HOLY THURSDAY - YEAR B

HOLY THURSDAY – YEAR B
(Exodus 12:1-8, 11-14; 1 Corinth 11:23-26; John 13:1-15)

Theme: Let us Believe and Live the Eucharist We Celebrate

Reflection:

At the Table of Eucharist: A Mystery of Love

- We have completely our Lenten observance almost. We have come to the end. The only Final Act is remaining. This Final Act of Jesus for humanity – or to his disciples and through them to the entire world – is so mysterious that it seems as a mystery on the one hand and as a fulfilled reality on the other hand: that mystery revealed and remains concealed is the Paschal Mystery. This is the Mystery of Faith: “Christ has died, Christ is risen and Christ will come again”. We repeat these words in the daily celebration of the Mass.
- The Paschal Mystery – therefore, the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus is the culminating act of Jesus in the world before he goes back to the Father and sends the Holy Spirit. The total abasement of Jesus for the world’s salvation as the fulfillment of His Father’s loving design finds its total significance. In his passion and death Jesus bends down himself so much that he touches the inner most element of human fragility. This is his utter humiliation and total abasement. In reality, this humiliation and abasement of Jesus started already in the Incarnation, Word made Flesh.
- Therefore, the mystery of humility, self-abasement and self-donation, the terms which seems to be strange for the present world, has begun in the Act of Jesus Christ, the Final Act of God in Him for the world. More than victorious and triumphant gesture, even to the contrary to it, Jesus’ attitude is completely different. It goes beyond human comprehension. It surpasses the philosophical logic. It even stands above all the theological speculations.
- God becomes humble – “he appeared in the human form” (emptying himself). God becomes a mere being with an ultimate self-abasement – “taking the form of a slave” (assuming human likeness). God donates his life totally and to last breath – “to the point of death, even death on a cross” (being obedient). This is the mystery of Christ that is evident in St. Paul’s theology (Phil 2:6-11). If we go on inquiring HOW and WHY of the mysterious act of Jesus from his incarnation to his resurrection we remain with wonder and awe. The philosophical reasoning will many times hinder us. The theological explorations of the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth may help us a little. The ultimate truth, however, remains still mysterious to our limited knowledge. One only thing we have to do is “to sit before the mystery and ponder over it” as Mary has done. The answer will be crystal clear and the answer was, is and will be: HIS LOVE FOR THE HUMANITY.
- Love can lead man to any level. Love takes the man to any form of living. Love allows man to love without boundaries and without confines of whatsoever of worldly measure. Paul reminds us again in his ‘hymn of love’ (1 Corinth 13:1-13) that love only is the ultimate reality which lives long and which is forever. Thus, the meaning of love is this: flesh is taken over by the spirit, mind is taken over by the heart, and knowledge is taken over by the will. In a word, life is grabbed by love.
- Even, in humanly speaking love is the divine word. Even for our human logic, love stays in the upper room. By our daily experiences we already know well that what we call and show is not real love but love out of necessity. Only few instances supersede this ‘love of necessity’ and enter into the love which is self-less in which they live without desiring anything from others. Very few, we call them saints and great people, who has genuine love and they give offer their total life for the people and sometimes testify in the time of test. Even this last category refers themselves to the love that comes from strength of divine love and know that God’s Love is still greater. This is our daily experience and we know that we do “not really love” though we use the term ‘love’. Therefore, for us however we use the word, love remains still to the sphere of divine. It is he who has to reveal the mystery of love. The faithful man is on his journey towards This Love that is Eternally Existent and Eternally Real.
- Only God has to take the initiative and show what love is and how to love. Otherwise, we fall short of its meaningful usage. And the truth before our naked eyes is that God has already shown this love: God loved the world so much that he sent his only begotten son that the world might be saved through him – John 3:16. God’s love, infinite and eternal, has reached man in its humanity of the Son Jesus. God’s love is immeasurable. It is so high we can’t climb it. It is so deep we can’t go under it. It is so wide we can’t cover it. It is so great we can’t measure it. It is so high because it is eternal and infinite. It is so deep because it touches the bottom of humanity. It is so wide because it covers everything. It is so great because it embraces not only the man but the whole existence of the cosmos.
- Such a love is now “amidst us” – God with us and amidst us – and it is very open to us. It is in the person of Jesus Christ that God has ultimately revealed this love. Jesus as the Son of the Father and the Savior of the World pours out this love to the humanity to its “last drop of blood” and to its “last breath of life”. This is the LOVE that Jesus EXPERIENCES AND EXPRESSES in the Act of His Giving Himself: in the Eucharist – in the form of his body and blood.

