Holy Thursday of the Lord’s Supper (B)
Dear
brothers and sisters,
On this holy evening we commemorate the final meal of the Lord Jesus with the closest and most intimate of his friends. He had often eaten with them, and fed them, both with physical food and – more importantly – the food of his holy words. But tonight he does so seemingly for the last time as he prepares to give his life for them and for us.
Although our celebration this evening began in joy, it will end in sorrow as we experience Our Lord’s departure to the Garden of Gethsemane and his imprisonment in the cistern prior to his trial before Pontius Pilate. Tonight, therefore, we remember that “the love that drove Him to die for us was the same love that made Him give us Himself as nourishment. It was not enough to be giving us gifts, words, instructions; He gave us Himself as well.”[1] His Crucifixion is profoundly conjoined to the Last Supper.
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| Ms: Bibliothèque Nationale de France, BNF Fr 22928 |
We have gathered again, then, at the altar of the Lord to remember that the Lord Jesus “loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end” (John 13:1). Who are his own in the world if not those joined to him in the waters of Baptism? Yes, dear brothers and sisters, you and I are his own; he loved us to the end and gave himself up for us. What is more, his love is not simply something in the past tense, but also in the present tense; it is not just that he loved us, but that he loves us still (cf. Revelation 1:5).
It is his continual and ongoing love for us that we celebrate in every celebration of the Holy Mass, but on this night in a special way. He shows us the depths of his love for us in his washing of the feet of his disciples, in his giving of himself as our nourishment, and in his wondrous commitment to give his life for us, as he himself said (cf. John 13:14).
Those two little words, “for us,” carry such profound importance.
We can have no understanding of these words “for you” until we
cleanse ourselves of every trace of sentimentality. We must clarify in our
minds the degree of isolation Our Lord stood in, abandoned by all that might
have helped, without the stimulating atmosphere pervading great affairs, no
enthusiasm of any kind about Him, without the support of elan or natural drives
or creative compulsion. He knows that men are lost. He knows they can only
breathe in the freedom of salvation when satisfaction has been made for their
sins. Life may only come to them through a death which He alone can die. He
takes this for granted, starts from this premise. That is what is meant by the
“for us.”[2]
Just as he asks those first disciples, so he asks each one of us: “Do you realize what I have done for you” (John 13:12)? We cannot fully realize what he has done for us unless we realize what it means that he has loved us to the end.
On first hearing, we might think that this phrase means he loved us to his death. This is not altogether incorrect; indeed, it is true. At the same time, however, it is not altogether complete. Saint Augustine tells us that this phrase, “to the end,” means “the end that consummates, not that consumes; the end whereto we attain, not wherein we perish,” which is to say the end as in the goal.[3] The goal of the Christian life, of course, is Christ Jesus; “he is our end; into Him do we pass.”[4]
We can pass into Christ as the goal of our lives because he continually nourishes us with the gift of himself. Whereas normal food is changed into us, with the Holy Eucharist – the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus – he changes us into himself by the strength and power of his love. Let us then this night renew our love for him in this night so that we might understand what he has done for us. Let us strive to draw so close to him as to be his close and intimate friends that we may truly be his own. Amen.
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