Book of Leviticus #18

Chapter 26:14-46 must be taken seriously by anyone who wishes to take God seriously. It presents a sobering account of the extent to which God is prepared to go in order to save us. Ultimately, though, for those who like pharaoh harden their hearts and refuse his mercy, there remains one ultimate and eternal outcome: hell.

Curses are the counterpart of blessings. But God is a loving God and his desire is for all mankind to be saved. When faced with the prospect of an eternity in hell, the worst temporal curse is an act of mercy. God's love is complete and unending, and therefore the curses in this Chapter should not be seen as a sign of a hateful God, but rather as an expression of his love when he is speaking to a wayward, obstinate, rebellious child.

In this lecture, we cover the curses of Leviticus Chapter 26. We will see that these curses are all-encompassing, that they are comprehensive, covering every aspect of our lives.

God wants us to understand that there is not one aspect of our lives that escapes his scrutiny, his judgment, and his love

Book of Leviticus #17

Leviticus 26:3-13 tells the Israelites that if they walk in the Lord's statutes and observe his commandments then the Lord will bless them. What is the extent of these blessings and what do they mean today for us?

This same truth is taught in the New Testament albeit in a different way. In addition to the teaching on the last judgment in Matthew 25:31-46, the Lord tells us that the name of the elect will be entered into the Book of Life (Rev 3:5; 13:8; 17:8; 20:12). Indeed, the consequences of what man does during his earthly life will follow him beyond the grave (Rev 14:13).

In this lecture, we begin by asking a simple question: What is a blessing? What does it mean to bless and what does it mean when God blesses us? Next, we consider the blessings listed in this chapter and map them back to various areas of our lives. What emerges is an all-encompassing movement of grace from God to man when Man is faithful to the Covenant. Indeed, God is not content to bless us partially, but he wishes to bless us so that we may attain everlasting life.

Therefore, no matter how far or deep we may move from the Lord, no matter the depth of our sins, he is always ready to bless us, provided we are willing to repent with sincerity and humility. And this is a great blessing we received from the Cross.

Book of Leviticus #16

In Leviticus 23:4 God instructs the people to keep the feasts at their appointed time. Therefore, the people had to preserve their spiritual heritage and pass it on.

1. Passover came in the Spring, the month of Nissan (March-April) at the time of the Barley harvest.
2. It was immediately followed by the seven days Feast of Unleavened Bread and the beginning of the feast of First Fruits in the same week.
3. Fifty days later (Pentecost), the Israelite commemorated the Feast of Weeks (Shabuoth), right at the time of the early summer wheat harvest.
4. Three more festivals came together in the fall during the harvest of summer fruits and olives:
5. New Year’s (Rosh Hashannah) on Tishri 1,
6. Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement (Tishri 10), and
7. The Feast of Tabernacles (Succoth) or In gathering beginning on Tishri 15.

Thus the entire liturgical cycle of Israel was one of remembrance, renewal, thanksgiving for the things to come, and thanksgiving for the things given.

If God took care to instruct the Jews on their liturgical year, how much does He care to see us today follow the Liturgical year with all its appointed feast days?

Is there true joy apart from the liturgical year?

Book of Leviticus #15

Leviticus 23 is structured as a calendar identifying

1. The occasions for festivals
2. The times assigned for them
3. The liturgies to be followed.

God, as the Lord of the Covenant, establishes the time of meeting through the holy days and festivals of the year.

The people had to respond by sanctifying themselves in order to complete the process. So sanctifying the time is a combination of divine instruction and human response.

Time is Holy. Time, with all its liturgical demarcations, belongs to God, and Time starts with the Sabbath.

The Sabbath is the sign of the covenant; it is the primordial day before the fall. It is a sign of complete dependence on God for it is "the Sabbath to the Lord. Indeed, Jesus fulfilled the promises of the Sabbath when he told us “Come unto me all ye who are weary and heavy-laden and I will give you rest” (Matt 11:28). The Long-expected eschatological rest that was promised in the new covenant.

This lecture explores in detail what it means to "enter into the rest of the Lord," so we may be able to live life and live it to the full.

Art in Logo by By Alexander Johnston (1815–1891) Public Domain

Book Of Leviticus #14

It is not enough to know the law; one must live by it.

But what does it mean to "live by the law?"

