"According to rabbinic theology, the idea of the covenant--the idea of establishing a holy people to be an interlocutor for God in union with him--is prior to the idea of the creation of the world and supplies its inner motive. The cosmos was created, not that there might be manifold things in heaven and earth, but that there might be a space for the 'covenant', for the loving 'yes' between God and his human respondent. Each year the Feast of Atonement restores this harmony, this inner meaning of the world that is constantly disrupted by sin, and it therefore marks the high point of the [Jewish] liturgical year....
"Jesus' prayer [at the Last Supper] manifests him as the high priest of the Day of Atonement. His Cross and his exaltation is the Day of Atonement for the world, in which the whole of world history--in the face of all human sin and its destructive consequences--finds its meaning and is aligned with its true purpose and destiny."
--Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth--Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection (Ignatius Press, 2011), pp. 78--79
