The Israelites experienced the gift of water from the rock when they complained that they were dying of thirst in the desert. We experience many graces on our journey, graces which we seem unaware of because they seem so ordinary or so expected.  Because they are graces for and of the moment and not the once-in-the -lifetime, extraordinary graces we take very little notice. But again without these graces--unmerited favors from God--we would not be able to survive the journey ahead.

For the Israelites the Mount of Sinai was another oasis.  Here God called the people to enter into a new covenant with him, a covenant-life  based on the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments. These commandments were the basis of their relationship with God and with neighbor, a relationship of love.

Instead the people chose to make a god that they could fashion and control: their golden calf. They chose a no-god over the only God. They bowed down before a god who would not chastise them or correct them, a god who would be blind and deaf to their debauchery. But in fact, they sold themselves back into slavery and bondage to Satan, the pseudo-god who would exact everything from them, including life itself. (To be continued)