It gives us hope for he who made the promise is trustworthy.
In the letter to the Hebrews, St. Paul is exhorting us to place our confidence in Christ
and in his sacred humanity, which he has offered on the cross for us.
He has not only offered himself for our sins,
but he has allowed us to...
enter through the veil into the sanctuary.
The veil, St. Paul says, is his flesh, and he has brought his flesh to us,
and he has, as our great high priest, has opened up the house of God, the temple of God,
so that we can offer a sacrifice that is pleasing to the Lord,
which, of course, is what we do at Mass.
We come before the altar of God,
and Jesus is our great high priest.
Our Lord is our victim and our salvation.
And through our baptism, by which we are united to him and to the blessed Trinity,
with the presence of the Holy Spirit within our souls,
we are able to offer a sacrifice that is pleasing to God.
And so we're exhorted to have a sincere heart,
absolute trust to be clean from an evil conscience and to be made pure as though we were washed in
pure water and this is our hope we're united to jesus and his sacrifice becomes our sacrifice
we offer his sacrifice and his sacrifice truly washes us away from sin and so we are
to be inspired with confidence and with
an understanding of the power of god within our souls and we are exhorted then to be generous
to allow the light that god has given us to shine as our lord says in the gospel that we
should not place a lamp under a bushel basket but should allow it
to shine by the way
placing it on a lamp stand and he exhorts us also our lord himself to generosity and confidence
the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you and still more
will be given to you the one who has more will be given from the one who has not even that what
he has will be taken away today we celebrate the feast of saint blaise bishop and martyr he was the
bishop of sepastia
and he was the bishop of sepastia
in armenia in the fourth century and he died a martyr for christ just before he died he
cured a child mother brought a child who was choking on a fish bone to him and he delivered
the child from his imminent death it's for this reason that we bless the throats of those who
well everyone but we in a special prayer the blessing of throats with the candles
is given for the people's选р that are who it's good to fly from the
and here's the faithful prayer that god has given to us
friday monday the
in golden the christian
it's a holiday
it's a song
it's a song and it's in existence
Christ is the light of the world, and his grace delivers us from every evil, and the
candles are placed in the form of the cross to remind us of Christ's sacrificial death
and his redeeming love.
And the blessing is on the feast of a martyr because this individual who was able to perform
this miraculous deed was like Jesus.
He had that confidence, he had that trust in God to enter into the fire and go through
the veil of death and pass out the other side unscathed.
And we are called to have that same confidence and appreciation and gratitude for the grace
of God and to believe in his power, the power to deliver us from physical evil like illnesses,
the power to deliver us from our sins.
The power.
To deliver us from fear so that we can be his witnesses.
And if we take all of this to heart and allow the grace of God to transform our lives, then
we will be generous the way the Lord wants us to be generous.
He wants to pour into our laps in abundance his grace and everything that we could possibly
desire, but we have to let go.
We have to die a little early.
We have to die a little early.
We have to die a little early.
We have to die a little early.
Every day we have to pick up our cross and carry it, lose our life in order to find it.
May we have that grace as we celebrate this Feast of the Martyr Saint Blaise and as we
ask for the Lord's healing power in our lives through this blessing that we receive.
© transcript Emily Beynon