9781644135945

The Light of the World
This He does in a twofold way: first of all, through His continuous sacrificial prayer. He is like
another Moses praying with outstretched arms while His people fight against their adversaries.
If Moses lowered his hands, Amalec overcame; and when he lifted them up, Israel overcame
(Ex 17:11). Likewise Christ is “always living to make intercession for us” (Heb 7:25). “Christ
Jesus that died; yea, that is risen also again, who is at the right hand of God, who also maketh
intercession for us” (Rom 8:34).
He also exercises His priesthood through His sacrificial life in the Eucharist on our altars.
There the divine high priest offers Himself through the hands of His ordained minister. In the
midst of His people He offers His body and His blood, His life with its inexhaustible merits, His
acts, His adoration, His praise, His obedience, and His love. “This holy and unspotted victim”
He places in the hands of His Church at the offertory, that all those who are in heaven and on
earth may have an offering to make to the Father which is entirely worthy of Him. “This is My
body. . . . This is My blood” — the fruit of the Lord’s Ascension into heaven.
“Thou art a priest forever according to the order of Melchisedech” (Ps 109:4). Not after
the manner of the bloody sacrifices of the Old Testament is He a priest, but after the
manner of the unbloody sacrifice of the New, after the manner of the mystical priest-king,
Melchisedech, who offered bread and wine. Christ, the divine high priest, by means of His omnipotence
transforms the bread and wine into His sacred body and His most precious blood.
The Eucharistic sacrifice celebrated by the divine high priest becomes the foundation on which
His kingdom is established and extended here on earth. This is the source of the efficacy of
the life-giving waters of baptism and of the graces furnished by the other sacraments. It is the
eternally pulsating heart which circulates the streams of life and light and love throughout
the members of the mystical body. By means of this offering the high priest makes the most
complete satisfaction for sin, the most adequate return for benefits received from God, the
most effective intercession for further needs, the worthiest adoration for all creatures. Through
this Holy Sacrifice the priestly spirit of Christ is stirred up in all His members. By means of
the Mass, Christ lives in His Church, in His members on earth, being persecuted in them,
doing penance in them, accomplishing good through them, and adoring His father by means
of them. By means of this offering He unites those whom He has redeemed more closely to
Himself, incorporates them in His own sacred offering, and offers them to the Father, a “holy
and unspotted victim.”
“The Lord will send forth the scepter of Thy power out of Sion. Rule Thou in the midst
of Thy enemies. With Thee is the principality in the day of strength, in the brightness of the
saints. . . . Thou art a priest forever” (Ps 109:2 ff.). Through the power of Your holy priesthood
You rule over the powers of darkness and of evil. Rule the hearts of men, make them Your own.
Make them to be with You at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass a pure, holy, and unspotted victim to
be offered to the Father. Fill them with the power and the spirit of Your own sacred priesthood.
Our high priest possesses an eternal priesthood because He Himself is eternal. For this reason
He is able to redeem perfectly all those who come to God through Him, for He makes continual
intercession for them. “For it was fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent,
undefiled, separated from sinners, and made higher than the heavens” (Heb 7:26). How fortunate
we are to have such a divine high priest! We will “go in to the altar of God” and pray “through
Christ our Lord.” We shall celebrate the Sacrifice of the Mass with Him, and allow ourselves
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