THE MOST SACRED SUPPER AND SACRAMENT OF SUPREME LOVE.
April 6, 2023.
Holy Thursday - Cena Domini.
“I give you a new commandment, says the Lord: love one
another as I have loved you.” Jn 13:34
A Swahili proverb says: “Charity is the matter of the heart
not of the pocket.” And a Jewish proverb adds: “If charity cost nothing and
benevolence caused no heartache, the world would be full of philanthropists.”
In the Holy Eucharist, we are made partakers of a mystery. We
share in the most Sacred Supper of the Lord to share in his passion, death, and
resurrection. We draw from this Sacrament the real meaning of love and life.
From it, we draw the fullness of charity and life. For, it is the mystery of
God's greatest love.
In Sacramentum Caritatis, Pope Benedict says: "The
sacrament of charity, the Holy Eucharist is the gift that Jesus Christ makes of
himself, thus revealing to us God's infinite love for every man and woman. This
wondrous sacrament makes manifest that "greater" love which led him
to "lay down his life for his friends" (Jn 15:13). Jesus did indeed
love them "to the end" (Jn 13:1). In those words, the Evangelist
introduces Christ's act of immense humility: before dying for us on the Cross,
he tied a towel around himself and washed the feet of his disciples. In the
same way, Jesus continues, in the sacrament of the Eucharist, to love us
"to the end," even to offering us his body and his blood." SC 1.
What we celebrate tonight is the crossing point of a mystery.
The Lord Jesus Christ redeemed us all and gave perfect glory to God principally
through his paschal mystery. By offering the Eucharistic Bread, he offers the
sacrament of his love. It is that supreme love foreshown in the Eucharist that
will reach its fullest in the Passion and Death on the Cross at the Calvary on
Good Friday. And because love can reach it fulfillment only in life, the Lord
will again rise and be our hope of Glory on Easter Sunday.
At the center of our liturgy, tonight, the Holy Eucharist is
described in all its meaning and effects. The Catechism says: "By
celebrating the Last Supper with his apostles in the course of the Passover
meal, Jesus gave the Jewish Passover its definitive meaning. Jesus' passing
over to his father by his death and Resurrection, the new Passover, is
anticipated in the Supper and celebrated in the Eucharist, which fulfills the
Jewish Passover and anticipates the final Passover of the Church in the glory
of the kingdom." CCC 1340
The first reading, thus, gives the origin of the Eucharist
as a Passover meal. It is the bread for the journey, the food for our pilgrim
soul. As such, it obeys the Law regarding the Judaic Passover meal. It is a
meal to be taken with great reverence, as people ready to pass over from this
world to the other one: "with your loins girt, sandals on your feet and
your staff in hand, you shall eat like those who are in flight." Then
springs a question to you and me, how do we partake in or receive the
Eucharistic Meal?
The Eucharist stands also as a memorial. It is the
actualization and the reviving of what Jesus did before his Passion and death.
As such, it stands as a commandment: “This is my body that is for you. Do this
in remembrance of me.” “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as
often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” Through Paul's words, it sounds
clear to us that the Lord commanded his disciples that we are to revive his
sacrifice. What we truly revive in the Eucharistic celebration is not only the
mere eating of bread and drinking of wine turn into the Body and Blood of
Christ but the deep meaning of the Eucharist as self-sacrifice out of love. In
the Eucharistic celebration, we re-actualize Jesus' love. It is thus, the
Sacramentum Caritatis.
The Gospel of John, through the washing of the feet,
enlightens us on the Eucharist as the sacrament of love and service. The Lord,
before reclining at the table with his disciples, takes off all his garments, a
sign of great humility and self-emptying, and makes himself the servant,
washing their feet. And the question and the catechesis that follow that action
are addressed to you and me: “Do you realize what I have done for you?"
Another exhortation and commandment to serve one another as the Lord's
followers, just as he did for us: "I have given you a model to follow, so
that as I have done for you, you should also do.”
In the Holy Eucharist, Jesus makes himself the servant. He
comes to serve us in our needs so that we too might serve others in their
needs. He comes to show us the real cost of love so that we too might love
without counting the cost. Genuine love is a sacrament of humility, service,
and of self-sacrifice. The Holy Eucharist presents well these elements.
Therefore, we should always receive it in humble hearts, ready to serve and
sacrifice ourselves out of love.
From today's celebration, we should re-evaluate or change if
needed the way we approach the Sacrament of the Eucharist. From the fact that
it is a Sacramentum Caritatis, that is, Sacrament of Love, we should always
receive it with a clean heart ready to love and to sacrifice ourselves out of
love for others.
Let's end our meditation with these words of St. Peter
Julian Eymard about the Eucharist. He says: “The Eucharist is the supreme proof
of the love of Jesus. After this, there is nothing more but heaven itself.” And
he goes further adding: “The Eucharist is the life of the people. The Eucharist
gives them a center of life. All can come together without the barriers of race
or language in order to celebrate the feast days of the Church. It gives them a
law of life, that of charity, of which it is the source; thus it forges between
them a common bond, a Christian kinship”
Wishing a blessed and fruitful Easter Triduum to each one of us, may we make this three days journey with Mary, the Eucharistic Mother, the Mother of incommensurable love.
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