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From: Exodus 34:4b-6, 8-9

The Covenant is Renewed

[4] He (Moses) rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai, as the
LORD had commanded him, and took in his hand two tables of stone. [5] And
the LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the
name of the LORD.

God Appears

[6] The LORD passed before him, and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God
merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithful-
ness.” [8] And Moses made haste to bow his his head toward the earth, and wor-
shipped. [9] And he said, “If now I have found favor in thy sight, O Lord, let the
Lord, I pray thee, go in the midst of us, although it is a stiff-necked people; and
pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for thy inheritance.”

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Commentary:

34:1-28. This chapter narrating the renewal of the Covenant follows the same pat-
tern as the account of its original establishment (cf. Ex 19-24); but it is shorter, con-
centrating on the two main protagonists, God and Moses. Thus, it begins with the
preparations for the theophany and for the encounter with the Lord (vv. 1-5); then
follows the revelation of God, and Moses’ prayer (vv. 6-9); and it ends with the re-
newal of the Covenant and the so-called Rite of the Covenant (vv. 10-28). The ac-
count hinges on the remaking of the tables of stone after the sin of the golden calf;
the tables symbolize God’s offer to keep to the pact and never to go back on it.

34:1-5. The theophany is described very soberly here, but it has exactly the same
elements as given in chapter 19: very careful preparation by Moses (v. 2; cf 19:10-
11); the people forbidden to approach the mountain (v. 3; cf. 19:12-13); God ap-
pearing wrapped in the cloud (v. 5; cf. 19:16-20).

Comparing the two accounts, this one says less about the transcendence of God
and puts more stress on his closeness to Moses: “he stood with him there” (v. 5).
God’s initiative in drawing close to man is clear to see; it lies at the very basis of
the Covenant.

“He proclaimed the name of the Lord” (v. 6); the context would suggest that it is
Moses who proclaims the name of the Lord, but the Hebrew could indeed be as
the RSV has it, “and he proclaimed his name, ‘Lord’ “. The same wording appears
in v. 6 implying that it is the Lord who is “proclaiming”, defining himself as he pro-
mised he would (cf. 33:19). The sacred writer may have intentionally left these
words open to either interpretation; whether spoken by Moses or said directly by
God, they are equal from the revelation point of view.

34:6-7. In response to Moses’ pleading, the Lord makes himself manifest. The
solemn repetition of the name of Yahweh (Lord) emphasizes that the Lord is in-
troducing himself liturgically to the assembled Israelites. In the description of
himself which follows (and which is repeated elsewhere, cf. 20:5-6; Num 14:18;
Deut 5:9-18; etc.), two key attributes of God are underlined—justice and mercy.
God cannot let sin go unpunished, nor does he; the prophets, too, will teach that
sin is, first and foremost, something personal (cf. Jer 31:29; Ezek 18:2ff). But
this ancient text refers only in a general way to the fact that God is just, and
puts more stress on his mercy. A person who is conscious of his own sin has
access to God only if he is sure that God can and will forgive him. “The concept
of ‘mercy’ in the Old Testament,” John Paul II comments, “has a long and rich hi-
story. We have to refer back to it in order that the mercy revealed by Christ may
shine forth more clearly. [...] Sin too constitutes man’s misery. The people of the
Old Covenant experienced this misery from the time of the Exodus, when they
set up the golden calf. The Lord himself triumphed over this act of breaking the
covenant when he solemnly declared to Moses that he was a ‘God merciful and
gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness’ (Ex
34:6). It is in this central revelation that the chosen people, and each of its mem-
bers, will find, every time that they have sinned, the strength and the motive for
turning to the Lord to remind him of what he had exactly revealed about himself
and to beseech his forgiveness” (”Dives In Misericordia”, 4). On “God’s jealousy”,
see the note on 20:5-6.

34:8-9. Moses once more implores the Lord on behalf of his people; he makes
three requests, which sum up many earlier petitions: he begs God to stay with
the people and protect them in their hazardous journeying in the desert (cf.
33:15-17), to forgive the very grave sin they have committed (cf. 32:11-14), and
finally to make them his own property, thereby distinguishing them from all other
peoples (cf. 33:16) and restoring them to their status as “his own possession”
(cf. 19:5). These three requests are ones that were constantly on the lips of the
people of Israel and in the hearts of everyone who acknowledges God (cf. Ps
86:1-15; 103:8-10; etc.).

*********************************************************************************************
Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.

From: 2 Corinthians 13: 11-13

Epilogue

[11] Finally, brethren, farewell. Mend your ways, heed my appeal, agree with one
another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you. [12] Greet
one another with a holy kiss. [13] All the saints greet you.

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Commentary:

11. In his words of farewell, the Apostle once more shows his great affection for
the faithful of Corinth, exhorting them to practise the fraternity proper to Christians
and thus live in concord and peace (cf. 1 Cor 1:10-17). And, St John Chrysostom
comments, he tells them what this will lead to: “Live in peace, and the God of love
and peace will be with you, for God is a God of love and a God of peace, and in
these he takes his delight. It is love that will give you peace and remove every evil
from your church” (”Hom. on 2 Cor”, 30).

St Paul’s call to the faithful to be cheerful is particularly significant — “gaudete”
(rejoice) in the New Vulgate — contains a rnessage he repeats on other occasions:
“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice” (Phil 4:4; cf. 3:1). Joy is
something very characteristic of Christians because their awareness of being chil-
dren of God tells them that they are in the hands of God, who knows everything
and can do everything (cf. note on 5:10). Therefore, we should never be sad; on
the contrary: we should go out into the world, St. Escriva says, “to be sowers of
peace and joy through everything we say and do” (”Christ Is Passing By”, 168).

