Fourth Sunday of Year C
Januay 2007
2)- The Mass is Immanuel
We read in Matt. 1:23 `Look! The virgin is with child and will give birth to a son whom they will call Immanuel, a name which means ‘God is with us.’
God the Father sent his Son to convince us that ‘God is with us’. To this end God the Son became a human being called Jesus of Nazareth, who was born as a helpless little child just like us. Jesus of Nazareth aka God the Son the Second person of the holy Trinity, lived with us and among us, talking with us, helping us, joking and laughing with us, arguing with us, loving us, forgiving us, sharing everything with us, enjoying our company and loving every moment of it. He continually agitated for justice for the poor and the helpless and willingly- accepted arrest, trial and execution rather than betray the poor and the needy.
And then in a last desperate effort to convince us that `God is with us' and loves us, during his last meal, before his arrest, he took bread and wine saying `this is my body, this is my blood' and gave his followers to eat and drink. In the same way as this bread and wine becomes inseparably part of the body of person who eats and drinks it so is God inseparably part of each one of us.
In short God sent Jesus to tell us about Immanuel and to explain what it meant.. The Mass is the most graphic and simple illustration of what Immanuel means.