In today’s reading, we witnessed where Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord: ‘We will do everything that the LORD has told us’ proclaiming that ‘This is the blood of the covenant, that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words of his’.
As seasons change from Spring to Summer, I recall Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, where the summer concerto expresses that ‘Under a hard season, fired up by the sun, languishes man, languishes the flock and burns the pine.’ Vivaldi’s masterpiece depicts the summer’s heat as intense, being replaced by a cooling breeze and birdsong. However, the musical undertones suggest that the refreshing breeze could indeed turn into a storm. With summer comes the seasonal harvest. Witnessing a harvest being born, is an unwritten covenant in nature.
We read in today’s passage that obedience was promised, and so a covenant was made ‘between God and the people by sacrifice’.
With the change of season comes the inherent risk of storms, interjecting the summer breeze and stopping the ‘sweet to gaze upon the springing grain’ to ‘see your harvest born’ to quote Francis Ledwidge (1887 – 1917) who wrote many of his poems whilst on active service, revealing his pride at being a soldier.
For many Catholics, the changing of the seasons relates to our faith and the sharing of the Good News. Like Ledwidge, a soldier in the field, we are waiting for the sprouting grain and the inevitable changing of the seasons.
There is hope in today’s reading, expressed by the words ‘They all answered with one voice’.
This one voice is a powerful message, a message that we are part of a covenant, with an inherent agreement that we will share the Good News, in good weather and bad, in sunshine and storm. And a covenant where we will welcome the harvest and, like Ledwidge, with one voice, we must take pride in the paradigm of being a soldier, fighting the good fight.
Image by Daniel Reche from Pixabay
Dr Brendan Feehan