Eucharist: Jesus’ experience and expression of love

- Jesus’ experience: He experiences the love of the Father and the Holy Spirit which is fully present in him. He experiences his deepest communion with them. In fact, it is not he who lives but it is the Father who lives in him (words of Paul in reference to Jesus: “it is not I who live but Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:20). Jesus experiences that His Father is fully at action in His Spirit. He, no longer considers his words and his actions as his but his Father’s. He no longer considers his will but his Father’s will: “It is not my will O Father, let yours be done” is the prayer he makes at the garden of Gethsemane.
o He experiences the homesickness. He wants to go back to his Father as soon as possible by completing all that he has to in the world. With this intention Jesus begins his action: “Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father” (John 13:1). He accelerates his action. He reaches to the final act. Now he is ready for the total giving of himself to his Father and for the world: this is the Eucharistic experience of Jesus.
o His body and blood, the fruit of the will of his Father for the world, are now ready to be slaughtered and shared. His body and blood, the sanctifying grace of the work of the Spirit for the world in the coming days, are now ready to be “given up and poured out”. In the Last Meal Jesus offering his body and blood, not any more of the bread and wine which are the external symbols of the communion. In the offering of his flesh and blood – which is only an external act – he offers “willing readiness” to the Father’s plan and the Spirit’s work. The experience of Jesus in the Eucharist is, thus, Trinitarian: in the Eucharist there is the Love of the Trinity that Jesus experiences.

- Jesus’ expression: He expresses His Love to the disciples and thus, through them, to the entire world. Eucharist is not only an experience of Jesus but his Final Expression to the world of his ultimate self-donation. He gives himself. He offers himself. He donates himself. He pours out himself. What not! We may use all the expressions possible for expressing the expression of Jesus himself. But his expression itself is incomprehensible mystery. Even before giving his body and blood he gives his ‘will’ and ‘readiness’ also to his disciples (as to his Father) in the manifestation of his service: the washing of the feet.

o Washing of the feet – the first expression of Jesus’ Eucharistic love:
 Gestures of a servant: He gets up from the table and puts takes off his outer cloth, ties a towel around himself, pours water into the basin, begins to wash the feet and wipe them with towel. The gestures of Jesus also have their intimate significance. Jesus gets up from the His seat with the Father, takes off his crown of glory, puts on the human form, sheds the water and blood into the earth, begins the washing of them from the dust of their sins and finally wipes their fear of sin and death.
 Manifestation of his humility: God bends down. God leans towards man. God kneels before man. Creator surrenders himself to the service of the creature. God touches the feet of his creatures. God, in Jesus, washes and wipes the dust of the feet of his disciples. Who can understand this? Moreover, who can digest this? Who can still believe with this type of ‘service’ that Jesus is true God? Jesus touches exactly the bottom of human doubt. Exactly from here that Jesus raises up an attitude of love which belongs only to God. Only he can do it because he alone knows what man is and what is in him. Only he can touch man because he only knows where to touch to rouse up in him the divine love. And this is the manifestation of the highest degree of humility: Jesus places himself kneeling before the disciples to show what the divine love is: the humility. Humility is not a power but a service. Humility is not an authority but meekness. Humility knows both standing above man and standing for man. Humility knows giving everything for receiving everything. Thus, washing of the feet is not only a gesture of service but an attitude of humility: humble service is the virtue of love.

