The Saving Sacrifice
Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,
We continue our spiritual walk through the Easter Season. In today’s Gospel passage, Jesus addresses His disciples’ grief. The Lord just finished telling them that He will be betrayed and that He will depart from them. He encourages them to not let their hearts be troubled, but to have faith in Him.
He assures them that God has a glorious plan for all who surrender their lives to the truth of who Jesus is and what He has done for them. The Heavenly Father has a place in heaven for those who have faith in Jesus. Jesus tells His disciples that He is going to prepare a place for them and that He will come back again to take them to Himself, so that where He is, His disciples may also be.
When Thomas says, “we do not know where you are going, how can we know the way?” Jesus tells His disciples that He is the Way. He says, “I am the way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
We gather every Sunday at Mass to worship God. The prayers of the Mass are, for the most, directed to our Heavenly Father, through Jesus, (listen to the priest’s words in the Eucharistic prayer). We bring forward bread and wine, representing the work of our hands, our sacrifices. We offer them to the Father.
By the power of the Holy Spirit and the ministry of the priest, these humble offerings are transformed into a Saving Sacrifice, the one thing that can save us, Jesus Himself: body, blood, soul, and divinity. The “once for all” Saving Sacrifice of Jesus is made present at every Mass. It is He, Jesus, crucified, risen and now at the Father’s right hand, that we offer to our Heavenly Father, and it is He whom we receive in Holy Communion. For it is Jesus, and Jesus alone, through whom we find salvation.
Sincerely yours in Christ Jesus, the Way, the Truth and the Life,
