The temple in Jerusalem
1 The first covenant had rites and re gulations. There was also a sanctuary – an earthly one.
2 A first tent was prepared with the lamp stand, the table and the bread of the presence, this is called the Holy Place.
3 Behind the second curtain, there is a second sanctuary called the Most Holy Place,
4 with the gold altar for the burning of incense, and the ark of the Covenant, fully covered with gold. The ark contained a golden jar holding the manna, Aaron’s rod that had sprouted leaves and the two slabs of the covenant.
5 Above the ark the two cherubim of glory over shadowed the Seat of Mercy. But we cannot here describe it in detail.
6 With everything arranged as described, the priests
continually enter the first room to fulfill their ministry;
7 but the High Priest enters only once a year the second one, and not without bringing the blood which he will offer for himself and for the sins of the people.
8 By this, the Holy Spirit teaches us that the way into the inner sanctuary is not open as long as the first tent still stands.
9 Here is a teaching by means of figures for the present age: the gifts and sacrifices presented to God cannot bring the people offering them to interior per fection.
10 These are no more than food, drink and different kinds of cleansing by water; all these are human regulations awaiting a reformation.
Jesus entered with his own blood
11 But now Christ has appeared as the high priest with regard to the good things of these new times. He passed through a sanctuary more noble and perfect, not made by hands, that is, not created.
12 He did not take with himself the blood of goats and bulls but his own blood, when he entered once and for all into this sanctuary after obtaining definitive redemption.
13 If the sprinkling of people defiled by sin with the blood of goats and bulls or with the ashes of a heifer provides them with exterior cleanness and holiness,
14 how much more will it be with the blood of Christ? He, moved by the eternal Spirit, offered himself as an unble mished victim to God and his blood cleanses us from dead works, so that we may serve the living God.
15 So Christ is the mediator of a new covenant or testament. His death made atonement for the sins committed under the old testament, and the promise is hand ed over to all who are called to the everlasting inheritance.
16 With every testament it is necessary to wait until its author has died.
17 For a testament infers death and has no value while the maker of it is still alive.
18 That is why the first covenant was not ratified without blood.
19 Moses proclaimed to the assembled people all the commandments of the Law; then he took the blood of bulls and goats and mixed it with water, and with these he sprinkled the book itself and all the people using scarlet wool and hyssop
20 saying: This is the blood of the Covenant that God commanded you.
21 In the same way he sprinkled with blood the Sanctuary and all the objects of the ritual.
22 According to the Law, al most all cleansings have to be per formed with blood; there is no forgiveness without the shedding of blood.
23 It was necessary that mere copies of supernatural realities be purified, but now these realities need better sacrifices.
24 Christ did not enter some sanctuary made by hands, a copy of the true one, but heaven itself. He is now in the presence of God on our behalf.
25 He had not to offer himself many times, as the High Priest does: he who may return every year, because the blood is not his own.
26 Otherwise he would have suffered many times from the creation of the world. But no; he manifested himself only now at the end of the ages, to take away sin by sac rifice,
27 and, as humans die only once and afterwards are judged,
28 in the same way Christ sacrificed himself once to take away the sins of the multitude. There will be no further question of sin when he comes again to save those waiting for him.
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Comments , Chapter 9
• 9.1 Chapter 8 established that Jesus replaces the priests of the people of God, and that with his “priesthood” our relation with God has changed. Chapter 9compares the celebrated cult in the Temple of Jerusalem and the new cult celebrated by Christ-priest.
The sacrifice offered by Christ, his death, were not like the ancient sacrifices to appease the anger of God. His death has been his final tes ti mony and his way of sowing among people what they did not want to receive; with this tes ti mony, he gave himself into his Father’s hands.
Knowing who the author of this letter was and to whom it was addressed, we understand that he relates the blood of Jesus and his death to that of the victims that were offered in the Temple, since for them these things were very important. Yet today we have the right to relate the blood and the death of Christ to the death of all the murdered innocent, as Jesus himself gave us to understand (Mt 23:35): their blood is sacred, too (Rev 6:9).
THE ONE AND ONLY PRIEST AND “PRIESTS”
Jesus is the unique priest, and we speak of priests in the Church. Let us understand clear ly, especially when, almost everywhere, the priesthood is in crisis.
In Latin there is the word “sacerdos” which signifies both the priests at the service of Roman gods and the priests of the Jewish people. When the Church came to be, not for an instant did it think of priests of this kind, holy persons who were privileged in being able to approach God to offer sacrifice. Christ alone was “sacerdos,” and all that the Church had were “presbyters,” meaning elders, the same title that the Jews used for those responsible for communities. Yet it is fact that now presbyter has become priest and this word has revived the meaning of the ancient “sacerdos” which had been put aside.
It is not the result of chance. From the fourth century the Church adopted the term “sacerdos” for its use, the man of the sacred and the consecrated man. Why this going backwards?
One reason was that times had changed: the Church of the catacombs had developed into a Christianity recognized by authority, with the Christian population grouped and cared for by an organized clergy (see commentary on Numbers 4).
There were other profound reasons. It was recognized that the Church was not a human society and that its organization must reflect the very order that is in God. The bishops, therefore, must incarnate the authority of the apostles chosen by Jesus. They were, in their turn, official witnesses of Christ and guided the Church without having to bend to the will of the majority; in so doing, they were maintaining in the Church the principle of fatherhood (see commentary on Eph 3:14). The Church, moreover, considered the ordination of priests and bishops as a sacrament: they were not functionaries who assumed service for a time, and for a part of their life, keeping for themselves the rest of their life, as the term “ministers” might lead us to believe. Their responsibility in the Church was inseparable from an attachment and a consecration of their person to Christ.
The ministers, successors of the apostles, were then priests in a certain sense but it is difficult for these strongly opposing terms to have a happy marriage. It was essential for them to have spiritual authority but not tolerate any exterior marks that neither Jesus nor his apostles accepted. They would have to be on their guard not to allow their recognized authority to serve our innate aspiration to have the last word, or to be different from others, or served by others. They must be masters in faith, but without deciding for others; be leaders but not obligatory intermediaries between God and the baptized.
All that is asking for something impossible, if it is not through the imitation of Christ-priest: the renunciation of self even to death.
These chapters allow us to see at close range what the unique priest has been – far removed from the liturgies of the earth. It helps us to see the priesthood of Christ in all the baptized who “do not say mass” in the measure of their involvement in the life of the Church, be it in the apos tolate, preaching, service of neighbors, or quite simply in a silent or suffering life.