9781644135945

The Light of the World
the Father to grant His people grace and forgiveness, thus appeasing God’s anger which we,
the baptized, have so often deserved. How often do we not commit daily infidelities against the
commandments of God in spite of the powerful and abundant graces given to us! How often do
we not deserve God’s punishment! Woe unto us if the Lord, our Moses, raises not His hands
daily to the Father, if He does not pray for us and offers not His gift of sacrifice. He does so
during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, offering up His life as He did once on the cross. Looking
down upon us with compassion, He implores the Father: “Father, forgive them, for they know
not what they do” (Lk 23:34). The Father cannot resist the prayers and sacrifices of His Son.
By the Sacrifice of the Mass He allows Himself to be appeased from doing the evil which He
had threatened against His people. This “ministration of justice” leads to justification, salvation,
and eternal happiness; it is a ministration more wonderful and efficacious than the ministration
of the Old Covenant, in the same degree as the life, passion, and death of the Lord are exalted
above the prayers of Moses, a mere man. We are indeed blessed in the ministration of the New
Covenant, in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, in our high priest, Jesus Christ. “Blessed are the eyes
that see the things which you see. For I say to you, that many prophets and kings have desired
to see the things that you see, and have not seen them” (Gospel).
This “ministration of the Spirit” that leads to justification the Lord has entrusted to the priesthood
of His Church. The priest is “taken from among men, is ordained for men in the things that
appertain to God, that he may offer up gifts and sacrifices for sins” (Heb 5:1), thus obtaining
for us justification before God and the remission of sins. He is endowed with the same mission
and power that the Lord gave His apostles when He said: “As the Father hath sent me, I also
send you. . . . Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them;
and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained” ( Jn 20:21 ff.). To His apostles and their successors
and assistants, the bishops and priests, He gives also the power of changing bread and
wine into His body and blood. This “ministration of the Spirit,” of the New Covenant, leads to
justification. “Blessed are the eyes that see the things which you see.”
“But [ Jesus], for that He continueth forever, hath an everlasting priesthood, whereby He
is able also to save forever them that come to God by Him; always living to make intercession
for us” (Heb 7:24 f.). Our high priest not only performed the ministration of the Spirit once
while dying on the cross, but He continually renews it during the Sacrifice of the Mass and
by His continuous prayers in heaven. “Blessed are the eyes that see the things which you see.”
Prayer
May we be quickened, O Lord, by participation in this holy mystery, and may it grant us both
the expiation of our sins and the strengthening of our souls. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Friday
“Master, what must I do to possess eternal life?” asked the lawyer in the Gospel. Jesus answered
with a counter-question: “What is written in the law? How readest thou?” And the
lawyer replied: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole
soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself.” Jesus said
to him: “Thou hast answered rightly; this do, and thou shalt live.” But the lawyer wished to
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