Fifth Sunday of Lent

Fr Dominic’s Homily

Today we hear about grains of wheat. If you think about them they are amazing packages of information. If protected they can last for hundreds of years. But unless it dies, in other words interacts with the soil and breaks open only then can it gives of itself. Only then can it yield its fruit.

In the first reading we have Jeremiah 31:31. It’s an easy reference to remember and central to the bible: “The days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel. I will place my law within them and write it on their hearts.”

It’s a central passage because it speaks of a new covenant with the house of Israel. It says that the covenant will be written in our hearts. Our hearts become packages of Gods information.

Every time we attend Mass we call this text to mind. Because at the last supper on the night before he died Jesus said “Take this all of you and drink from it for this is the blood of the new and eternal covenant.”

He was saying that the covenant predicted by Jeremiah years ago was coming true. Those days of a new covenant have arrived.

God made many covenants with people in the Old Testament over the years: Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses and David.

The law was always at the centre of these covenants. The people had to conform there lives in a certain way. But that requires a particular way of living. Their lives had to conform to the divine life.

The people of Israel who were wandering around the desert saw their laws as harsh and heavy demands that were imposed upon them.

So the prophet Jeremiah said that one day the Lord will write his law on the hearts of his people, so that the Law doesn’t feel like a burdensome task but a path to freedom. Like the banks of a fast flowing river that give it energy, purpose and direction.

This is what Jesus means at last supper when he said “This is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and eternal covenant.” God places his law into our hearts.

In the beatitudes at the Sermon on the Mount we receive more laws on how to really live and have peace in our hearts.

Jesus said “You have heard it said in the Torah but I say to you.” In other words Jesus is the embodiment of the Torah - the law now made flesh.

So when we consume the person of Jesus during the Mass we consume the law that up to that point had only existed on stone tablets or the words of prophets. And when we consume the Eucharist we confirm this new and everlasting covenant.

We must remember that the Mass is not just an old ritual of remembrance of some historical person. We are actually eating and drinking the Torah made flesh so that the law becomes written in our own hearts.

Now he is not saying that we should hate ourselves and everyone around us. He is saying that Jesus must come first in our lives.

Jesus in himself is the grain of wheat. So he is speaking about his own passion and death. Jesus is the one who doesn’t cling to his life but lays it down for us which allows him to be raised. His passion and death is the ultimate act of praise and glory to God the Father.

The Father speaks from heaven that he has been glorified firstly at the birth of Jesus and will now be glorified again in this new and everlasting covenant in the passion of Christ.

So this concept of a grain of wheat serves to provide a great analogy for Jesus. He is the ultimate seed who dies on the cross and through his death is then raised and provides new life for us.

But also as a grain of wheat he in himself provides sacramental nourishment for us as the true bread from heaven.

And then when eventually we pass from this world into the next we then emulate the death of Jesus in that truly dying to ourselves and to this life we can rise and participate in the ultimate new life of heaven where we can experience the fruitfulness of eternal life.