Daily Mass - OLJC the Eternal High-priest

Mass was offered today for vocations to the priesthood and the Religious life in general, and for our Diocese in particular. It seems to me to be a good thing to keep this as the ordinary intention for Masses on Thursdays, in the absence of a particular and requested intention. A good priest once told me that you have to pray for these things, and pray hard, for such vocations are a gift from God. Consequently, and according to that request from the Diocesan vocations service, special prayers are said for that intention on Thursday, after Mass. At Saint Joseph's, that takes the form of devotion to the Sacred Heart, according to the old invocation to Christ,

Jesus, meek and humble of Heart, make my heart like unto Thine.

And that brings us nicely to the feast day of Our Lord, in His Being as the Eternal High-priest, a nice coincidence today with our Thursday theme of vocations made to souls consecrated to God. In both the priesthood and the Religious life, men and women are called to extraordinary perfection, to live in so far as possible the life of the Gospel, and so to cooperate in the Jesusification of their hearts.

But above consecration to God, the priest is also a mediator, standing in the immense breach between God and mankind. We celebrate here this vital feature of the Being of Christ, Who is both fully God and fully Man (the ordinary priests we know merely participate in the high-priesthood of Christ, Whom they represent). Because Christ is both, because He has a foot in two worlds, because He can represent both, He is the bridge between both and He makes His sacrifice to God on the behalf of all mankind. The key to all of this is the letter (of Saint Paul) to the Hebrews, which develops the theology of the Hebrew high-priesthood and applies it to the particular case of Christ:

"The purpose for which any high priest is chosen from among his fellow men, and made a representative of men in their dealings with God, is to offer gifts and sacrifices in expiation of their sins. He is qualified for this by being able to feel for them when they are ignorant and make mistakes, since he, too, is all beset with humiliations, and, for that reason, must needs present sin-offerings for himself, just as he does for the people. His vocation comes from God, as Aaron’s did; nobody can take on himself such a privilege as this. So it is with Christ. He did not raise Himself to the dignity of the high-priesthood; it was God that raised Him to it, when He said, 'Thou art my Son, I have begotten thee this day, and so, elsewhere, Thou art a priest for ever, in the line of Melchisedech.' Christ, during His earthly life, offered prayer and entreaty to the God who could save Him from death, not without a piercing cry, not without tears; yet with such piety as won Him a hearing. Son of God though He was, He learned obedience in the school of suffering, and now, His full achievement reached, He wins eternal salvation for all those who render obedience to Him. A High-priest in the line of Melchisedech, so God has called Him." - Hebrews 5: 1-10

The letter here refers to the famous Psalm 109 (110), the preeminent Messianic psalm that is recited every Sunday evening in the Divine Office of prayer. 

"To the Master I serve the Lord’s promise was given, 'Sit here at my right hand while I make thy enemies a footstool under thy feet. The Lord will make thy empire spring up like a branch out of Sion; thou art to bear rule in the midst of thy enemies. From birth, princely state shall be thine, holy and glorious; thou art my son, born like dew before the day-star rises.' The Lord has sworn an oath; there is no retracting, 'Thou art a priest for ever in the line of Melchisedech. At thy right hand, the Lord will beat down kings in the day of His vengeance; He will pass sentence on the nations, heap high the bodies, scatter far and wide the heads of the slain.' Let him but drink of the brook by the wayside, he will lift up his head in victory." - Psalm 109 (110)

Notice the importance of the name Melchisedech, which is vital also to the Catholic Mass. Melchisedech was the king of Salem in the time of Abraham, and at one notable point, recognised the vocation of Abraham by God and congratulated him on his victory in battle:

"Melchisedech, too, was there, the king of Salem. And he, priest as he was of the most high God, brought out bread and wine with him, and gave him this benediction, 'On Abram be the blessing of the most high God, maker of heaven and earth, and blessed be that most high God, whose protection has brought thy enemies into thy power.'" - Genesis 14: 18-20

Looking past the offering of bread and wine, we see that Melchisedech was a 'priest of the most high God,' and recognised as such by the Hebrew tribes who traced their lineage to Abraham. In Hebrew and Christian tradition, he became a mystical figure - a priest of God before the Hebrew priesthood was instituted - and his gift to Abraham a sign of the blessing of God that he bestowed. The devotion of the Hebrew shows in Psalm 109, which elevates the 'order of Melchisedech' to a level beyond the Hebrew priesthood, a mysterious, eternal priesthood as compared to the time-limited and localised Hebrew priesthood. And later Judaism based its hopes in the Hebrew Messiah on this particular Order of Melchisedech and on this Psalm, as demonstrated by the letter to the Hebrews, which proceeds to connect it with Christ Himself. 

This post has grown long enough. I end it with this nice, old prayer card. The line in Latin at the bottom is from Psalm 109: "Thou art a priest for ever in the line of Melchisedech."