You're listening to From the Friars podcast, the community of Franciscan friars, the renewal, headquartered in the Bronx, New York City. We're reading from the book of Exodus. Although Moses and Aaron perform various wonders in Pharaoh's presence, the Lord made Pharaoh obstinate, and he would not let the children of Israel leave his land. The Lord said to Moses, and Aaron in the land of Egypt, this month, just stand at the head of your calendar.
You shall reckon it as the first month of the year. Tell the whole community of Israel, on the 10th of this month, every one of your families must procure for itself a lamb, one a piece for each household. If a family is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join the nearest household, imprecurring one, and shall share in the land. In proportion to the number of persons who partake of it, the lamb must be a year old male without blemish, and they take it from either the sheep or the goats.
You may take it from either the sheep or the goats. You shall keep it until the 14th day of this month, and then with the whole assembly of Israel present, it shall be slaughtered during the evening twilight. They shall take some of its blood and apply it to the two door posts and the lintel of every house in which they partake of the lamb. The same night that shall eat its roasted flesh with unliven bread and bitter herbs, which shall not be eaten raw or boiled but roasted whole with its head and shanks and inner organs.
None of it must be kept beyond the next morning. Whatever is left over in the morning shall be burned up. This is how you are to eat it. With your loins skirt, sandals on your feet, and your staff in hand, it shall eat like those who are in flight.
It is the Passover of the Lord. For on the same night, I will go through Egypt striking down every firstborn of the land, both man and beast, and executing judgment on all the gods of Egypt, by the Lord. For the blood will mark the houses where you are. Seeing the blood, I will pass over you thus.
When I strike the land of Egypt, no destructive lo will come upon you. This day shall be memorial feast for you, and all your generations shall celebrate, with pilgrimages to the Lord as a perpetual institution. The Lord be with you. A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew.
Jesus was going through a field of grain on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick the heads of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, see your disciples are doing what is unlawful to do on the Sabbath. He said to them, have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry?
How he went into the house of God and ate the bread of offering, which neither he nor his companions, but only the priests could lawfully eat? Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priests serving in the temple violate the Sabbath and yet are innocent? I say to you something greater than the temple is here. If you knew what was meant, I desire mercy, not sacrifice.
You would not have condemned these innocent men, for the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. The Gospel of the Lord. Amen. Amen.
St. Lawrence, the Brindisi, the doctor of the Church. The Capuchin Franciscan. That was really the guy with the beards.
That's my community. He came from the Capuchin, the Capuchin, the Saint Lawrence. He died in 1619. This is a very interesting time of history.
It's right after the Protestant Reformation and it's the time of what we call the Catholic Counter Reformation. The Church had the Council of Trent to answer all the objections that the Protestants, like Zwingli and Luther and Calvin, and then from there came an amazing outpouring of holiness and saints. And St. Lawrence and Brindisi was one of these saints.
He was just very talented and gifted. He had the gift of languages. He spoke multiple languages fluently. He became the leader of the Franciscan order for a while and he's known for his, he's a doctor of the Church.
So his theology, his writings, his sermons were really influential. He had such a gift of clarity and charity. He was very smart. His smarts were even outdone by his virtue, his humility, his charity.
And that's a tremendous gift when people have all those virtues. And one of the things he's known for is that he was very fluent in Hebrew and he would preach and debate with the Jews of the time. And evidently from what we know of the writings, they were convinced that he was raised Jewish and converted. He was that gifted with the languages and etc.
etc. He had such a great love for the Hebrew language and for the Hebrew people and the whole testament. And so let that be the transition to what we're going to talk about today. I'm feeling a somewhat humorous moment and it's just a daily mass today.
And yet we have one of the most important passages in the whole Bible. The other day we had Moses at the burning bush. And today we've got the Passover. This is like one of the most important moments in the Bible.
This is like super special and profound. And we know that the story of salvation history, as it unfolded in the history of the Jewish people, this was one of the biggest moments, the establishment of the Passover, the sacrifice of the Lamb and the putting of the blood on the doorpost and the eating of the flesh of the Lamb and then the leaving of Egypt, leaving the land of slavery going to the Promised Land. This is one of the big moments. And each one of these moments are very profound, you know, the meaning of why were they doing this.
But then also after the coming of Jesus, we can go back and re look at the story in the light of Jesus. Because we know Jesus is the Lamb of God, right? John the Baptist. There's the Lamb of God.
Jesus dies on the cross while they're sacrificing the lambs in the temple. And they've used to wash the drains of the temple with water to get all the blood of the sacrifices would come out of the side of the temple into the Kedron Valley. They pierce Jesus' heart on the cross and the blood of the water come out. Jesus says there's something greater than the temple.
The temple was symbolic of him. These are just amazing to reread these Jewish stories now in the light of Jesus are amazing. But not only that, if you reread the life of Jesus in light of the stories, it helps us to understand better what he did and what it means for us. You know that what we see in the Passover was just a pre-figurement and preparation for what Jesus would do.
And it helps us to understand. Now here's where it gets fascinating. The early church fathers drew some fascinating parallels between the Passover and the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. And they would say that this is the angel of death passed over and spared the firstborn of the Israelite house.
So Jesus, the firstborn of all creation, offers himself and the blood of the Lamb was placed on the lentils of the door. And so the blood of Jesus is put on our lips at communion, which is the lentils of the door to our body. You know, it's like an interesting, eucharistic interpretation and that the blood of Jesus being upon us and within us, then the angel of death passes over us. We live in Christ.
It really is something beautiful and profound. And so my friends, we give thanks to the Lord that the way God did these things is so mysterious and moving and beautiful and profound and filled with meaning. Now there's one more step we have to make and this is the best step of them all. Not only does Jesus fulfill all the Old Testament stories, not only do those Old Testament stories grant a deeper meaning to what Jesus did also, but those of us who are living all these years later, the story of Jesus, his life, his teaching is the interpretive key for our own lives as well.
So that's authentic Christian spirituality that what we go through, what we struggle through in our lives, that we look to Jesus, we look to his life, we look at his teaching. And that is also the interpretive key that unlocks the mystery of our own lives, that Jesus is reliving his life in his body, the church, and that includes each single one of us that as we particularly think about praying the rosary all the time, you become very familiar with Jesus and his story, it helps you to understand better your own story and also offers guidance as we make our way through our own exodus to the promised land which waits for us in heaven. Amen. Amen.
You've been listening to From the Friers broadcast, the community of Franciscan Friars the Renewal, please visit us at FranciscanFriars.com or on social media, CFR underscore Franciscans.