I wonder if you carefully read or listened to the first reading from the Letter to the Hebrews today. The letter makes a comparison between Mount Sinai and Mount Zion. Mount Sinai symbolizes the Old Covenant God made with Israel when he brought them out of Egypt. On the other hand, Mount Zion points to the New Covenant that a new people of God received through the blood of Christ Jesus.

The Letter to the Hebrews also shows a difference between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament. Although God is the same, the God of the Old Covenant was so fearful to approach, while the God of the New Covenant celebrates together with his angels and saints and accepts all the faithful in his city. Mount Sinai was covered with “a blazing fire, darkness, gloom, and a tempest, and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that not another word be spoken to them”. On the opposite, Mount Zion is the living God’s city, filled with the festal gathering of innumerable angels, the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and the spirits of the righteous, with the presence of God the judge of all and Jesus, the mediator of the New Covenant. This heavenly Jerusalem is sprinkled with the blood of the Lamb of God, which redeems all sins of man.

This comparison prompts us to the images of the sacrifices of the Old Covenant and the New One. Smoke, blood, and fear would fill the Temple of the Old Covenant. But light and joy fill the New Jerusalem. What is this new sacrifice? It is nothing but the Holy Mass!

Finally, the people of God may approach God without fear of death. But behold, countless hosts of angels and the assembly of all saints make a presence at the Mass. God and his only begotten Son reveal themselves to his people in the bloodless sacrifice for the redemption of humanity. All heaven and earth are summoned at the Mass.

Nevertheless, do we recognize its indescribable greatness and unfathomable profundity? Most times I do not see this glory at the sanctuary. The Mass becomes a daily routine without the feeling of awe and adoration. Although Christ comes to me in his flesh and blood in the Eucharist, often I look for him in somewhere ‘more meaningful’. Am I blind? Where else will I find a more genuine religious encounter?

I pray that the Lord remove my blindness so that I may see his glory at the sacrifice of the Mass. And I also pray that our fasting of attending the Mass during this pandemic may intensify our desire for Jesus, who gives his flesh and blood in this heavenly Jerusalem of the Eucharist.