First reading (OT): Chosen with the day’s Gospel in mind. To remind us of our shared heritage with the Jewish faith, chosen by God as the first to receive his revelation. It also underlines what the Church teaches about the NT being hidden (foretold) in the OT and the OT being revealed (fulfilled) in the NT. Like Jesus shows us in Lk 24: 27 “Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.” and Paul in Gal 4: 23-24 “One, the child of the slave, was born according to the flesh; the other, the child of the free woman, was born through the promise. Now this is an allegory: these women are two covenants.” and 1Pt 3:20-21 in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you--not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”
We have just finished the OT reading and we are given such a rich history of salvation to see how god wants his people to do his will.
The OT events prefigure the NT, which is the completion and fulfillment of the OT. God taking events word of the prophets and completing them in the NT
Now the mass is our participation in those fulfilled events.
We respond “Thanks be to God” to remind us that no matter how difficult or uncomfortable his word might be we should rejoice that the God of the universe loves us enough to teach us his ways so that we might be saved. It is also training for real life where we are called to give our “fiat”(’thy will be done”) to God’s call no matter how inconvenient; or difficult that might be.
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