Word of the Week

7th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Guarantee: Arrhabob (Hb.): meaning, “an earnest pledge; security”. A commercial term that speaks to money used as a down payment, or pledge, upon a purchase with the full amount to be paid in full later.

In Baptism, we have received the gift of the Holy Spirit as the first fruits, or pledge, of our heavenly inheritance of the divine life of God in the Holy Trinity “to love God as God has loved us” (CCC 735). This gift of the Holy Spirit is what makes present the mystery of Christ upon the altar in the prayer of the epiclesis, and at the same time when accepted, the hope and anticipation of eternal communion with the Holy Trinity. The acceptance and receptivity of the gift is the “guarantee” of our inheritance (CCC 1104-07).
    
The term guarantee within this commercial context can be found 6 times in Sacred Scripture: 3 in the Old Testament and 3 in the New Testament. The lone OT passage can be found in the dialogue between Judah and Tamar when Judah offers as a pledge to Tamar a signet, cord and staff (Gn.38:17-20). Paul’s theology ties the term guarantee with the seal received in Baptism (2 Cor.1:21-22, 5:5; Eph.1:14). A seal in antiquity was impressed in clay or wax by a royal official as a sign of authority. This material sign of ownership and protection (Ezek.9:4-6) points to an immaterial reality of divine ownership in which the indelible mark of Baptism and Confirmation is imprinted upon the soul (Hahn and Minch, 56).

In this Seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time, we have the opportunity to prepare and discern what God is asking of us in this fast approaching Lenten Season. Lent, to some Catholics, is seen as a burden to fulfill their “catholic duty”, and for others, it is a viewed as an opportunity to renew and fortify the endowment of grace once received long ago at a baptismal font. My dear catholic family, let this not be an opportunity missed, rather an opportunity seized. Let us surrender, serve, and sacrifice for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven. We ought to invest what God has given to us in his first installment of heavenly due with prayer and good works. Our inheritance of divine sonship is about the listen/response relationship we have with God. Let us listen—that we might respond with the gift of the Holy Spirit!

“We could say that in Christian life on earth, it is like an initiation into full participation in the glory of God. The Holy Spirit constitutes the guarantee for achieving the fullness of eternal life when, by means of the effects of the redemption, all the other effects of sin will also be overcome, such as suffering and death. Thus Christian hope is not only a guarantee, but also an anticipation of the future reality.”

--Pope John Paul II

Primary Texts Consulted

• Catholic Bible. Suggested trans. Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition.
•  Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd Edition, 1997.
• Hahn, Scott and Minch, Curtis. Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: The First and Second letters of Saint Paul to the Corinthians, RSV, 2nd ed. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000.

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