Word to the Wise
Thursday, April 1, 2010 - Holy Thursday - Mass of the Lord's Supper
[Exodus 12:1-8, 11-14; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; John 13:1-15]This day shall be a memorial feast for you, which all your generations shall celebrate with pilgrimage to the Lord, as a perpetual institution. (Exodus) For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes. (1 Corinthians) 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 wash one another's feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.
Our pilgrimage, along with Moses, David, Paul and John as guides, takes us today to the "Upper Room" and the Last Supper. The traditional site of this event is unremarkable as a space. No great church has been built to contain it! Yet, this is where the central and most important liturgical act of Catholic worship was established and first performed! At the same time, we are challenged by our "guides" to see the Eucharist in much broader terms than the "words of institution:" "This is my body. This is the cup of my blood." Moses reminds us of the historical and theological significance of the Passover Meal. When Jews gather to celebrate the Passover, a child is delegated at a given point to ask, in essence: "Why is this night so important?" The question would have a dual importance for us Catholics now. On Holy Thursday, we proclaim our continuity with the events of deliverance in the Exodus and the covenant with the Chosen People, but we also proclaim the new covenant in the body and blood of Jesus, which our guide, Paul, points out. When it is John's turn to speak, we are reminded that Jesus' body and blood are given in service to our brothers and sisters in the washing of the feet. We are challenged not simply to "remember" but to "act." One wonders what might happen if the celebration of the Eucharist always required a child to ask the question and the feet to be washed!!!! Have we lost something of the meaning of this daily act of worship? Can we celebrate the Eucharist and not care for one another? Has Da Vinci's masterpiece, "The Last Supper" (painted on the wall of a Dominican dining room) lulled us by its beauty into a romantic memory? Our song leader, David, calls us back to "reality" with the words, "The cup of salvation I will take up, and I will call upon the name of the Lord, precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his faithful ones." We will leave the bread and wine and washbowl and follow Jesus and the disciples out into an uncertain night to a mountainside garden. AMEN
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