Holy Thursday–Mass of the Lord’s Supper
When many Catholics today talk about Last Rites, they think of the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick. But when the Church talks Last Rites, she talks about the Sacrament of Penance, the Apostolic Pardon, the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick, and Viaticum, or Holy Communion for a person on the way to death (Viaticum is a smash-up of the words meaning “on the way with you). We were taught in seminary that when a person is seriously ill, they are to be anointed. When a person is certainly (barring a miracle) not getting better, the priest may anoint again, but certainly offers Viaticum (and Viaticum can also be offered by a deacon). In the Church’s mind, the last sacrament a person should receive on earth is the Body of the Lord, Holy Communion with the Lord, because that is what we pray the person will experience after death, communion with the Lord in heaven.
We probably don’t often think about it this way, but the Eucharist is meant to be spiritual food for a people ready to move on somewhere. We see that even in the prefigurement of the Eucharist in the Passover sacrifice. The Jews were to sacrifice an unblemished lamb, spread its blood over the doorposts and lintel, and eat it. They were to eat it “‘with your loins girt, sandals on your feet and your staff in hand, you shall eat like those who are in flight.’” The eating of the Passover lamb was to prepare the Chosen People for their pilgrimage from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the Promised Land.
So for us, the Church, the Eucharist is our food for the journey, not only the journey from this life to the next, but even our daily journey from the safety of the church into the war zone of the world, where we fight against spiritual powers inside of us and outside of us. It is meant to strengthen us for our witness to the Gospel in our daily life. And yet, how often do we see it as boring, as just another obligation. Dorothy Day, the great, saintly woman of the Catholic Worker movement, related a scenario when she encountered one such person:
I was saddened last week when a former nun told me she was tired of going to Mass daily. She had been doing that for fourteen years, and no longer felt it necessary. So much routine. One could only point out that breathing was routine, and eating was routine…We go to eat of this fruit of the tree of life because Jesus told us to….He took upon himself our humanity that we might share in his divinity. We are nourished by his flesh that we may grow to be other Christs.
Indeed, as Jesus prepare to celebrate the Last Supper, the first thing He does is serve. He washes the feet of His apostles. So for us, after we receive the Eucharist, we are called to serve. Jesus says, “‘I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.’”
This is not to say that the Eucharist is merely a means to an end, the means by which we move on to the really important stuff, the activity of daily life. In fact, it’s the other way around. The Eucharist is the really important “stuff,” and the activity of daily life is the overflowing of the cup that is filled only with the Body and Blood of our Lord.
Jesus gave us the Eucharist because He knew we needed to be fed by God as part of our worship. He knew that so few would be with Him on Golgotha, as He did what the Last Supper pointed to: give up His Body and Blood for the salvation of the world. And from that most important act of the crucifixion, the transformation of the world became possible. So it is only after we are worthily nourished by Eucharist that we are able to be the disciples that we are called to be, relating to others by word and deed how our connection to Jesus changes us.
And then, there is a double movement that, after our daily activity of living as disciples, brings us back here, back to the Mass. Having utilized the spiritual energy which we received the last time we went to Mass, we are drawn back for more, because we hunger more for God. And yet, we also are drawn back to thank God for the power that we have seen exercised through us as we shared the fruits of the Eucharist we received in talking about Jesus, in loving like Jesus, in serving like Jesus. “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.” We return because we hunger more; we return because we thank God for what the Eucharist made possible in our lives.
As we begin these three holiest of days–Holy Thursday tonight, Good Friday tomorrow, Holy Saturday culminating in the Easter Vigil–there’s a lot going on. If we are truly, fully entering into it, we’ll be physically, emotionally, and spiritually tired. We will need sustenance. Even though we won’t celebrate Mass again until Holy Saturday night, the Church will feed us with the Eucharist tomorrow from what was consecrated tonight. And then we’ll have the chance to be fed once more on Holy Saturday evening as we will rejoice in the news the surpasses every joy. Only those who are in need of Viaticum can receive the Eucharist at another time on Holy Saturday, because the Church knows they need Holy Communion to prepare them for the ultimate communion with God.
Tonight we are fed by the Lord, Who knows that we need Him to be His disciples. May we never find the reception of Holy Communion routine, but find in it our strength to be the saints God has called us to be.