First Reading Introduction

      "See, God, I have come to do your will." The old Law was not capable of saving people. It could only point out where and when sin was committed, but not to forgive it. That is why its sacrifices were to be repeated. The sacrifice that forgave sin was that of Christ, because it was personal and touched the heart of God. Note, how this year, the first reading and the Gospel have the same message.

First Reading: Hebrews 10:1-10

Brothers and sisters: 
Since the law has only a shadow of the good things to come,  
          and not the very image of them, it can never make perfect  
          those who come to worship by the same sacrifices  
          that they offer continually each year. 
Otherwise, would not the sacrifices have ceased to be offered,  
          since the worshipers, once cleansed, would no longer  
          have had any consciousness of sins? 
But in those sacrifices there is only a yearly remembrance of sins,  
          for it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats  
          take away sins. 
For this reason, when he came into the world, he said: 
  
          Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, 
                    but a body you prepared for me; 
          in burnt offerings and sin offerings you took no delight. 
          Then I said, As is written of me in the scroll, 
                    Behold, I come to do your will, O God. 
  
First he says, Sacrifices and offerings,  
          burnt offerings and sin offerings, 
          you neither desired nor delighted in. 
These are offered according to the law. 
Then he says, Behold, I come to do your will. 
He takes away the first to establish the second. 
By this "will," we have been consecrated  
          through the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all.