April 20, 2025
Dear St. Rita Parishioners,
It is with great joy and gratitude that once again I am privileged to share this perennial Easter message with you: He is risen! Alleluia! Where would we be without Christ’s Resurrection? What would be our hope, our glory, or joy? As the Light of Life shines upon us once again, let us take this moment to renew our commitment to Him who suffered so much in ardent Love for us, and who bestows upon us – undeservedly – the grace of victory over sin and death!
Because of Him, we have freedom. Because of Him, we have hope. Because of Him, we have a future worth speaking of, proclaiming, and pursuing! As we enter upon the Easter Season, freely and tenaciously hold fast to that hope, and advance unwaveringly into the future that God has prepared: perfect Charity, which consists as you know in loving God above all things, with your whole mind, heart, body, soul, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself.
As we began Lent several weeks ago, I referenced for you Exodus 24, and Moses’ entry into the cloud on top of Mount Sinai, where he spent 40 days and 40 nights awaiting and receiving the Commandments of God. After his descent, he found that the Israelites had in so short a time abandoned their God and begun to worship a golden calf, forgetting the miracle of Passover that God so recently accomplished for them. Moses in anger, broke the stone tablets, and returned up the mountain.
I likened that shattering of the stone tablets to Good Friday, when God’s Word Himself was broken upon the Cross and lay shattered in the arms of His Sorrowful Mother, because we, His people, had preferred the worship of created things to the worship of our Creator. Israel herself likewise mourned, because not only had 3,000 or so of her children sinned, but they likewise had to be put to death. It was the members of the tribe of Levi – the Levites – who in righteousness rallied to God, preserved the purity of divine worship in Israel, and purged the sinners from Israel’s midst (cf. Ex 32:25-29). They became dedicated to the priestly ministry that day, because of their deed, protecting God’s faithful people from false, idolatrous, and unclean worship. This task, understood by the Hebrew word “šā·mǎr”, is also the word used by God in commanding Adam to “keep” the Garden of Eden (Gen 2:15). In fact, the other word “to till” (“ʿā·ḇǎḏ”), is also used in conjunction with “to keep” in reference to Levitical worship (see, e.g. Num 3:7, where “perform duties” translates “šā·mǎr” and “minister” translates “ʿā·ḇǎḏ”). In other words, it seems not only that Adam had priestly duties in reference to the Garden of Eden (and he failed, in letting the serpent tempt and conquer Eve), but that the Levites at Mount Sinai complete a task that Adam did not, and hence are given the task to continue said priestly duties in reference to Israel as a whole, God’s new Eden.
When Moses returns up the mountain after the golden calf incident, he again spends 40 days and 40 nights there. This time, Moses asks pardon for Israel’s sin, and God renews His covenant with Israel. God commands perfect purity of worship for Israel, that they make no covenants (e.g. marriage) with surrounding nations, since it will mean that the Israelites would begin to worship the gods of those nations. Finally, God commands that the Israelite men appear before Him three times when they arrive in the Promised Land: for the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Weeks (“the first fruits of the wheat harvest”), and “the feast of ingathering at the year’s end” (Ex 34:18, 22-23). In other words, God is teaching the Israelites how to worship Him with the gifts that He gives them. This is to form their lives around cultic worship, creating a cult-ure from the cult of worshiping the Creator of all.
The import for us a Christians celebrating the Resurrection is not too difficult to recognize. We are about to spend 40 more days after the Paschal Lamb, the Word and Commandment of God, was Himself crushed on the Cross for our iniquities (cf. Is 53:5), receiving not a renewal of the Old Covenant, but a Covenant made a-New. The New Covenant in Christ’s Blood is an Everlasting Covenant which cannot be undone or superseded. It is one that is still being “played out”, so to speak, in our lives. The New Covenant means that Passover has been fulfilled in Easter, the feast of Weeks – the first fruits – has been fulfilled at Pentecost (see Acts 2), and we anticipate the fulfillment of the ingathering at year’s end (presumably at the End of Time) with the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (September 14).
The 40 days between Easter and the Ascension of Our Lord are then, for us, a time to be renewed in this New Covenant. God has given us to celebrate Easter yet again, reminding us of His Son’s salvific Death through the powerful celebration of the Church’s liturgical Rites. It is as if He says to us, “I am renewing this New Covenant with you, after you have acknowledged and repented of your sins. Again.” We will spend these next 40 days hearing about and reflecting upon Christ’s post-Resurrection appearances and deepening our understanding of what it means to live a new life in Christ, the Risen One. Our commitment to Him and to this new life is fortified by the Graces He has given to us over the course of Lent and the Sacred Triduum and now during the Easter Season as well. A new culture is formed, this time around the cult (meaning, “worship”) of the Paschal Lamb, sacrificed for us, and risen from the dead! Alleluia!
In Christ,
Fr. Christensen
P.S. What of those priestly duties? Well, the ministerial priest (me) has those duties in reference to the Church – to preserve purity of worship, doctrine, and living – and to minister faithfully at the altar. You, the Baptized, who share in Christ’s Priesthood by your Baptism, have become a “priestly people” (cf. Ex 19:6, 1 Pt 2:9), and exercise this priestly role in reference to your families and the whole world: proclaiming, spreading, and preserving purity of worship, doctrine, and life, and assisting in Divine Worship – the Mass – according to your vocation! The New Eden – the Church – needs your priesthood!