o Institution of Priesthood – is the second expression of Jesus’ Eucharistic love:
 Commandment of action of love: what follow is not just a wonder-struck remaining of the disciples in the amazement of the Jesus service: but it is love given (as gift) and love demanded (as participation). And Jesus asks them not to remain like that in a static wonder but enter into a dynamic action of love: “So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you, also ought to wash one another’s feet” (John 13:14). And if we take the Last Supper of Jesus as a whole we encounter, little further after the washing of the feet, the New Commandment of love: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35). Jesus commands not before his expression of love but after it. He first does what he wants tell. He first washes and reveals the humble service which is the highest form of love: God is at the service of man just because He loves man. Once he does the action of love, he continues to exhort all the sharers of his love to continue the same. This is what priesthood is: He is not only a celebrant but also servant. He has to be the first one to serve and place himself completely at the service of his disciples (community/parish/any other group).
 In the person of Christ: as Jesus considers everything of his as his Father’s, so also a priest. He has nothing of himself. He has nothing to own. He has nothing to gather. He has nothing to possess. He has only one thing to do: TO BE IN THE PERSON OF CHRIST: His property and possession is only Jesus. To make the presence of Jesus come true by his words and actions is the service he has to render. Priest is not more of himself but of Christ’s (Paul’s words apply also to the priest: I am not priest for my sake but it is the High Priest Jesus who is living in me). In other words, priest is a gift of love – an embodiment of love. It is astonishing to see how he is called in Italian: “DON”. The word which derives from the ‘DONO’ meaning ‘the gift’ gives a priest full significance of his life and mission. He is a Gift of God to the world. He is a gift of God’s love to the world. What a dignity and task that a priest carries within him. Jesus is present in the person of a priest in the world. He manifests his total love in his priest. It is for this manifestation of love that Jesus has instituted the priesthood. Thus, priesthood is an expression of Jesus’ Eucharistic love.
 Priest is a personification of God’s love: God wills to come down on to the altar only through the priests who are the sharers of his Son, the Eternal and High Priest. God wants to be with the humanity. This desire of God comes into realization with the action of a priest. As Jesus was the mediator between God and the world, Jesus wishes that priest to be the mediator between Him and the world. No more a mediation of domination but a mediation of love which can sacrifice its total self. The one who accepts to be his priest has to be ‘ready’ and ‘obedient’ until the last drop of the blood – “obedient unto death, even unto death on the cross”. By giving a priest to the world Jesus gives everything of his love to the world: He gives his body and blood which is present on the altar through the hands of a priest. He suffers for his people every day in the person of priest who has to drink his “chalice” of life. He dies for his people every day in the person of a priest who has to bear the “burden” of others. He raises again everyday for his people in the same person of priest who is the ‘image of future hope and life’ of his believers. Such a mission is entrusted to the priest.


At our daily table of Eucharist: a mission of love

- Eucharistic Love of Jesus should not be only at the table or on the altar. We have to become the altars on which the ‘bread and wine’ of Jesus are places. We have to become the priests who really transform the bread and wine into the ‘body and blood’ of Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit. Finally, we are the “body and blood” of Jesus that has to be ‘broken and poured out’ everyday for the world.
- In truth, we are called here ‘not to just celebrate’ and ‘receive’ the love of Eucharist Jesus. It is only a beginning. It is only participation. It is accompanied by the mission. It has with it a ministry to be accomplished. The celebration and the reception of the Eucharistic love have to be transformed into proclamation of love in the ‘humble service’ towards our fellow beings.
- What we have to ask ourselves today is: the question that how a the priest realizes this vocation of love: Priests, let us look back and see whether we are still instruments of God’s love, expressed in Jesus’ Eucharist, to the world. And how far every one of Jesus’ followers carries on this vocation of love: O faithful, let us also examine ourselves and see whether we are sowing the seeds of love to the world because we too share in the same priesthood of Jesus in partial manner.
o We are here to give our consent of love: to wash the feet our brothers and sisters.
o We are here to say our “YES: of love: to offer our body and blood – whole self along with the will and the spirit – for the well being and the salvation of humanity.
o We are here to transform our dignity of being God’s children into our task of being God’s love for the world.
- Therefore, Let us Believe and Live the Eucharist We Celebrate and thus We Really Become the Instruments of God’s Love in and for the World.