In South Africa, Thursday 4th June is celebrated as the feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Eternal High Priest. This celebration, observed on the day traditionally kept as Corpus Christi, focuses on Christ as the priest who makes sacrifice on himself on the altar of the cross and also on the ministry of those who share in the one priesthood of Christ through the sacrament of orders. The entry in the Roman Martyrology for this commemoration sums up its meaning in these words: “As Mediator between God and human beings, fulfilling his Father’s will, [Christ] sacrificed himself once on the altar of the Cross as a saving Victim for the whole world. Thus, instituting the pattern of an everlasting sacrifice, with a brother’s kindness he chose, from among the children of Adam, men to augment the priesthood, so that, from the sacrifice continually renewed in the Church, streams of divine power might flow, whereby a new heaven and a new earth might be made, and throughout the whole universe there would be perfected what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor has entered into the human heart.”
On Thursday, a single Mass of Corpus Christi is offered respecting the traditional calendar, at 1.10pm (Extraordinary Form, Latin). Corpus Christi is otherwise celebrated at Masses next Sunday.
Click here for a reflection on the feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Eternal High Priest, from the English Dominican Friars.
(Image: The Eastern Christian iconography of the Deësis includes reference to Christ as High Priest; this triptych also depicts the Blessed Virgin and saints including St Athanasius, St Nicholas and St George.)