Like our 1st reading from the Letter to the Hebrews at yesterday’s daily Mass, today’s reading contrasts Christ the High Priest with high priest under the law of Moses in Ancient Israel. The Jewish Christians who first read this letter are reminded that Jesus, whom they are threatening to abandon in favor of the Jewish Temple-based priests, is a priest on a far different level. Right before today's reading, the author asserts to his readers that the human priests in the Temple were numerous because they died off and had to be replaced. Christ, however, holds his priesthood permanently because he endures forever. Thus, Christ is able to be the constant source of salvation for us because his intercession on our behalf never ceases. That is very different from the offerings and prayers that the Temple priests offered for the people in Jerusalem. Under the priests of the Temple, the people were under the old covenant, but under Jesus as the High Priest, we are bound by a new covenant.
As I was writing this homily the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day, I think of all that I was doing as a priest that week: celebrating Mass at the federal prison with the inmates there, celebrating daily Mass in our parish, anointing the sick, and con-celebrating at a funeral. We priests in the Catholic Church are humans with frailties and weaknesses, yet we unite our priesthood to the priesthood of Jesus, we stand in as a representative of Jesus, and we look to Jesus as our high priest and our Savior and Redeemer, Jesus as true God and true Man. That is at the center of our faith.
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