Today's reading is entirely devoted to the theme of the Covenant. Modern readers usually first notice the natural phenomena that accompanied the theophany at Sinai on the day the Covenant was made (vv. 9, 17-19). Behind these biblical testimonies it is not hard to see historical reality: traces of ancient volcanic activity have been found at Sinai, and ancient people everywhere associated natural phenomena such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions with a manifestation of the presence or action of higher powers.

Yet something else is more important here: the essence and meaning of the Covenant of which God speaks to Moses (vv. 4-6). The words about a "kingdom of priests" are not always clear to modern readers, but the New Testament context, where Christians and the Church as a whole are usually called "saints," clarifies much here. Still, it would be more precise in this case to speak not of holiness in the modern sense of the word, which often suggests perfection and even sinlessness, but of holiness in its traditional biblical meaning, that is, of being consecrated, of the new quality acquired by the life of a person who has truly come into contact with that presence of God which accompanied the Jewish people throughout their historical path and then appeared so vividly in the Church of Christ.

Contact with it really changes a person. After such an encounter he becomes different, acquiring the new quality conveyed by the biblical idea of being "consecrated" or "holy." And this new quality acquired by a person allows him to have a deeper relationship with God. Without it one cannot enter the Kingdom of God, which is why the Church, as part of the Kingdom, as the Body of Christ, contains the fullness of holiness. One can say that, to a certain degree, human nature itself changes, becoming better suited to communion with God.

Of course, such changes are not irreversible; more than that, they depend entirely on a person's relationship with God, being an inseparable part of that relationship, and if the relationship is broken, this new quality will also disappear. But God wants His relationship with His people to be as stable and strong as possible, to be what the Covenant presupposes, and He is ready to do everything to attain this goal. Yet attaining it depends not only on God, but also on the human person.

What is the purpose of the existence of God's people? God Himself answers this question quite unambiguously: to be "a kingdom of priests and a consecrated ("holy") nation." Sometimes these words were understood literally, historically. Thus, the priestly version of the history of God's people reflected in the Books of Chronicles assumed that the chief meaning of the Jewish people's existence was the creation of their own state, and the chief meaning of the state and its rulers was the construction, and then the maintenance, of the Jerusalem Temple and the priestly corporation connected with it. But is that all there is to it? Of course, the existence of the Temple, especially after it remained the only place on earth where Yahwistic sacrifices were possible, was extremely important.

But is that what God is speaking about when He calls His people "a kingdom of priests"? And what, in that case, does "a consecrated nation" mean? A people who come to the Temple to perform the prescribed sacrifices in order to be consecrated? And what about the rest? Those who, in the Second Temple period, for example, lived in diaspora communities and had no opportunity to visit Jerusalem even once a year? Did all these people really stop being part of God's people only because they had no physical possibility of reaching the Temple?

Of course not. In those days the Synagogue already understood that the whole Jewish people, as God's people, formed one spiritual whole, consecrated through the Temple and preserving that consecration through the Torah. And from God's people the rest of the world is also consecrated: this is why one people consecrated by God exists in the world, so that the whole world may be consecrated through it. That is how the question of the consecration of God's people and of the rest of the world was resolved in pre-Christian times. With the coming of Christ, however, a new people of God appears, whose boundaries only partly coincide with the boundaries of the former, pre-Christian people, because this new people is consecrated by the Messiah Himself, who opens to it the Kingdom that He brought into the world.

The former people, however, of course does not disappear: the covenant has been made; what has been consecrated is consecrated. And how to unite the two peoples into one is known, surely, only to the One who consecrated them both. We, in all probability, will learn this only at the end of time, when the world is transformed completely and the Kingdom is revealed in all its fullness.

In the book of Exodus today we read how God prepares His people to make the Covenant, how He gives visible and audible signs of His presence. "Behold, I will come to you in a thick cloud, so that the people may hear when I speak with you, and may believe you forever."

How important this seeing and hearing is for us human beings and for our faith. But the Gospel also reveals the other side: without faith we do not understand even what we see and hear. Faith is a gift from God, but we are responsible for how we use this gift. God does everything to increase faith in us, but are we always attentive to His works?