NOTES for Deu 5:1-33
It is with us that the Lord made the covenant! Moses emphasizes—not with our fathers, but with us. He repeats the same Ten Commandments that God gave Israel forty years earlier, but now they are addressed directly to a new generation of Israelites. If the covenant was made only with the fathers, it may become an important part of tradition, a religious heritage, but not the foundation of life. Today’s reading gives us a good occasion to consider what our relationship with God is based upon: only on what has been handed down—the tradition of the Church and Holy Scripture—or on a personal encounter and the experience of living faith?