Mass of the Lord’s Supper
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. This is one of the weightier days for me as a priest. I started this morning at the Chrism Mass, concelebrating with Bishop Boyea and my brother priests serving across the Diocese of Lansing. Not only were the holy oils and Sacred Chrism blessed and consecrated, but we renewed the promises we made at our ordination. It is a time of great joy, as we see each other again and catch up, and then celebrate the Mass together. It’s a great way to celebrate the Institution of the ministerial priesthood, which took place on that first Holy Thursday.
Then, at the end of tonight, we will walk in solemn procession to the altar of repose and keep watch with our Lord, putting ourselves in Gethsemane. The Lord was preparing for His Passion in Gethsemane. At our altar of repose, I often think of the crosses I have borne in my ministry as pastor, some carried better than others. I offer through Christ to the Eternal Father in the power of the Holy Spirit all that weighs upon me and all that weighs upon you as we seek to know and follow the will of God in our lives, no matter how joyful or painful it may be from day to day.
Returning to the washing of the feet, I couldn’t help but think of the Apostles, and what our Lord was doing for them, mixed bag as they were. I think we have a tendency to think of them more like statues than anything else, religious icons of peace and serenity. But the Gospels paint them as anything but. Matthew, the tax collector and our patron here, was probably not easily accepted into the apostolic college, and perhaps treated with a bit of contempt among his fellow Apostles. James and John were full of zeal, and John seems to have had a special bond with the Lord, perhaps because he was the only Apostle who was unmarried, like Jesus. Andrew in the Gospels is a helper, as he is the one who brings the boy with the five loaves and the two fish to Christ. Philip and Nathanael are pretty pragmatic, as Nathanael wonders if anything good can come from Nazareth and doesn’t believe until the Lord knows that Nathanael had been sitting under a tree, and Philip wonders how Christ could feed five thousand, given how many days’ wages it would have cost to secure food. In the Last Supper discourse, Philip will also ask Christ to show them the Father, and that will be enough for them, to which the Lord responds that He who sees Him sees the Father. We know little about the Simon, other than Simon belonged to the party of the Zealots, and James the Lesser was a cousin of the Lord. Jude asks at the Last Supper why the Lord will reveal Himself to them only and not to the world, so perhaps he was hoping for a conquering king as a Messiah.
And then we come to Peter. Peter was likely an extrovert, as he had to say something before he understood what he was thinking. He has moments of greatness (think of his two great lines: “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God” and “To whom shall we go? You have the words of everlasting life”); he has moments where you want to face palm (probably not a good thing if Christ says to you, “Get behind me, Satan”). He at first refuses to have the Lord wash his feet, but then asks for an entire bath instead. He swears he will not deny Christ, only to do so some hours later.
And, of course, Judas. Christ washes his feet, but then Judas leaves in order to betray Christ. Dante puts Judas in the lowest level of Hell because of his betrayal of God, even going so far as to betray the Prince of Peace with a kiss of peace. He later regrets his betrayal, but despairs and takes his own life in shame.
These were the ones Christ came to serve. They were as different, unique, and diverse as we are. They were not perfect; some far from it. And yet Christ chose them. He chose them to be His first priests, to hand on the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, which are not mind-teasers to be solved, but realities expressed in symbol that run far deeper than their physical representation. He did so knowing that one would betray Him, and one would deny Him. He did so knowing that all would scatter from the garden at His arrest, and only one would be at the foot of the cross with Him at His moment of greatest need.
And that should give us hope. Because Christ chose us, too. He chose us knowing that we would sometimes fail, that we would sometimes deny that we know the Lord, and that we would sometimes abandon Him when the going got tough. He knew that at times we, like Judas, would betray Him. He chose us with our differences, our idiosyncrasies, our unique ways of seeing the world.
And, as long as we have repented for those times of betrayal, denial, and abandonment through the Sacrament of Penance, He invites us to eat of His Body, to be strengthened so that next time we might not betray, deny, and abandon. Just as He instituted the Eucharist at the Last Supper, the mystery of His Passion and Death presented for us under the appearance of bread and wine, but truly His Body and Blood, so He gives us Himself tonight so that we can stand with Him through His Passion, made present for us in these sacred liturgies of the Triduum.
The great sign of Christ’s service for us is how He gives Himself to us each time the Holy Mass is celebrated. He serves us by nourishing us, strengthening us, sacrificing Himself for us so that we can have life within us. As the hymn sings, “What wondrous love is this!”
So tonight, as you approach the altar to receive the Lord on your tongue, think not on your differences from each other; think not on the great things you have said of our Lord, or the horrible ways you have denied even knowing Him; think not on how you have helped the Lord to be known, or hidden His truth out of fear. Think only of His love for you, a love that was obedient even to the point of death, death on the cross. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
