21 January 2027 · Latin Rite
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“Consequently he is able for all time to save those who approach God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.” Hebrews 7:25
Hebrews offers one of the most comforting truths in the New Testament: Christ “is able for all time to save those who approach God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.” Right now, at the Father's right hand, the risen Jesus is praying for you. Unlike earthly priests who offered sacrifices daily, he offered himself “once for all”, and is “the mediator of a better covenant”.
Mark describes crowds pressing on Jesus from every region, so many that he asks for a boat to be ready. “All who had diseases pressed upon him to touch him.” The unclean spirits fall before him and shout, “You are the Son of God!”, but he silences them; he will be revealed in his own way, on the Cross. Today we honour St Agnes, a Roman girl of about twelve or thirteen who refused to give up her consecration to Christ and was martyred around 304. The weakest in the world's eyes, she was strong because her Lord was interceding for her.
Theme: “He always lives to make intercession for them.”
Christ the interceding High Priest; crowds who touch him; Agnes strong in weakness.
“Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he poured out himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.” Isaiah 53:12
“Consequently he is able for all time to save those who approach God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.” Hebrews 7:25
Apply: Pray today: Jesus, I join my prayer to yours.
“he sent out his word and healed them, and delivered them from destruction.” Psalm 107:20
“for he had cured many, so that all who had diseases pressed upon him to touch him.” Mark 3:10
Apply: Bring one sick person to Jesus in prayer daily.
“My beloved is mine and I am his; he pastures his flock among the lilies.” Song of Songs 2:16
“But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong;” 1 Corinthians 1:27
Apply: Pray for the protection of girls and children.
We never pray alone: Christ intercedes for us.
Like Agnes, the weak become strong in him.
Take-home resolution: Remember daily this week that Jesus is praying for you.
Dear friends, Hebrews tells us something deeply comforting: Christ is able for all time to save those who approach God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them (Hebrews 7:25). At this very moment the risen Jesus is praying for you.
He offered himself once for all, and now he is the mediator of a better covenant. We never pray alone; we pray inside his prayer.
In the Gospel crowds come from everywhere. All who had diseases pressed upon him to touch him (Mark 3:10). Even the unclean spirits cry: you are the Son of God! But Jesus silences them.
Today we honour St Agnes, a girl of twelve or thirteen who refused to deny her consecration to Christ and was martyred in Rome. She was weak in the world's eyes, but strong because Christ was praying for her. Let us trust his intercession and ask for her courage. Amen.
Children, Jesus is praying for you right now in heaven! St Agnes was a young girl who loved Jesus very much and was very brave.
Lord Jesus, you live for ever to intercede for us. Draw us to touch you in faith, and through the prayers of St Agnes give us courage and purity to belong wholly to you. Amen.
On the memorial of a young martyr, the weekday readings speak of two kinds of nearness to Jesus. Hebrews shows him seated at the right hand of God, always living to intercede for those who approach. Mark shows the crowds pressing on him from every region just to touch him, while the unclean spirits shout the right title for the wrong reason. To know who he is is not yet to belong to him. St Agnes, who gave him her whole life, shows what belonging means. The key words are intercede, once for all and Son of God.
Setting.
The argument of chapter 7 reaches its end, and the preacher sums it up in 8:1: “the main point in what we are saying is this”. Levitical priests were many, because death kept removing them. They offered daily and offered for their own sins. Christ is one, lives forever, and offered once. Then the preacher takes up the next stage: if the priest is new, the sanctuary and the covenant must be new as well.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“Consequently he is able for all time to save those who approach God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.” (7:25)
This is one of the most comforting sentences in the New Testament. Jesus is not only the one who once died for me. He is the one who is praying for me now.
“this he did once for all when he offered himself.” (7:27)
Here the priest and the victim are the same. No high priest of old could say that. Nothing remains to be added to what he offered.
“They offer worship in a sanctuary that is a sketch and shadow of the heavenly one” (8:5)
The preacher quotes Exodus 25:40: Moses built according to the pattern shown on the mountain. A shadow is real, and it is cast by something. The old worship was God’s own gift and pointed beyond itself. The Church does not despise it and honours the covenant with Israel as never revoked (CCC 121, 839). The present tense has led many scholars to think the Temple was still standing when this was written, though others disagree.
“he is the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted through better promises.” (8:6)
The preacher will now quote Jeremiah’s promise of a new covenant written on the heart (Jeremiah 31:31–34; Hebrews 8:8–12). The Lord will say “this is my blood of the covenant” (Mark 14:24), which the Church hears at each Mass.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism applies this verse to all of Christ’s life: he always lives to make intercession for us (CCC 519, 662), and in him all our intercession has its source (CCC 2634). It explains how the Mass and the ministerial priesthood stand to the “once for all”: the one sacrifice is made present and not repeated (CCC 1366–1367), and the one priesthood of Christ is made present through ministers, without diminishing its uniqueness. As St Thomas Aquinas says, “Only Christ is the true priest, the others being only his ministers” (CCC 1545).
Setting.
After the plot of 3:6, Jesus withdraws to the lake, and Mark gives one of his summaries. The list of places covers almost the whole of the land of Israel and beyond: Galilee, Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea in the south, the land east of the Jordan, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon in the north, which was Gentile territory. The word Idumea occurs only here in the New Testament. While the leaders plot, ordinary people are walking for days to reach him.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“for he had cured many, so that all who had diseases pressed upon him to touch him.” (3:10)
It is easy to see the crowd’s motives as mixed, and they surely were. Jesus does not send them away. Still, Mark shows him keeping a boat ready: even mercy needs some space to continue.
“Whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and shouted, “You are the Son of God!” But he sternly ordered them not to make him known.” (3:11–12)
Their words are correct, but there is neither love nor obedience in them. Even the demons believe and shudder, as St James says (James 2:19). Why silence? The title cannot be rightly understood until the Cross and the Resurrection (9:9). Scholars call this theme in Mark “the Messianic secret”.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism teaches that Jesus’ driving out of demons shows that the Kingdom of God has come, and anticipates his great victory over “the ruler of this world” (CCC 550). It also says that the title “Son of God” is fully understood only through the Passion and Resurrection: in Mark it is the centurion before the Cross who says it (CCC 444). To know the right words is not enough. Faith is a personal adherence of the whole person to God (CCC 150, 176).
If Christ’s sacrifice was once for all, what happens at Mass? Is he sacrificed again?
No. The Mass is not a new sacrifice added to the Cross. It is the one sacrifice of Christ made present, so that its saving power is applied to us today (CCC 1366–1367). Hebrews says that he lives forever and intercedes. His offering does not stop being present before the Father, and at the Mass the Church joins it.
St Agnes is among the most loved martyrs of Rome, and she is named in the Roman Canon. She died probably at the beginning of the fourth century. St Ambrose wrote that she was only twelve years old (On Virgins, 1), and he marvels that a girl too small for the chains could face the sword without fear (in substance). Many details in later accounts are legendary, but her cult is very old, and a basilica stands over her tomb on the Via Nomentana. Her name recalls the Greek hagnē, pure, and to Latin ears agnus, lamb. So each year on this day two lambs are blessed in Rome, whose wool is woven into the pallium which the Pope gives to metropolitan archbishops. The readings suit her well: she went to the Lamb who always lives to intercede for us.