Chapter 20 of the Book of Leviticus presented pious Israelite with a mode of living acceptable to God. Recall that the thrust of the Levitical law is to make the presence of the Israelite (and by extension any other human being) tolerable before God. The sacrificial system was instituted by the Lord to help his chosen people learn who He is and who they are. In that same vein, Chapter 20 continues the study we began in Chapter 18 by providing specific penalties, often of a capital nature to each offense that was mentioned in Chapter 18.

God's intent for us is to reach Heaven. But he wishes to make it amply clear that the road to Heaven is the Cross in complete fidelity to his Son and to the Church His Son established. This lesson is already inscribed in Chapter 20 of the Book of Leviticus and the warnings and admonitions this chapter contains are very much applicable to our own day and age.

Book of Leviticus #13

What is the real purpose of the Law?

What did God intend when he gave the Israelites the law?

It is tempting to read Leviticus as a litany of obscure tribal laws that may have made sense in antiquity but are as irrelevant to our daily lives as Hammurabi's Laws ...

Unlike the Babylonian legal code, Leviticus is inspired and guided by the Holy Spirit who is its ultimate author. As such, Leviticus holds an image of the Word of God, the Alpha, and the Omega and, as such, Leviticus is not about a series of laws but about Love.

Love is a word and is dead if it remains a word. It is alive in deeds, hidden and visible. Therefore any Israelite sincerely seeking the Lord will find Him in Leviticus.

Chapter 19 of Leviticus is about the Practice of Holiness. Now that the Law is given, what are the fruits that demonstrate it is alive in the hearts of the believer?

Suddenly, Leviticus, and in particular Chapter 19, is no longer a boring list of obscure laws, but God revealing to his children how they should act in his presence if they Love him. Indeed, Chapter 19 is directed to believers who long to see the face of God, and while the text of Leviticus does not speak to the experience of faith; it assumes it the reader to be reading scripture with one goal in mind: Lord I believe, strength my unbelief."

Book of Leviticus #12

Before spelling out the laws of conduct for families and, by extension, the lay society, the Lord begins by defining what the family is and is not.

Chapter 18 of the Book of Leviticus has the most complete treatment of incest and forbidden sexual unions in the Old Testament. This may strike us as odd; after all, why not speak of other sinful behavior such as those related to food, or money, or abuse of power, why start with sexuality?

The simple, and straightforward answer is, that sexuality is integral to the definition of the family, and, the family, when seen from the Cross, is the greatest natural sacrament for the Holy Trinity and the Kingdom of God.

Indeed, the Lord has written three bibles, not just one: the cosmos, the family, and the sacred scriptures. The family is an image of the Trinity and must reflect that image so that society at large can be prepared to receive the Good News and nurture it. If the family is broken or worse disfigured, then the image of God is disfigured, preventing his children from recognizing him.

This is why the Lord begins, in this chapter, by establishing the boundaries of the family, and he does this within the confines of the Old Testament when polygamy was tolerated ("for their hardens of hearts" the Lord will explain later).

By studying this chapter, we gain critical insight into the way the Lord views the family and the importance it plays in the salvation of mankind, an insight that leads us into the heart of the Church who is the one and only Bride of Christ

Book of Leviticus #11

How are priests to conduct themselves? What of their marital life? Who should they mourn? Who should they bury?

Chapters 21 and 22 of Leviticus complete the study we have begun with the consecration of Aaron and his sons. The Lord wishes his priests to follow a specific law of purity, beginning with marital commandments and finishing with burial instructions.

The code given here concerns priests and the High Priest who must follow even more stringent rules than his brethren.

As we study these laws, we must not lose track that their primary objective is not, as one might think, the purity and holiness of the priests. The purity of the priests is necessary to protect the sanctuary from contamination. This notion is strange to our ears, particularly Catholic ears because we take it for granted that nothing we do or the priest does could contaminate the Tabernacle.

True, and this is a stark difference between the liturgy of the Old Covenant and the New. The Old Covenant did not carry the necessary graces to cure leprosy or raise the dead: there, anyone who touches a leper becomes unclean but with the coming of Jesus all that changed: for Our Lord touched lepers and he did not become unclean: they were healed by the flow of actual grace.

So why do these instructions to the priests matter still? Because they are foreshadowing a code of interior holiness and by studying them we get a deeper understanding of what the Lord expects of us and of his priests today.