The Twelth Sunday after Pentecost: A Case Study in the Unity of the Propers

In Episode 07, we talked about the unity of the texts of the Mass.  A reflection I wrote on the 12th Sunday after Pentecost, provides a splendid
example of a Mass with a unified theme. By the parable of the Good
Samaritan, the Church raises before our eyes Christ, the new Moses, who
establishes the true and perfect worship that has power to save us from
sin and Satan.

Jesus: New Moses in the Parable of the Good Samaritan
"He went over to him," we read of the Good Samaritan, "and poured oil and wine of the wounds of injured man."



What is this oil and wine? Is it not our anointing with the Holy
Spirit and our being fed with the body and blood of the Lord? And what
is that but our spiritual worship. We, adopted as children of God, and
given the seal of salvation, offer with, in, and through Christ the one
sacrifice pleasing to God: His own son, under the form of bread and
wine.



The old law of Moses was not able to save a man. We,
injured by the side of the road, could not be saved by the priest of the
old law, for whom ritual purity forbade his ministration. The priests
of Levites of the Mosaic law of worship could not heal us. Only the
true worship instituted by Christ has power to restore what the thieves
have taken.



In order to show us that this is what the Church
puts in front of us by the parable of the Good Samaritan, we are given a
Epistle, from Second Corinthians. Paul, claiming to be a minister of
the New Covenant, the spiritual Covenant that brings life, contrasts
Moses' Covenant, a death-bring Covenant, with that of Christ's, and he
proves the superiority of the new.

"If the ministry of
promulgating a Law written on stone was surrounded by such splendor that
the Israelites could not look Moses in the face, will not the ministry
by which we propagate the Spirit be far more glorious still?"


But, lest we miss what the Church would have us focus on, the Church makes it clear directly in the Offertory:

"Moses prayed in the sight of the Lord his God and said: Why, Lord, art
thou angry with Thy people? Put thy wrath from thy heart: remember
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to whom Thou didst swear to give a land
flowing with milk and honey. And the Lord was appeased and refrained
from the mischief He said he would do to His people."

The Liturgy Applies to Us
We, O
Christian, are the one injured and robed by the side of the road. It is
not the first Moses, but the second who is our priest. He prays for
us, offering the bread and wine of His own body and blood, and the Lord
hears Him and is appeased . Pouring wine and oil into our wounds, He
heals us. This ministration far surpasses the old ministration that we
cry out, in the words of the gradual:

"I will bless the Lord at
all times, His praises ever on my lips. My heart shall find its glory
in the Lord, let the lowly hear and be glad. Lord, God of my salvation,
day and night have I cried before Thee. Alleluia!"


It is the
injured man, cured by the water and wine, who has cried day and night,
who has been heard, who has been saved; it is on his lips that the
praises of God ever abide. Though once so lowly he lay abandoned at the
side of the Lord, the law of old unable to save him, not he is saved.
And thus he offers to God, in the words of the secret, "the offerings
placed on the altar", the offerings of the New Covenant in His blood,
begging "that through [God's] generous forgiveness, they may honor [His]
name."



That this offering is the very wine Christ had poured
into his wounds in the parable of the Good Samaritan is brought out by
the Communion verse:

"With the fruit of Thy works, Lord, shall the earth
by filled, to bring forth food from the soil and wine to gladden the
heart of man, oil to give him a joyful countenance, and bread to
strengthen his heart." 


It has not been without effect that the
Church prayed in the Collect at the beginning of the Mass:



"Almighty and
merciful God"--almighty because He saved us, merciful because he looks
upon us in our misery, beaten and bruised by the side of the road--"by
whose gift Thy faithful are able to serve and praise Thee,"--the gift is
the pouring of wine and oil, and by this gift we can serve Him, which
in liturgical terms means to offer Him liturgical service, for He is the
New Moses, who has established a new and efficacious worship--"grant,
we beg thee, that we may run without failing towards Thy promises"--run,
as athletes, who have, in the ancient tradition, been anointed with
oil.



We can see how this prayer has been fulfilled
mysteriously in the celebration of Mass, and thus we pray in the
post-communion prayer: "may the participation in this holy mystery [the
one now offered] give us expiation and protection", expiation because we
were the ones wounded by sin, and protection because, having been
rescued, we long to never again be left to die by sin and Satan.

God has indeed, in the words of the Introit, "come to [our] aid", for
though our enemies sought our life, God has made them tremble and
perish.

Suaviter Disponensque Omnia--Sweetly Providence Places All in Order
In the marvelous workings of providence and the beauty
of the Liturgical Calendar, the feast of the Transfiguration is placed
near this Sunday. In that feast, we see the greater glory of Christ,
the new lawgiver, than that of Moses.



And in another happy
event, the Matins readings for today, the readings for the first Sunday
of August, is the beginning of Proverbs, where we read: "Hear, my son,
the discipline of thy father and dismiss not the law of thy mother."
How can we, reading this on this Sunday, see anything else in this than
Christ, the new lawgiver, speaking to us, urging us to follow the way of
life He has set before us by His teaching and example (discipline) and
submit our heart to the traditions maintained in the Church, our mother?



As we continue to contemplate the Transfiguration this week, let us
recall the manner in which Christ gave us the new law of Eucharistic
worship and healed us and anointed us that we may run unfailingly, and
let us turn to this law, preserved in Mother Church, and submit our life
and heart to the discipline of her liturgical worship.