FEAST OF THE DAY – 28th May 2026 - Our Lord Jesus Christ the Eternal High Priest
“Jesus, Eternal High Priest, intercede for us!” Today we celebrate Our Lord Jesus Christ the Eternal High Priest — a profound mystery of Christ’s identity as the One who eternally offers Himself to the Father for the salvation of the world. Jesus is not only the sacrifice, but also the priest who offers the perfect sacrifice. On the Cross, He gave Himself completely out of love, and now in heaven He continues to intercede for all humanity before the Father. He is the Eternal High Priest who never ceases to pray for us, to bless us, and to bring us into communion with God. A reminder from Christ the Eternal High Priest: Offer your life to God Trust in My eternal intercession Unite your suffering with My sacrifice The message of the Eternal High Priest: Love is sacrificial and eternal Mercy flows from the Cross I am always interceding for you Graces of this devotion: Deeper understanding of the Eucharist Strength in trials and suffering A heart rooted in prayer and sacrifice Greater union with Christ What He teaches us: To offer our daily lives to God To pray with and through Jesus To live in gratitude for salvation To trust in His constant intercession Today, unite your prayers with Jesus, the Eternal High Priest, and offer your heart, your struggles, and your life to the Father through Him. “Jesus, Eternal High Priest, I trust in You!” Follow for more Catholic feast day reflections & inspiration!
Orbis Catholicus
The Feast of Christ the Priest, also known as the Feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ, The Eternal High Priest, is a Roman Catholic moveable liturgical feast celebrated annually on the first Thursday after Pentecost. Approval for this feast was first granted by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments in 1987. In 2012 the Congregation sent a letter to all conferences of bishops, offering the feast to be inscribed in their respective liturgical calendars if they ask for it.
Countries and institutes observing the feast
Confraternity of Christ the Priest in Australia
Spain
Chile
Mexico
Poland (since 2013; Decree, 3 April 2013)
Slovakia (since 2013)
Netherlands (since 2014)
Czech Republic (since 2015)
England and Wales (since 2018)
Pampanga, Philippines (since 2001)
Community of Saint Martin (since 2020)
Significance
The feast focuses firstly on Jesus’ Priestly Office (Latin: Munus sacerdotale). He is considered the model for believers, and for the clergy in particular, with priests acting In persona Christi (“In the person of Christ”). The laity are thus urged to pray that priests would be more like Christ, the compassionate and trustworthy high priest (Hebrews 2:17), ever-living to intercede for humanity before The Father (Heb 7:25).
The Second Vatican Council taught many things about the Priesthood of Christ, and sharing in that one Priesthood through the Sacraments of Baptism and Holy Orders. This development has been reflected in many subsequent documents. One effective way to build upon this teaching is to establish the Feast of Christ the Priest more widely.
What Pope Pius XI wrote about the feast in honor of Christ’s Kingly Office can be said just as truly about this feast in honor of Christ's Priesthood:[opinion]
For people are instructed in the truths of faith, and brought to appreciate the inner joys of religion far more effectually by the annual celebration of our sacred mysteries than by any official pronouncement of the teaching of the Church. Such pronouncements usually reach only a few and the more learned among the faithful; feasts reach them all; the former speak but once, the latter speak every year - in fact, forever.
Liturgical aspects
The feast has its own proper texts for the Mass, as for the Votive Mass of the Blessed Eucharist B.
The feast also has approved Latin, Spanish and English texts for the Liturgy of the Hours. The formulary lacks proper texts for the extended vigil (per IGLH 73). This rules celebration of the extended vigil out entirely, since, unlike other feasts, feasts of the Lord cannot draw on Common of the Saints.
The entry from the Roman Martyrology (2005) reads:
Thursday after Pentecost
The Feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ, The Eternal High Priest, according to the order of Melchizedek.
In him the Father has been well pleased from before all time. As Mediator between God and human beings, fulfilling his Father’s will, he sacrificed himself once on the altar of the Cross as a saving Victim for the whole world. Thus, instituting the pattern of an everlasting sacrifice, with a brother’s kindness he chose, from among the children of Adam, men to augment the priesthood, so that, from the sacrifice continually renewed in the Church, streams of divine power might flow, whereby a new heaven and a new earth might be made, and throughout the whole universe there would be perfected what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor has entered into the human heart.
Feast of Christ the Priest - Wikipedia