Holy Thursday: Mass of the Lord’S Supper
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Holy Thursday: Mass of the Lord’s Supper Few days on the Church calendar are more beautiful or filled with more meaning than the Thursday of Holy Week, the beginning of the Easter Triduum. During these three solemn days we relive the passion, death and resurrection of our Lord, Jesus Christ — three days that are central to Christianity. The first of these Triduum days is Holy Thursday, which celebrates the Last Supper when Jesus instituted the Eucharist and the priesthood, washed the feet of the Twelve Apostles and gave a new commandment. He would then spend time anguishing in the garden about the events of the next day, be betrayed by a friend, arrested, denied by another friend, shuttled between accusers, condemned by the Jewish high court and, finally, although innocent, found guilty of sedition by Pilate. D.D. Emmons writes from Pennsylvania. The Passover The day seemed to have a normal beginning, with everyone preparing for a celebration. In the Jewish world in which Jesus lived, what we call Holy Thursday was the celebration of the Passover. Every year, in accordance with God’s command, Jews commemorate the night when the Lord passed over the firstborn Israelites while striking down those of the Egyptians. This was at the time when Moses, at the Lord’s command, prepared to lead the Israelites out from Egyptian bondage (cf. Ex 12). The Lord told Moses not to forget the Passover act, his sparing of the Israelites: “This will be a day of remembrance for you, which your future generations will celebrate with pilgrimage to the Lord; you will celebrate it as a statute forever” (Ex 12:14). Twelve hundred years later, on the Wednesday before the Passover celebration, Jesus sent two of his apostles to Jerusalem to confirm the location where he and all the apostles would make a pilgrimage to eat the annual Passover meal. The apostles were told exactly where to go, who to see and instructed to make the necessary preparations. As Pope Benedict XVI wrote in his book of Lenten reflections, “Journey to Easter”: “The Hebrew Pasch [Passover] was and is a family feast. It was not celebrated in the Temple but at home. … Jesus too, celebrated the Pasch in compliance with the prescription: at home with his family, for the apostles had become his new family. … And so the Pasch has become a Christian feast also.” The Passover meal always took place in the evening after sunset, because in the ancient Jewish world a new day began at sunset not at midnight. This Jewish custom originated from the Old Testament Book of Genesis 1:5: “God called the light ‘day,’ and the darkness he called ‘night.’ Evening came, and morning followed — the first day.” Thus, the Last Supper was held on the evening of the first of three days that included his passion, death and resurrection. He told his apostles: “‘I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer, for, I tell you, I shall not eat it [again] until there is fulfillment in the kingdom of God. … I shall not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes” (Lk 22:15-18). Our divine Lord Jesus knew this was his last meal before his passion. Washing of the feet The Passover meal was eaten in a special way as described in Exodus 12. There was roasted lamb, unleavened bread and bitter herbs. Wine was included, and the meal was broken into several courses. Jesus washed his apostles’ feet, teaching them to serve one another in humility. Shutterstock The Gospel according to John tells that during the meal Jesus got up and washed the feet of the apostles. This was a hospitality duty, a menial task normally carried out by a slave: “So, during supper, fully aware that the Father had put everything into his power and that he had come from God and was returning to God, he [Jesus] rose from supper and took off his outer garments … and began to wash his disciples’ feet and dry them with the towel around his waist. … He said to them, ‘Do you realize what I have done for you? You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘master’ and rightly so, for indeed I am. If I, therefore the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet'” (Jn 13:2-5, 12-14). Since the meal already had started, the apostles would have previously had their feet washed; thus, this act of Jesus was a demonstration of humility. He had likely cringed when he previously heard his apostles arguing about who was the greatest among them; now he would demonstrate not only how much he loved them, but how they should serve and love one another with charity and humility. In his “Lecture on the Gospel According to John,” St. Augustine said: “We have learned, brethren, humility from the highest: Let us, as humble, do to one another what he, the highest, did in his humility … nor should the Christian think it beneath him to do what was done by Christ. For when the body is bent at a brother’s feet, the feeling of humility is either awakened in the heart, itself, or is strengthened if already present.” Christ included Judas in the foot washing, knowing full well that Judas was going to betray him. The betrayer soon departed to carry out his evil act. Pope Francis kisses the foot of an inmate during Holy Thursday Mass on March 29, 2018, at Regina Coeli prison in Rome. The pope celebrated Mass and washed the feet of 12 inmates at the prison. CNS photo via Vatican Media Jesus then tells the other apostles that he will be with them only a short time longer and gives them a new commandment: “Love one another. As I love you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jn 13:34-35). He later reiterates, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (Jn 15:13). They are his friends, and the next day he will give up his life for them and for mankind. The Catechism of the Catholic Church reads: “Knowing that the hour had come to leave this world and return to the Father, in the course of a meal he washed their feet and gave them the commandment of love. In order to leave them a pledge of this love, in order never to depart from his own and to make them sharers in his Passover, he instituted the Eucharist as the memorial of his death and Resurrection, and commanded his apostles to celebrate it until his return; ‘thereby he constituted them priests of the New Testament'” (No. 1337). Eucharist and priesthood It is at this meal that Christ instituted the holy Eucharist, the Mass. In each of the Gospel renditions, he blessed the bread and the wine during the meal, gave it to them saying, “This is my body, this is my blood.” Christ truly is present. He adds in the Gospel of Luke, “Do this in memory of me” (Lk 22:19). The apostles, through the bishops and priests of today, continue this sacred action at every Mass. This is also the moment at the Last Supper when he instituted the priesthood by giving his priests, the apostles, this responsibility. In St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, Paul repeats the words of Jesus: “And, after he had given thanks, broke it [bread], and said, ‘This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me'” (11:24). Paul uses almost identical language regarding the cup: “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes” (1 Cor 11: 25-26). This mosaic of the Last Supper was created by Giacomo Raffaelli in 1816 as copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s work. It resides in the Minoriten Church in Vienna, Austria. Shutterstock Pope St. John Paul II, in Dominicae Cenae, a letter to the bishops about the Eucharist, wrote that the priesthood “effectively came into being at the moment of the institution of the Eucharist” (No. 2). Many Catholics are not aware that Jesus instituted the priesthood during the Last Supper. Agony in the garden During Jesus’ agony in the garden, he surrendered his will for the Father’s glory. Shutterstock After they had finished the Passover meal, Jesus and his apostles went to the Mount of Olives, stopping at the Garden of Gethsemane. Here Jesus went off on his own to pray, leaving the apostles to wait for him. “Remain here,” he said, as if he wanted to avoid them seeing him agonizing over what was going to happen. In his humanity, Our Lord is filled with anxiousness, sadness and fear of the future, but eventually he accepts whatever his Father has chosen for him: “Not what I will but what you will” (Mk 14:36). Three times Jesus goes back and forth between where the apostles are waiting and his prayer spot. Each time he finds the apostles asleep. Even though he had told them that on the next day he would suffer, that even now he was distressed and in agony, his friends slept. Eventually this scene is interrupted by a group of people, including Judas, coming out to arrest Jesus.