Holy Thursday–Mass of the Lord’s Supper
One of the hardest things that we learn as humans is the pain of separation. Sometimes that separation is between friends who have grown up together who are now leaving for different colleges; sometimes the separation is a break-up between and man and a woman who thought they were in love, but who are now going their separate ways; sometimes it is the separation by death of a husband from a wife who have lived together for most of their life; sometimes it is the separation of a priest from his parish. Separation is a hard lesson to learn, a lesson that brings with it pain and tears.
Probably all of us have experienced some form of separation, whether the ones I listed or different ones. We all know that pain, that pit in our stomach, the tears that flow from our eyes at the separation either already experienced or coming in the future. Jesus, as fully human, also knew this pain, and it is in that context of separation that He celebrates the Last Supper with His apostles, anticipating the celebration of the Passover by one day.
Jesus “knew that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father. He loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end.” He knew that He would not be able to celebrate the Passover, the great feast of redemption from slavery in Egypt, with his apostles because He would be on the cross, dying to truly redeem the world from its greatest enemy: sin. We get some sense from the Gospel tonight and the Gospel passage we heard last Sunday of the trouble the Last Supper caused the apostles. There is much confusion, concern, and anxiety. No one knows what will happen next.
So what does Jesus do? St. Paul tells us that
the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread, and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, “This is my body that 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.”
Jesus, at the same time, institutes the priesthood and the Eucharist, so that all of Jesus disciples not in the upper room, that is, every disciple beyond the Eleven, could have something to hold on to in the midst of their separation.
We call the Eucharist Holy Communion, and it truly is Holy Union With Christ. It is not simply a memory of what Jesus did. It is a way, in the present, that the anxiety of separation can be lifted. Because when we receive the Eucharist worthily, we are not separated from Jesus, but are united to Him. When we eat His Body and drink His Blood, Jesus is one with us, and we are one with Him. And, for those who are baptized into His Body and remain in it after Baptism, because we are members of the Church, the Body of Christ, we also have union with each other. Only those members of the Body who have cut themselves off from it by mortal sin are truly separated from Jesus, even if they receive Holy Communion, until they are reconciled with God and rejoined to the Mystical Body of Christ. Otherwise we are connected by Jesus by sharing in His Body and Blood.
Jesus knows the pain of separation. In fact, on the cross, feeling the full weight of sin, the full weight of enmity and rejection of God, Jesus will cry out, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachtani?” which means “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” Jesus, in His human nature, feels the worst separation that any human can have: separation from God. But that is not His plan for His followers. Jesus institutes the priesthood so that His presence and His power will continue in the world through the sacramental life of the Church, especially the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist. He gives all of His disciples a way to be united with Him, not separated from Him, until He returns in glory. And not only Him, but also with each other, even when we are separated by long distances, or even by death. In the Eucharist, the Sacrament of Love, death is overcome and we have union with Christ and with each other, whether our life continues on earth, or if it continues in Purgatory or Heaven.
How do we show appreciation for such a great gift as continuing communion with Jesus? We try to live as He did, in total obedience to the Father, in holiness of life. If we fall and separate ourselves from God by mortal sin, we seek reconciliation with God through His Sacrament of Reconciliation, and change our life to be more like His. How do we show appreciation for such a great gift? We offer the “sacrifice of thanksgiving, and…call upon the name of the Lord. [Our] vows to the Lord [we] pay in the presence of all his people.”