Hey, everybody. This is Father John Ricardo with Acts 29. And in the middle of all the craziness

and the uncertainty that's going on right now, it seems from our perspective as a team that it's

worth using these days to reflect in a more deliberate way on the scriptures every day, which

for many of us now is the only spiritual food that we're receiving. And so we're going to do a special podcast series simply entitled,

Be Not Afraid, God's Word in Uncertain Times.

And we'll try to post something every day, usually reflecting on the scriptures,

so that we can listen in on what God is trying to say to us in these days.

The opening prayer for Mass this morning is what was the fuel, if you will, or the food for

my own personal prayer earlier today.

This is what we prayed in the opening prayer today.

O God, who for the salvation of the world brought about the pascal sacrifice, be favorable to the supplications of your people, so that Christ, our high priest, interceding on our behalf, may by his likeness to ourselves bring us reconciliation and by his equality with you free us from

our sins through our Lord Jesus Christ your son who lives and reigns with you and the unity of the

Holy Spirit one God forever and ever amen so that So that first, or that opening prayer, rather, we may or may not know,

that comes more or less directly out of the letter to the Hebrews, which, interestingly enough,

is the only book in the New Testament which identifies Jesus as a priest,

especially for Catholics. That might be a bit strange. We're used to thinking not only about priests in general, but often of thinking about Jesus as a priest,

but nowhere else in the New Testament is Jesus referred to as a priest.

And in many ways, the letter to the Hebrews is something like a prolonged homily on the priesthood of Jesus. So what's the

purpose of a priest? What do a priest do? This is worth reflecting on for a number of reasons,

not least of which is if you're baptized, whether you're a man or a woman or a child, you're a

priest. We oftentimes forget this, I think, as Catholics,

but when a person's baptized, there may to be a priest, a prophet, and a king, or more precisely,

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