12. On the “holy kiss”, see the note on 1 Cor 16:20.

“The saints” who send greetings to the Corinthians are the Christians of Macedo-
nia, from where St Paul is writing. Regarding this description of Christians, see
the note on 1 Cor 1:2.

*********************************************************************************************
Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.

From: John 3:16-18

The Visit of Nicodemus (Continuation)

(Jesus said to Nicodemus,) [16] “For God so loved the world that He gave His on-
ly Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. [17]
For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world
might be saved through Him. [18] He who believes in Him is not condemned; He
who does not believe is condemned already, because He has not believed in the
name of the only Son of God.

*********************************************************************************************
Commentary:

16-21. These words, so charged with meaning, summarize how Christ’s death
is the supreme sign of God’s love for men (cf. the section on charity in the “In-
troduction to the Gospel according to John”: pp. 31ff above). “’For God so loved
the world that He gave His only Son’ for its salvation. All our religion is a revela-
tion of God’s kindness, mercy and love for us. ‘God is love’ (1 John 4:16), that is,
love poured forth unsparingly. All is summed up in this supreme truth, which ex-
plains and illuminates everything. The story of Jesus must be seen in this light.
‘(He) loved me’, St. Paul writes. Each of us can and must repeat it for himself —
‘He loved me, and gave Himself for me’ (Galatians 2:20)” (Paul VI, “Homily on
Corpus Christi”, 13 June 1976).

Christ’s self-surrender is a pressing call to respond to His great love for us: “If
it is true that God has created us, that He has redeemed us, that He loves us
so much that He has given up His only-begotten Son for us (John 3:16), that He
waits for us—every day!—as eagerly as the father of the prodigal son did (cf.
Luke 15:11-32), how can we doubt that He wants us to respond to Him with all
our love? The strange thing would be not to talk to God, to draw away and for-
get Him, and busy ourselves in activities which are closed to the constant
promptings of His grace” (St. J. Escriva, “Friends of God”, 251).

“Man cannot live without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible for
himself, his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him, if he does not encoun-
ter love, if he does not experience it and make it his own, if he does not partici-
pate intimately in it. This [...] is why Christ the Redeemer ‘fully reveals man to
himself’. If we may use the expression, this is the human dimension of the mys-
tery of the Redemption. In this dimension man finds again the greatness, dignity
and value that belong to his humanity. [...] The one who wishes to understand
himself thoroughly [...] must, with his unrest and uncertainty and even his weak-
ness and sinfulness, with his life and death, draw near to Christ. He must, so to
speak, enter into Him with all his own self, he must ‘appropriate’ and assimilate
the whole of the reality of the Incarnation and Redemption in order to find himself.
If this profound process takes place within him, he then bears fruit not only of
adoration of God but also of deep wonder at himself.

How precious must man be in the eyes of the Creator, if he ‘gained so great a
Redeemer’, (”Roman Missal, Exultet” at Easter Vigil), and if God ‘gave His only
Son’ in order that man ‘should not perish but have eternal life’. [...]

‘Increasingly contemplating the whole of Christ’s mystery, the Church knows with
all the certainty of faith that the Redemption that took place through the Cross
has definitively restored his dignity to man and given back meaning to his life in
the world, a meaning that was lost to a considerable extent because of sin. And
for that reason, the Redemption was accomplished in the paschal mystery, lea-
ding through the Cross and death to Resurrection” (John Paul II, “Redemptor
Hominis”, 10).

Jesus demands that we have faith in Him as a first prerequisite to sharing in His
love. Faith brings us out of darkness into the light, and sets us on the road to sal-
vation. “He who does not believe is condemned already” (verse 18).

“The words of Christ are at once words of judgment and grace, of life and death.
For it is only by putting to death that which is old that we can come to newness
of life. Now, although this refers primarily to people, it is also true of various world-
ly goods which bear the mark both of man’s sin and the blessing of God. [...] No
one is freed from sin by himself or by his own efforts, no one is raised above him-
self or completely delivered from his own weakness, solitude or slavery; all have
need of Christ, who is the model, master, liberator, savior, and giver of life. Even
in the secular history of mankind the Gospel has acted as a leaven in the inte-
rests of liberty and progress, and it always offers itself as a leaven with regard to
brotherhood, unity and peace” (Vatican II, “Ad Gentes”, 8).

*********************************************************************************************
Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.

Scripture readings from the Jerusalem Bible by Darton, Longman & Todd

Readings at Mass

Liturgical Colour: White.

First reading
Exodus 34:4-6,8-9 ©

With the two tablets of stone in his hands, Moses went up the mountain of Sinai in the early morning as the Lord had commanded him. And the Lord descended in the form of a cloud, and Moses stood with him there.

He called on the name of the Lord. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The Lord, a God of tenderness and compassion, slow to anger rich in kindness and faithfulness.’ And Moses bowed down to the ground at once and worshipped. ‘If I have indeed won your favour, Lord,’ he said ‘let my Lord come with us, I beg. True, they are a headstrong people, but forgive us our faults and our sins, and adopt us as your heritage.’

Responsorial Psalm	Daniel 3:52-55 ©

You are blest, Lord God of our fathers.