Wednesday in the Third Week of Ordinary Time, January 27, 2021

Hebrews 10:11-18

Every priest stands daily at his ministry, offering frequently those same sacrifices that can never take away sins. But this one offered one sacrifice for sins, and took his seat forever at the right hand of God; now he waits until his enemies are made his footstool. For by one offering he has made perfect forever those who are being consecrated. The Holy Spirit also testifies to us, for after saying:  “This is the covenant I will establish with them after those days, says the Lord: ‘I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them upon their minds.’ ”  He also says: “Their sins and their evildoing I will remember no more.”  Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer offering for sin.

In the first reading for today’s Mass we continue with the Letter to the Hebrews.  St. Paul here compares the old priesthood with its sacrifices and the new Priesthood of Christ, in which the Lord offered the sacrifice of himself.  He says that, “Every priest stands daily at his ministry, offering frequently those same sacrifices that can never take away sins.”  God had given the old law to Moses about 1,500 years before the Birth of Christ, and for nearly all those years until the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D. the Jewish priests had offered sacrifices for sins — sacrifices which could only take away ritual uncleanness, but not sin itself.  These sacrifices signified the one Sacrifice by which sin would actually be forgiven.  

It is good to think about how sin and virtue affects a person, especially on how it affects a person’s ability to receive the Gospel, which leads to the forgiveness of that person’s sins.  We can get an idea of this by looking at the Parable of the Sower and the Seed, which is today’s Gospel reading.  The Lord speaks of different types of soil and the results that come from casting seed upon them.  The types of soil signify types of people, or the dispositions of people.  People receive  the “seed” of faith and react to it according to their abiding dispositions.  These dispositions come about through time and experience, through actions and reactions, through the exercise of the will.  They regulate a person’s openness to new ideas and even to reason.  A life of repeated sin will affect a person in a very different way than a life in pursuit of virtue.  A wicked person will look at a new idea with suspicion and through a prism of selfishness.  A virtuous person may be cautious with anything new, but generally will be curious and will be confident in being able to judge whether an idea or a proposed course of action is a good one or not.  Now, the first type of soil in the parable is a hard “path”.  The seed lies on top of the soil and is ineffectual.  Jesus says that this signifies those who hear the Gospel, but that “immediately Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown” (Mark 4, 15).  That is, because of the effect of repeated sinful actions in the past, these people have closed themselves off to the Gospel even before they encounter it, and so they reject it when they hear it.  The second type of soil is “rocky ground”.  This signifies those whose lives are less sinful but who are very attached to this world and the opinions of others.  Their moral choices have brought them to this point.  Unlike the wicked, they are excited to hear the Gospel, and its novelty appeals to them, but its demands are too much for them.  They fear that they will lose the esteem of others and dread the possibility of being scorned by others in society.  The third type of soil is thorny ground.  This signifies people who seek power and control over others.  The Gospel has little chance with them, for “the cares of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts after other things . . . choke the word” (Mark 4, 19).  The fourth type of soil is “rich”.  This signifies those who have continually sought God, who pursue virtue.  Years of living good lives have prepared them to become “fruitful” in the Gospel.  

The world in which we live is dominated and ruled by those who have rejected the Gospel, or would reject it if they heard it through the continual hardening of their hearts that results from sin against what we call “natural law”, a law written on our hearts which everyone can know, even those who do not know God.  They did not get to where they are except by steady effort.  We ought to look upon what sin has done to these people and to our world, the hatred it has brought with its feuds, quarrels, and wars, as well as its envies, its lusts.  We ought to look upon it and then upon the lives of the saints and upon the Lord Jesus who so desires all to be saved that he would die on the Cross as many times as there are people if this were necessary, as St. Alphonsus  Liguori says.  So let us step away from sin and corruption and bask in the forgiveness the Lord so readily offers us, and make ourselves ever more open to his will through our faith and virtuous works.