Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time
Bishop Glen John Provost
Bishop of Lake Charles
Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception
September 1, 2013
“No, you have approached Mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and countless angels in festal gathering.” Hebrews 12:22
Liturgy is a very Catholic word. If we look it up in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, we find it defined in the following way: “In Christian tradition [liturgy] means the participation of the People of God in the ‘work of God’” (#1069). And what is that work of God? “Through the liturgy Christ, our redeemer and high priest, continues the work of our redemption in, with, and through his Church” (#1069). There are at least four important words in this definition: redeemer, work, priest and Church.
Christ is our redeemer. Being redeemed means being forgiven of sin and reconciled with God. This we cannot forget. The First Letter of St. John reads, “If we say, ‘We are without sin,’ we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (I John 1:8). Redemption is the work of the redeeming Christ and that work continues. Jesus offers us over and over again the opportunity to repent and be saved, to receive His redeeming grace. As that same First Letter of St. John will say, “… if anyone does sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous one” (I John 2:1).
Redemption is a work. Jesus spoke of this work in the Gospel of St. John. “The works I do in my Father’s name,” He said, “testify to me” (John 10:25). His works included the multiplication of bread, the healing of the blind, and the forgiveness of sin. All of these works and many others were powerful signs pointing to the redemption. “[B]elieve the works, so that you may realize [and understand] that the Father is in me and I am in the Father” (John 10:38). How does this work of redemption continue? To understand how we must understand the important image of the priest.
A priest by definition is one who offers sacrifice. The Letter to the Hebrews points out that the priests of the old Temple worship “… were prevented by death from remaining in office” (Hebrews 7:23). They could not live forever and their sacrifices had to be repeated (Hebrews 7:27), because they too were not perfect. But with Christ we have a perfect high priest who offers not “the blood of goats and calves” but enters the sanctuary “with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption” (Hebrews 9:11-12). All of this glorious work is accomplished so that our consciences are cleansed “from dead works to worship the living God” (Hebrews 9:14).
It is with this Biblical teaching in mind that the Second Vatican Council stated, “The liturgy then is rightly seen as an exercise of the priestly office of Jesus Christ.” It continued, “From this it follows that every liturgical celebration, because it is an action of Christ the priest and of his Body which is the Church, is a sacred action surpassing all others” (S.C. 7 § 2-3). The Church, then, is not a superficial covering that can be thrown off and discarded at will. It is the instrument established by God through Jesus Christ to continue the work of redemption. “As the work of Christ liturgy is also an action of his Church” (CCC # 1071).
All of this came to me as I read the second reading of this Sunday’s Mass. The sacred author is describing the worship of the living God. “You have not approached… a blazing fire and gloomy darkness and storm” (Hebrews 12:18). “No,” the scripture reading says, “you have approached Mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and countless angels in festal gathering, and the assembly of the firstborn enrolled in heaven, and God the judge of all, and the spirits of the just made perfect, and Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant” (Hebrews 12:22-24).
And all of this comes to me now as I celebrate the liturgy of redemption, the work of Christ and His Church, here with us now.