Holy Thursday 2017
1
We begin the celebration of the Sacred Triduum –
this profound and powerful liturgy over 3 days.
We began tonight in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit
and the greeting will not be repeated.
We will end on Saturday night with the final blessing of this liturgy.
In this time, we will have encounters with words,
rituals, symbols, sounds, smells, professions of faith and sacraments
that celebrate Christ our Lord and His purpose – our salvation.
Through this one liturgy God made man will touch us in many ways.
Acknowledge that it is the only “liturgy” that will offer the Eucharist 3 times.
Before trial, during and seemingly defeated, and then after in victory.
To gather in, sustain in despair and to commission out.
To introduce His presence, hold onto His presence
and to speak of it alive despite facing death.
2
Tonight, in this Mass of the Lord’s Supper
we encounter Jesus facing His mission – the Paschal Mystery.
He will be in touch with our humanness
He will embrace a cross ending in death
and He will show that with God, His Father and ours, all is conquered, even death.
As He faces the reality,
He acknowledges that it will mean a separation from His disciples.
He prays for them with fervent prayer.
He prays that they will remain on mission
and have the strength to rebound after seeming defeat.
Their ability to turn around to hope, hope restored, is key.
So on this night before He was to suffer
He gathered them at table
took bread from their familiar Passover meal
and after praying in thanksgiving to The Father
broke it and gave it to those gathered with the promise
that when they break this bread it is His Body.
Then He took the cup at the end of the meal
and said that when you drink from this cup, this is His blood.
The familiar Passover meal has new meaning.
Jesus becomes the sacrifice, the Lamb in the center of the table,
The One whose blood would be spilled out for their sins.
And yet He says: when you do this you make me present.
The gift of the Eucharist is given.
Jesus who desires to stay with His disciples
is able to do so in the way that God does in many ways – through sacrament
– that is how we encounter, come in touch with, God.
So, Jesus, looks forward and at the same time can remain present in sacrament.
3.
So that this sacrament may be an everlasting memorial
– a perpetual sacrifice – an open invitation
the commission He gives His disciples institutes the priesthood of Jesus Christ.
As they hold the responsibility to be the conduits of God’s grace, so do we.
We have to believe that God continues to call men to the priesthood
to act in the person of Christ, His Son.
Even amidst challenges in the Church,
God still calls, and sometimes even stronger, to renew His Church.
There certainly are young men among us who comprehend the promise of Christ,
that shows the depth of His love through sacrifice and sacrament.
And when they are grounded there,
they are willing to give themselves over to serve the mystery we celebrate.
4.
Now given the promise of Christ’s presence in sacrament
and ministers at the altar,
Jesus uncharacteristically, and after the meal rather than before,
removes His garment taking the form of a slave
and He bends down to wash the feet of His disciples.
Notice that Peter is not first nor does it seem last.
We see a Jesus who is, now more than ever, confident in His purpose.
The Gospel tells us that the Father had put everything into His power.
Jesus says:
“What I am doing, you do not understand now, but you will understand later.”
He further says that when you understand you will inherit His kingdom.
Jesus washes feet in humility
and then with great confidence says that He has given them a model to follow,
“So that as I have done for you, you should also do.”
5.
It’s an example of service, right?
What is the real lesson here?
That the disciples should be willing to serve, to be humble and wash feet?
We hear that as what we should DO.
That’s half of the message.
For any of us who ministers, who volunteers, who serves in any capacity.
Any of us who is a parent or spouse, or child.
There must be a willingness to DO.
However, any of us must also ask this question:
Do I acknowledge what I receive?
Dignity for others and ourselves is found when we are willing to receive.
All encounters must be shared encounters open to the giving or doing
as well as to the receiving.
Such is true in Eucharist – Christ given and we receive.
We receive Him and are commissioned to go and tell.
Such is true in priesthood. We do, but first by receiving
Receiving the grace to be Christ to listen, to see, to open, to awaken
so that our mystery leads all to encounter The mystery.
In a moment we will ask 12 of us to come forward to have their feet washed.
I will offer an example of service
but the beauty comes when the person is willing to receive.
The example, the model, is the encounter.
The disciples then and now
must be willing to learn the lesson of accepting service
before attempting to give it.
Remember…Jesus humbled Himself accepting death,
death on a cross
not His DOING
but His RECEIVING of our sins and God’s will.
6
Jesus’ gift of service and sacrament is intimate.
It is an invitation into life with God – to abide with God.
It’s real, it’s touch, it’s feeling, emotion, smells, words, silence.
It evokes the human desires and offers God as the satisfaction.
But we must be willing to receive.
To receive His presence and absorb its responsibility.
To receive His grace and respond to His call to build His kingdom
as priest, deacon, consecrated religious, married persons
and dedicated single people.
All with a sense of being in the best place or state of life to be receivers
of His love made manifest through others or another
so that we become better givers of His love.
The gospel tonight presents a confident Jesus – eyes forward articulating mission
and yet mindful of the human obstacles.
“He loved them to the end” it says.
And sometimes greater love is found in accepting and embracing God’s will.
It’s about giving our life over
and equally about receiving the life He wants to offer.
Through this liturgy over three days
We celebrate what we RECEIVE through faith in Jesus Christ.
May that be our lense.
It is only then that we are aroused to speak about Him as “my Lord and my God”
Who calls us into action to DO.