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Lent with the Letter to the Hebrews (Mar 26-27)

March 26, 2026

Fr. John Colacino C.PP.S.

Thursday of the Fifth Week of Lent (Hebrews 12:22-24)

²²But you have come to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable multitudes of angels, ²³to the festal gathering and assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, ²⁴to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better than that of Abel.

Commentary

There are several places in the New Testament where the followers of Jesus are depicted in the holy of holies, in other words, as high priests who have who know the secret teachings. First, there is Hebrews 12, where some pilgrims have completed their journey and reached Jerusalem…The pilgrims are standing with the angels. They are all in the holy of holies with the assembly of the Firstborn, a title given to the ancient Davidic kings in Jerusalem With them are the spirits of just men made perfect, who are the righteous ones whom we met in Psalm 11, beholding the face of the LORD. Jesus is there, and his blood has been sprinkled to renew the covenant. This is the Day of Atonement in heaven. All rituals in the earthly temple reflected the worship of heaven, although in temple discourse they were the worship of heaven. (Margaret Barker)

“The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground” (Gen 4:10). It is not only the voice of the blood of Abel, the first innocent human to be murdered, which cries to God, the source and defender of life. The blood of every other human being who has been killed since Abel is also a voice raised to the Lord. In an absolutely singular way, as the author of the Letter to the Hebrews reminds us, the voice of the blood of Christ, of whom Abel in his innocence is a prophetic figure, cries out to God: “You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God ... to the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks more graciously than the blood of Abel” (12:22, 24).

It is the sprinkled blood. A symbol and prophetic sign of it had been the blood of the sacrifices of the Old Covenant, whereby God expressed his will to communicate his own life to humanity, purifying and consecrating them (cf. Ex 24:8; Lev 17:11). Now all of this is fulfilled and comes true in Christ: his is the sprinkled blood which redeems, purifies and saves; it is the blood of the Mediator of the New Covenant “poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Mt 26:28). This blood, which flows from the pierced side of Christ on the Cross (cf. Jn 19:34), “speaks more graciously” than the blood of Abel; indeed, it expresses and requires a more radical “justice”, and above all it implores mercy, it makes intercession for the brethren before the Father (cf. Heb 7:25), and it is the source of perfect redemption and the gift of new life.

The blood of Christ, while it reveals the grandeur of the Father’s love, shows how precious human beings are in God’s eyes and how priceless the value of human life. The Apostle Peter reminds us of this: “You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your fathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot” (1 Pt 1:18-19). Precisely by contemplating the precious blood of Christ, the sign of his self-giving love (cf. Jn 13:1), the believer learns to recognize and appreciate the almost divine dignity of every human being and can exclaim with ever renewed and grateful wonder: “How precious must humanity be in the eyes of the Creator, if we “gained so great a Redeemer’ (Exsultet of the Easter Vigil), and if God gave his only Son” in order that we should not perish but have eternal life’ (cf. Jn 3:16)!”

Furthermore, Christ’s blood reveals to humanity its greatness, and therefore its vocation, consists in the sincere gift of self. Precisely because it is poured out as the gift of life, the blood of Christ is no longer a sign of death, of definitive separation from the brethren, but the instrument of a communion which is richness of life for all. Whoever in the Sacrament of the Eucharist drinks this blood and abides in Jesus (cf. Jn 6:56) is drawn into the dynamism of his love and gift of life, in order to bring to its fullness the original vocation to love which belongs to everyone (cf. Gen 1:27; 2:18-24).

It is from the blood of Christ that all draw the strength to commit themselves to promoting life. It is precisely this blood that is the most powerful source of hope, indeed it is the foundation of the absolute certitude that in God’s plan life will be victorious. “And death shall be no more”, exclaims the powerful voice which comes from the throne of God in the Heavenly Jerusalem (Rev 21:4). And Saint Paul assures us that the present victory over sin is a sign and anticipation of the definitive victory over death, when there “shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” (1 Cor 15:54-55). (Pope John Paul II)

Musical Selection (with lyrics)

Collect

Do not withhold your presence, Lord our God,
from those who call upon you,
but look with tender care
on all who hope in your mercy.
Cleanse them from the stain of sin,
that they may persevere in holiness of life
and receive the inheritance you have promised.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God for ever and ever. Amen.

Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent (Hebrews 12:25-29)

²⁵See that you don’t refuse him who speaks. For if they didn’t escape when they refused him who warned on the earth, how much more will we not escape who turn away from him who warns from heaven, ²⁶whose voice shook the earth then, but now he has promised, saying, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens.” ²⁷This phrase, “Yet once more” signifies the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that have been made, that those things which are not shaken may remain. ²⁸Therefore, receiving a Kingdom that can’t be shaken, let’s have grace, through which we serve God acceptably, with reverence and awe, ²⁹for our God is a consuming fire.

Commentary

The phrase “yet once more” makes clear that another “one time” would be added after the second. For the world was shaken for the first time when the law was given on Sinai: “For the earth shook,” David said. Again the earth was shaken during the sojourn in the flesh: “For all Jerusalem was shaken” and “the idols of Egypt built by human hands.” And he calls an earthquake that which was heard of the proclamation, through which people were shaken from their old condition in error and brought into a new condition…. He speaks of yet one more occasion, namely, at his second coming with glory, when he will alter and change creation. For then creation will especially be shaken with a real shaking and crash—a more drastic change than of people who were corrupt at the time turning from evil to good. (Oecumenius)

There have been two remarkable transformations of the human way of life in the course of the world’s history. These two are called two “covenants” and, so famous was the business involved, two “shakings of the earth.” The first was the transition from idols to the law; the second, from law to gospel. The gospel also tells of the third “shaking,” the change from this present state of things to what lies unmoved, unshaken, beyond. An identical feature occurs in both covenants. The feature? There was nothing sudden involved in the first movement to take their transformations in hand. We need to know why. It was so that we should be persuaded, not forced. The unspontaneous is the impermanent—as when force is used to keep stems or plants in check. The spontaneous both lasts longer and is more secure. It belongs to despotic power to use force; it is a mark of God’s reasonableness that the issue should be ours. (Gregory Nazianzen)

In sacred language God is called a fire, as when Scripture says, “Our God is a consuming fire.” Concerning the substance of the angels, it also speaks as follows: “Who makes his angels spirits and his ministers a burning fire.” And in another place, “The angel of the Lord appeared in a flame of fire in the bush.” In addition, we have received a command to be “fervent in spirit” by which expression undoubtedly the word of God is shown to be hot and fiery. The prophet Jeremiah also hears from him who gave him oracles, “Behold, I am making my words in your mouth a fire.” As God, then, is a “fire” and the angels are “flames of fire” and all the saints are “fervent in spirit,” so, on the contrary, those who have fallen away from the love of God are undoubtedly said to have cooled in their affection for God and to have become cold. (Origen of Alexandria)

Musical Selection (Taize)

When the night becomes dark, your love O Lord is a fire.

Collect

Pardon, merciful Lord, the offences of your people,
and in your goodness
release us from the bonds of sin
which in our human weakness
we have fashioned for ourselves.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God for ever and ever. Amen.

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