The feast of Jesus Christ the Eternal High Priest

This feast focuses on Jesus’ Priestly Office. Jesus is considered the model for all believers, and for the clergy in particular, with priests acting In persona Christi (“In the person of Christ”). The lay faithful are urged to pray that priests will become more like Christ, the compassionate and trustworthy high priest (Heb 2:17), who is ever-living to intercede for us before the Father (Heb 7:25). It also reminds us that the 2 nd Vatican Council taught many things about the Priesthood of Christ, and that all the baptised share in that one priesthood through the sacrament of Baptism. This understanding has been reflected in many subsequent documents. It was decided, therefore, that an effective way to build upon this teaching was to establish the feast of Christ the Eternal High Priest more widely. What Pope Pius XI wrote about the feast in honour of Christ’s Kingly Office can be said just as truly about this feast in honour of Our Lord’s Priesthood:

For people are instructed in the truths of the faith, and brought to appreciate the inner joys of religion far more effectively by the annual celebration of our sacred mysteries than by any official pronouncement of the teaching of the Church. Such pronouncements usually reach only a few and the more learned among the faithful; feasts reach them all; the former speak but once, the latter speak every year - in fact, forever. Quas Primas 21