Joh 13:1-15
Ex 12:1-8, 11-14 1
Cor 11: 23-26
focus: On Holy Thursday we commemorate the first Eucharist in the Cenacle.
function: And we hear the Lord’s call to each one of us to humbly serve our brothers and sisters in our everyday life.
During the last couple of years, I got to know the Jewish religion a bit better, among other things through an encounter with Rabbi Teri at South Street Temple in Lincoln, through study, spiritual reading, and the Tri-Faith initiative in Omaha. Thus, my mind was especially with our Jewish sisters and brothers Last Saturday, when the weeklong Jewish Passover celebration began with the nightly Seder meal. As part of the rite, the youngest child or family member asks what the meaning is of this night. Then the head of the family, usually the father, tells the story of the wonderful Exodus from Egypt. Today “the Lord brought us from bondage to freedom, from sorrow to gladness, from mourning to a festival day, from darkness to great light, from servitude to redemption” (Mishna). Today: What is remembered and told becomes a present event. For those who hear about God’s deeds thousands of years ago and who celebrate them with praise, redemption from slavery become a present reality.
Tonight’s first reading is the description of the people of Israel’s first Passover meal in Egypt. The blood of the sacrificed lambs marks the homes of the Israelites—and so they are being spared from the tenth and worst plague which is to come upon Pharaoh and the Egyptians: the death of the firstborn. After this, Pharaoh will let the people of Israel go from bondage into freedom.
One way for us of receiving this Biblical message is to get in touch with our own desire for greater freedom, for liberation from those patterns of thinking and behavior in our life that keep us from being free. We can look back once again on the forty days of Lent: Have our Lenten practices helped us toward greater freedom? Whatever the answer, we can hold out our desire for freedom to God, who can fulfill and who wants to fulfill our deepest longings!
This night is very special for us as Christians. We celebrate the institution of the Holy Eucharist. Our second reading and the gospel take us into the night of Jesus’ Last Supper with his disciples. St. Paul tells us about Jesus’ gift to us: "This is my body that is for you,” Jesus says. With this he summarizes his whole ministry. It was all about self-giving. And we hear about Jesus’ summons, “Do this in remembrance of me.” Whenever we celebrate the Eucharist we act on this word and the Last Supper becomes present to us. Whenever we do this, St. Paul writes, we “proclaim the death of the Lord.”
He gave his life to set us free. Jesus’ salvific death invites us to self-giving. At offertory time, we place our life, whatever is going on with us right now, on the paten, together with the host, and it is being transform with it. The action of Jesus is meant to become and can become our action. Through our own self- offering, through our dying to self, we imitate Jesus and conform our lives to his.
Paul adds: We shall do this “until he comes.” One day, Jesus will come again in glory. Until then, whenever we gather for the Eucharist, we already receive in this sacrament a foretaste of the joyful banquet with him in heaven.
John's gospel has a different account of the Last Supper. John does not relate Jesus’ words of institution at all. Instead, Jesus washes his disciples' feet. With this ritual Jesus shows us how he gives us his body and allows his blood to be poured out for us. By his action, Jesus says: I am a servant to you and to all. You can become like this, too: “Love one another as I have loved you!”
Dear sisters and brothers, on Holy Thursday we commemorate the first Eucharist in the Cenacle; it becomes present to us. And we hear the Lord’s mandate to each one of us to humbly serve our brothers and sisters in our everyday life.
We are invited today to enter into this scene in our imagination: Reclining at table with Jesus, looking at him, listening to him. He teaches us. He feeds us with himself. He strengthens us and gives us life. Then we see how he puts on an apron and starts washing everyone’s feet. Like Peter, I feel resistance. I realize: I have to let Jesus wash my feet. I need to "name" the part of my life, the part of myself that I need to surrender to the Lord to be embraced and loved, washed and healed.
As we celebrate the Eucharist tonight, we can participate in it with new gratitude, for the gift that Jesus is for us. The word ‘Eucharist’ means ‘thanksgiving’. This gratitude will be the seed for our own loving according to his example, ,it will be the starting point for us reaching out to those who need liberation and a new experience of that dignity which God has given to all of us and which people felt anew in Jesus presence. AMEN.
~Fr. Thomas Leitner, OSB