Maundy Thursday

Ex 12:1-8, 11-14
Ps 116:12-13, 15-16bc,17-18
1 Cor 11:23-26
Jn 13:1-15

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 finiteness stretches to infinity with their parting words.

The very foundation of our faith, the focal point of our Christian life is centered on what Christ did this very night.  It is the night in history that lives on for eternity – a night that is different than any other night.  Tonight we celebrate now what had happened 2000 years ago, what continues to happen and what will continue to happen forever.  When our Lord celebrated His last meal with His closest friends, He brought about three things that radically transformed our relationship with Him: the priesthood, the Eucharist, and the new Commandment.  Tonight He brings His twelve disciples into a unique relationship with Himself. He offers His very self to His disciples in the Passover Sacrifice - Holy Eucharist, and thereby institutes a new priesthood in His example – simple ordinary men ordained into the High Priesthood of Jesus Christ.

In our Lord’s instruction, the Eucharist and the Priesthood are 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.  This seemingly simple meal that He shared with His closest confreres makes the all bloody sacrifices of Noah, Abraham, Moses, Passover, and ultimately Himself into the new unbloody sacrifice of the Mass. In our celebration of the Eucharist, we join in the sacrifice of Christ, a fragrant offering to the Father.  What we partake in tonight is His Body, His Blood.  The Holy Mass is not a show or a re-enactment that is performed and we are simply watching bystanders.  Tonight takes us back to the small upper room in Jerusalem. You don’t need to imagine it, you are already there when 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 extraordinary flesh and blood.  The authority for any priest to do this comes from the unbroken succession of the Apostles. No ordinary man does this on his own; but he must be ordained to do so by one who has the authority.  The power does not come from himself, but from Jesus Christ.  Therefore the priest is truly Jesus Christ in the celebration of Mass.  He is at one time merely a human collaborator and also in the person of Jesus Christ.  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; he is a servant, a victim, and intercessor for all his faithful both here living and dead.  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 carried on and handed on to new generations.  “No priest, No Eucharist. No Eucharist, No priest.”  And tonight we remember the institution of the priesthood and the Eucharist.  But that is not all... for what comes out even more front and center to all of this is not to just stayed glued in our pews in Church, but to GO OUT into the world.

But why is tonight nicknamed Maundy Thursday and not Priesthood or Eucharist Thursday?  Aren’t those the more 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.  The Maundy is an English adaptation 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. What is part and parcel to the establishment of the Eucharist and the Priesthood is the establishment of heart of sacrifice and worship: Love, Charity. And that’s why we call today Maundy Thursday. By fulfilling the Ten Commandments, Our Lord reiterates the commandment to love one another as I have loved you in the last moments of His life by washing the feet of His disciples. In all His acts that would be remembered, it is Love that is the bedrock; 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.

Ten years ago my pastor, a Franciscan priest who had served in the Vatican for decades, was going to wash the feet for the first time in his life.  When asked why, he said that in the Vatican, there was always a monsignor or bishop that trumped him.  At 70 some odd years old, this was the first time he had been a pastor.  As he stooped down in front of me to wash my feet, I was incredibly moved to tears because I thought to myself, “How am I worthy for this?  A priest’s hands are sacred and holy – they hold the Body and Blood of Christ, they are anointed with sacred chrism and they anoint others, they are the hands that bless and absolve sins. And now, they are touching my ugly and dirty calloused feet.”  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.  If this action humbles the priest to service, I am sure the people whose feet are washed are even more moved to humility: love and truth are one.  And in turn, they know that the only way to respond is to perpetuate that love shown to them and bring it to others.  Therefore, the “commandment to love” is not an obligation or mandate by force – it the very LOVE of Christ that impels us to service; one is to Loved into service.

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 through charity and service.  What good is it just to receive Christ by our mouths and not carry out the work of charity in our hands?  Christ gives us the model to follow; otherwise we would be greedy and selfish, hoarding God’s gifts to ourselves.

The Eucharist is our sacramental and spiritual connection with Christ and the Commandment to love one another demonstrated in the washing of the feet is our physical 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 Charity are intimately united and is the reason why Christ came. God is love; His love is the gift of Himself completely and totally.  He gives Himself physically and spiritually and what has been given to us, we must give to one another 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.  I give you a new commandment: Love one another as I have loved you.