Homily for 5th Sunday of Easter

Homily for the
5th Sunday of Easter

May 3, 2026
1 Pet 2: 4-9
Villa Maria, Bronx
Our Lady of the Assumption, Bronx
St. Francis Xavier, Bronx

The Last Supper (Jaume Huguet)

“Let yourselves be built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God thru Jesus Christ” (1 Pet 2: 5).

St. Peter gives us something of a mixed metaphor in this passage from his 1st letter.  We’re to be stones used to build a house, but living stones for a spiritual house; and we’re also to be holy priests—both houses and priests.

Both metaphors—stones and priesthood—point to our relationship with Jesus.  Jesus is the “living stone” (v. 4) that Peter refers to, based on Ps 118 (v. 22), which is one of many Old Testament texts that Jesus fulfills, a verse that he cited himself with reference to his rejection by the chief priests and elders (Matt 21:42).  They didn’t accept him as the Messiah, but instead sent him to his passion and death.  But the rejected stone has become a living stone because God the Father raised him from the dead and made him the cornerstone of his work to redeem the human race:  “a cornerstone, chosen and precious”—here Peter is citing the prophet Isaiah (28:16).

We allow Jesus to take us and build us up into a great temple for the honor of God, part of the temple of his living body (John 2:19-22)—living stones piled onto and around the chosen and precious cornerstone.

Jesus is also the great priest of the new covenant between God and the human race.  He offered himself as the sacrifice that inaugurated that new covenant:  “This is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and eternal covenant, poured out for the forgiveness of sins.”  Not only is Jesus the great priest of the new covenant.  He is the only priest of the covenant, as his sacrifice, offered on the cross, is the only sacrifice of the Christian people.

When Jesus commands us to offer his sacrifice—“do this in memory of me”—he gives us all a share in his priesthood.  That’s why Peter tells us “to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God thru Jesus Christ.”  The one sacrifice we offer is Jesus’ body and blood; we join ourselves to him to make this offering, or in the word our liturgy likes to use, this “oblation.”

While it’s true that Jesus appoints a few men to represent him by presiding over this sacrificial offering, he wants all of us to make the offering.  We’re invited to take part in “my sacrifice and yours,” the sacrifice of the ministerial priest and of the priestly people, to make Jesus’ sacrifice our own.  All of us are priests inasmuch as we offer ourselves along with the Lord Jesus.

Further, Peter suggests we “offer spiritual sacrifices thru Jesus Christ,” and these aren’t confined to the sacrifice of the Mass.  Our prayers at any time of day and in any place, especially our prayers of praise to God or prayers of atonement for our sins, are such spiritual sacrifices.  

At Prayer (by Antonio Parreiras)

St. Paul urged the Romans (12:1) “offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship.”  How much we have to offer to the Lord thru our bodies:  offering our physical and emotional pain, offering our fasting before Holy Communion, during Lent, or at other times, offering dietary restrictions, offering our weariness at the end of a long day or when tending to someone who’s sick, offering our getting out of bed in the morning, listening to someone who needs to unburden her heart—that list of bodily self-offering could go on and on.  (If you’re of a certain age, you may remember the sisters in school telling you, when something hurt or bothered you, to “offer it up.”)  These are “spiritual sacrifices” in that we’re not doing what the ancients did, bringing a bull or a lamb to be sacrificed; nor are we being literally crucified with Christ.  Our offering involves our bodies, but coming from our hearts and our heads, is intentional and spiritual.

And thus we exercise the priesthood of Christ’s faithful people:  “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own” (1 Pet 2:9).