Word to the Wise
Thursday, March 20, 2008 - Holy Thursday - Mass of the Lord's Supper
[Exodus 12:1-8, 11-14; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; John 13:1-15](1 Corinthians) For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes. (John) Do you realize what I have done for you?
Those things we do the most often are also the things we are most likely to take for granted. We are also less likely to go very deeply into their meaning and purpose on any regular basis if at all. The central act of worship for Catholics is the Eucharist. Yet, I believe that few Catholics go beyond the basic belief that the host they receive and the wine they sip from the cup are truly the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Further, many participate in this act of worship without any consciousness that it obliges them to anything other than being present for it on Sunday! Holy Thursday, the day on which we celebrate the "anniversary" of Jesus' creation of the Eucharist, is usually the least attended of the Holy Week Triduum. I say all this not in judgment but simply as a matter of pastoral experience. My hope is that as many as possible will ponder some very important truths that are offered in the scriptures for this day and realize the profound significance of the "gift" that Jesus has given. In all three scriptures, we are presented with the dual reality of the gift of Jesus' body and blood and the necessity to become that body and blood for each other! The scripture from Exodus is not simply a matter of Old Testament history. When Jesus gathered with his disciples for that fateful passover meal (and when WE gather to celebrate the Eucharist) he acted (and WE act) not only in memory of the first Passover, but in continuity with and in a decisive restatement of God's saving action presented in that first Passover and in each and every Eucharist offered since the "Last Supper." But in each scripture, there is an acknowledgment not only of God's saving love but the love we owe one another. Notice that in the first Passover, families unable to celebrate the passover on their own are enabled to share in the passover of other families. No one is to be left out! If we read the few verses leading up to the particular passage from First Corinthians, we hear St. Paul speaking very bluntly to the community about allowing class distinctions to exclude some members from celebration. If we proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes, we must remember that this death was a death for all of us equally. This makes the scripture from the Gospel of John all the more distinct. Notice that he does not mention the bread and wine at the supper (he speaks of the Eucharist at an earlier point in the gospel). Instead we are given the example of Jesus washing the feet of the disciples. When he finishes, he says to them: Do you realize what I have done for you? You call me 'teacher' and 'master,' and rightly so, for indeed I am. If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to whas one another's feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do." From the very beginning till now, the Eucharist is a "gift." It is the total gift of Christ to us of his Body and Blood and of all that he has done for us. And we are told that we must become that gift for others - truly the Body of Christ. All of this could become some kind of abstraction but in each scripture, real people acted, were taught, and have lived the teaching down through the centuries. Tomorrow may be one more day in one more century, but it is no less important for what it remembers and what it teaches us to do. AMEN
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