I have to say, I feel a little envious. We had an ordination to the priesthood of three new priests yesterday. Their First Mass will be today, on the Feast of Corpus Christi! How special is that!
On this feast of Corpus Christi, our reading from Hebrews gives us an opportunity to address a couple of misunderstood teachings of the church. So we start with a quote from the reading from Hebrews. It is in the middle of the reading from today: “For if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling of a heifer’s ashes can sanctify those who are defiled so that their flesh is cleansed, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from dead works to worship the living God.”
The first misunderstanding surrounds the words “dead works”. What the writer to Hebrews was trying to describe was the rituals in the Temple in Jerusalem, where the high priest would offer certain types of sacrifice for the sins of himself and the Jews. This is clear in the previous paragraph of Hebrews from what we read today. And I quote: “This is a …read more

Source:: Fr. Frank Jindra’s Homily Podcasts