desiderat ad fontes aquarum. Early Christians would inevitably understand Isaiah's allusions to God's bounty under the images of water and bread and wine and milk as being hidden allusions to the Christian rites through which salvation was conveyed, -- the water of Baptism, the bread and wine of the Eucharist, and the cup of milk and honey that was given to the new Christian as a token that he had entered the Promised Land.
1 comment:
Dear Fathers. About The Promised Land - prompted by Numbers 14
Of the 600, 000 Jews God led out of Egypt only faithful Josue and Caleb entered the Promised Land.
That percentage is astonishingly small. Is one permitted to think that only that small of a percentage of men who have ever lived will be permitted to enter the new Promised Land, Heaven?
Even considering that the number of scouts sent to scope out the promised land - 12 - only two of them were permitted to live and enter the Promised Land.
Is one permitted to think that percentage - two out of twelve, roughly 17% of all men who have ever lived - will be permitted to enter The Promised Land/Heaven?
Us Catholics must go to Confession and Holy Communion frequently and pray for forgiveness daily because God is infinite Mercy and Justice while also being possessed of Sovereign Liberty.
Lord Have Mercy on me a sinner struggling to stay spiritually sane in a Universal Salvation Desert.
Post a Comment