28 Mar 2024 – Holy Thursday
28 Mar 2024 – Holy Thursday
(1) Exodus 12:1-2, 11-14
Israel’s departure from Egypt, and how this is to be celebrated for all time
Now a man from the house of Levi went and married a Levite woman. The woman conceived and bore a son; and when she saw that he was a fine baby, she hid him three months. One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and saw their forced labour.. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his kinsfolk. He looked this way and that, and seeing no one he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. When he went out the next day, he saw two Hebrews fighting; and he said to the one who was in the wrong, “Why do you strike your fellow Hebrew?” He answered, “Who made you a ruler and judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and thought, “Surely the thing is known.”
Responsorial: from Psalm 116
R./: Our blessing-cup is a communion with the Blood of Christ
How shall I make a return to the Lord
for all the good he has done for me?
The cup of salvation I will take up,
and I will call upon the name of the Lord. (R./)
Precious in the eyes of the Lord
is the death of his faithful ones.
I am your servant, the son of your handmaid;
you have loosed my bonds. (R./)
To you will I offer sacrifice of thanksgiving,
and I will call upon the name of the Lord.
My vows to the Lord I will pay
in the presence of all his people. (R./)
(2) 1 Corinthians 11:23-26
When we proclaim Christ’s saving death in bread and wine, it makes him ever present with us
For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
Gospel: John 13:1-15
The example of Jesus washing their feet shows us how to live
Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples” feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” Jesus said to him, “One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you.” For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, “Not all of you are clean.” After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord-and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.
How to join in the Last Supper
When Jesus says, “Do this in memory of me!” clearly he means us to understand what “This” was and is. What exactly had he in mind through the symbols of the broken bread and the shared cup of wine? We need to get behind the formal Catechism answer about the “holy sacrifice of the Mass,” and think anew about the meaning of that paschal meal. The Last Supper was celebrated in the context of the Jewish Passover meal and tonight’s first reading explains the meaning of this feast. In words and symbols it recalled the greatest saving act of God in the Old Testament, the exodus from Egypt, setting God’s people free from slavery. It opens us up to the idea that God enters our lives to save us and set us free from whatever oppresses us. So “opened up,” we are prepared for the good news that the definitive saving work of God is done in and by Jesus Christ.
We reflect on what St John calls the “hour” of Jesus, the high point of his saving work, the new exodus, his passing from this world to the Father through which he brought into being a new relationship between God and us human beings. Sharing in this new exodus is our ultimate liberation, freeing us from enslavement to material things and petty self-interest and setting us free to love generously, the very purpose for which we were originally created in the image of God. Through his love-without-limit, in his own utterly unselfish heart Jesus overcame all human selfishness and with it, human sin. Precisely this love, which the Father wants us all to have and to share, is the very heart of Jesus’ exodus. It is just this self-giving kind of love which Jesus wants to be kept alive among us. With his disciples in the Last Supper he anticipated his death for us on the cross, giving himself in the sacramental symbols of bread and wine. From then on the celebration of our Eucharist is the living memorial through which we are joined to Our Lord’s saving act of love. It is our way to share in the new exodus, to be freed from the isolation of self-concern so that they become fully human as God wants us to be.
St John implies that we are united with Jesus by letting him wash our feet, accepting his great act of loving service. Having accepted the gift we must embrace it as a value to practice in our lives. What Jesus does for us in his Passion shows us how to live. In some real sense, we must live like Jesus, “for” God and others. There is a close link between Jesus washing their feet and then their going on to wash the feet of others in the future. If the Eucharist is the place where the Lord washes our feet, daily life is the place where we can wash the feet of others. Eucharist leads to life leads to Eucharist. True Eucharist piety must lead to service of others. Jesus who broke the bread of the Eucharist also washed the feet of his disciples. We must follow his example both at the altar of the Eucharist and at the altar of life.
Loving Service
Thought for the day (from Fr. Kieran O’Mahony)
There is much more to the washing of the feet than an example of humble service. The act of loving service goes to the heart of Jesus’ death and resurrection. The “lifting up” in John’s Gospel is truly an act of loving service. The words at the start of this reading make that clear: Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to pass from this world to the Father. These words make it clear that whatever happens next points most deeply to the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus. Can we accept such astonishing love from God?
Last Sunday we heard St Mark’s version of the creation of the Eucharist at the Last Supper. Though Mark is the oldest Gospel there is an older version of the narrative of the Last Supper, namely the passage from 1 Corinthians which we heard this evening. Of all the sayings of Jesus, the words spoken over the loaf of bread and the cup of wine are the best attested, the most likely to be the ipsissima verba of our Lord, and we can be confident that when we hear them we are brought close to the historical Jesus in a special way.
In school our Christian Brother in religion class had us memorize the entire discourse of Christ at the Last Supper as found in St John’s Gospel, chapters 13-17. Of course it did not mean anything to us, though it is perhaps the most sublime passage in all of Scripture. The historical Jesus may have said very little at the Last Supper, and Mark’s account of his predictions of betrayal may be a reflection of what little he said. In John we have a magnificent exfoliation of the “Christ of faith” around the nucleus of these few words of the “historical Jesus.” “I have yet many things to say to you” (John 16:12) may reflect what Jesus actually felt at the Last Supper, an urge to express the great mystery of salvation but a sense that the hearers would not have a clue what he was talking about.
And so he had recourse to sacred signs, composing a new ritual (rooted in the oldest practices of Israel) to bear his presence across the ages. Eating the bread and drinking the wine in silence, the disciples entered into their most intimate communion with their Teacher. Today we relive that meal-event and understand it as the bearer of Christ’s loving presence, in the power of his death and resurrection, among us. The word “love” surges to the fore in these pages of John, and is the single word that sums up the meaning of the Eucharist. Putting love into words, however ardent, is not the same as the expression of love by the gift of one’s body or of one’s life, and this is the very expression Christ gave to his love for us, on Calvary, and here.
John does not mention the Eucharist itself in these chapters (the Bread of Life discourse after the multiplication of loaves and fishes in chapter 6 makes up for that), but he presents another silent sign: the washing of the disciples’ feet. It is a sign that speaks for itself: of the divine humility of Jesus, his role as loving servant, his capacity to cleanse us of sin. But the Johannine Jesus nonetheless appends a verbal explication of the sign: “Do you understand what I have done for you? You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them” (Jn 13:12-19).
The Eucharist spills over into everyday life in the works of love. We are blessed when we receive Christ in the sacred meal, but we are doubly blessed when we imitate Christ in loving deeds, and when we meet him in our neighbour.
Thanks Joe. For me the promise in John 14 that the Trinity will ‘make their home’ with us when we follow Jesus is indeed both true and sublime. I have centred that whole chapter in a draft ‘toolkit’ for group and family faith formation and prayer – for local piloting and discussion.
I am not sure that at my age I could settle to learning all of John 13-17 off by heart, but there could be far more wasteful uses of my time! Maybe I’ll make do with Ch 14!