Ps 116:12-13, 15-16bc,17-18
1 Cor 11:23-26
Jn 13:1-15
Three years Jesus and His disciples have been traveling together. They have journeyed through the good times and the bad. They have been through stormy seas and green hillsides. They have been chased out of towns and they have been surrounded by followers. It has come to Jesus’ final hours on this earth. And we, who have journeying with him in these 40 days of Lent, have come to this Holy Thursday or Maundy Thursday – this incredible night when the Church was born.
Isn’t it interesting that the less time we have on earth, the more we try to live on forever? The threat of something or someone going away only makes you want it more; because once it is gone it is gone forever. If you had only a few hours left with your closest friends and loved ones, what would you say or do? Of course we would want to try to do something that would be remembered forever. Usually people remember famous last words, not famous first words. People’s last words are usually a summation of their entire life, all that defines them: in a pithy little sentence or phrase – their finitude stretching to infinity.
The very foundation of our faith, the focal point of our Christian life is centered on what Christ did this very night. Tonight is indeed different from any other night: it is a night in history that lives on for eternity. Tonight we celebrate now what had happened 2000 years ago, what continues to happen and what will continue to happen for all time. When Jesus celebrated his last meal with his closest friends, he brought about three things that have radically transformed the world: the priesthood, the Eucharist, and the new Commandment. In these three things, Jesus was and is able to capture all of salvation history – fulfill the Old Testament – and to concretize it to what is Christian worship today. Tonight Jesus brings his twelve disciples into a unique relationship with Himself. Jesus gives His very self to His disciples in the Holy Eucharist and thereby institutes a new priesthood in His example – simple ordinary men ordained into Jesus Christ’s Priesthood.
According to our Lord’s instruction, the Eucharist and the Priesthood are to be tied intimately together – one cannot be without the other. When Christ said, Do this in memory of me, He instituted the priesthood and the Holy Eucharist. With the priesthood, the Eucharist has been celebrated constantly for 2,000 years. This seemingly simple meal that Jesus shared with His closest confreres represented the unbloody sacrifice that Jesus was about to perform for the whole entire world, His bloody sacrifice and do more than all the bloody sacrifices would have ever done. He would make satisfaction to intercede for fallen humanity and for us to remember His sacrifice with the daily offering of an unbloody one. What we partake tonight is His Body, His Blood. Through the actions of a priest who has been ordained by a bishop who received his ordination from another bishop, and his from another, and so on – all the way back to the first apostles to Jesus Christ Himself to this very night where we remember the Last Supper of Our Lord. Brothers and Sisters, the Holy Mass is not a show that is performed and we are simply observers watching. Tonight, of all nights, and the days following take us back 2,000 years to a small upper room in Jerusalem. Don’t just imagine it or picture yourself there, you are REALLY there as He says, Take this and eat of it. Take this and drink of it.
In the same way, it takes Jesus Christ Himself to say those words to make the ordinary substances of bread and wine to become His flesh and blood. No ordinary man can do this and that is why it is an ordained priest that has the power to do so. The power does not come from Himself, but from Jesus Christ. The priest is truly Jesus Christ in the celebration of Mass. He is at one time merely a human collaborator and also the God made Man in the person of Jesus Christ. His position is at the same time humble and exalted above all creation. The priest is at the time a sinner needing forgiveness and one to absolve and forgive others’ sins. The priest is to be holy beyond reproach and yet understands that he can do nothing without the help of God. When a priest celebrates the Mass he assumes an incredible position between God and man through Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. The role of the priest is a servant and intercessor for all his faithful both here on earth and those that have gone before us. St. John Vianney writes this about a priest during the celebration of the Eucharist:
O Holy and Eternal Father, let us make an exchange. Thou hast the soul of my friend who is in Purgatory, and I have the Body of Thy Son, Who is in my hands; well, do Thou deliver my friend, and I offer Thee Thy Son, with all the merits of His Death and Passion.The priesthood and the Eucharist cannot be separated. Christ intended that these two sacraments be this way and we carry on this tradition handing it on to new generations. No priest, No Eucharist. No Eucharist, No priest. And tonight we remember the institution of the priesthood and the Eucharist.
Traditionally, tonight is called Maundy Thursday. The Maundy is an English corruption of the Latin word Mandatum, which means “commandment” and is from tonight’s Gospel: I give you a new commandment to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do... Love one another. It is interesting that you would think tonight is mainly focused on the celebration of the Lord’s Supper; of course made so famous by Da Vinci’s Last Supper painting. And yet it is traditionally called Maundy -- again meaning Commandment -- Thursday.
You must realize that up to the time of Jesus and there has always been an intimate tie between the Jewish people and the Law or the 10 Commandments. The commandments, the Law of Moses was essential to Jewish living and based on how you lived those commandments gauged your relationship with God and how good of a person you were. Now Jesus takes the Old and renews it, giving us a new commandment: Love One Another – the call to Christian charity, which can be most easily seen in the washing of the feet tonight.
But what about the priesthood and the Eucharist? Why is it nicknamed Maundy Thursday as opposed to saying priesthood or Eucharist Thursday? Aren’t those the most important things? Let us not forget our Lord’s words: Greater love has no man than this, that to lay down one’s life for his friends. In all His acts that would stretch on to eternity, it is Love that underpins and is the foundation of all things that Christ has done. Christ became man out of love for us. Christ healed us, preached to us, shares Himself with us out of love for us, and finally He died out of love for us.
But there is more… we look at the washing of the feet. The priest follows the new commandment to wash the feet of his disciples, does this humbly and with great care. He recalls how Jesus lovingly washed the feet of those he loved and so the priest will do imitate this act to the members of those he has been called to pastor. The dirtiest and most humbling act of washing somebody’s feet, reserved for slaves and servants is done by the Master Jesus Christ. If Jesus, whose hands were pierced by nails with blood flowing out washed the feet of His followers, surely a priest of Jesus must do the same. The sacred hands of the priest are anointed with Sacred Chrism at his ordination. They are holy hands anointed to hold and consecrate the precious body and blood of Jesus Christ. In the washing of the feet, those same hands will also make holy the act of charity and service. Fr. Ivey, who is in the person of Christ, ordained to consecrate bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, will through the washing of the feet show the intimate connection of Christ’s sacrificial love in the Eucharist and Charity.
The Eucharist is food, spiritual food and we are spiritually fed. However, it is not just for ourselves but to bring others to Christ and Christ to others, which is physically manifested through our love and charity to one another. What good is it to just receive Christ by our mouths and not carry out the work of charity in our hands? Christ gives us the model and if we do not follow it, we are a bunch of freeloaders – selfishly hoarding all of God’s gifts to ourselves.
The Eucharist is our sacramental connection with Christ and the Commandment to love one another demonstrated in the washing of the feet is our bodily connection with Christ. Tonight we not only see a priest do what Christ commanded his disciples to do at the Last Supper and thereby instituting the Eucharist. We also see how the priest – in the person of Christ – washes the feet of his disciples to show how we are to love one another. Both the Eucharist and the virtue of Charity are intimately connected to why Christ came: because God is love, His love is the gift of Himself completely, totally. He gives Himself physically and spiritually and this is asked of us to do this until the end of time. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.
No comments:
Post a Comment