Let's begin tonight considering covenants, those solemn pacts
between God and Man we come upon so often in the Sacred Scriptures[1].
A covenant was made with Noah. God told Noah that he would never give up on his
people. This was the covenant of the rainbow. There was a covenant with
Abraham. God told Abraham that Abraham’s conquest of faith over doubts would
result in his descendants being as numerous as the stars of the sky and the
grains of sand of the shore. This was the covenant of faith. There was the
covenant with Moses. God told Moses that he loved his people so much he would
show them how to follow him and be holy. This was the covenant of the Ten
Commandments. God told the prophet
Jeremiah that a time would come when there would be a New Covenant, a covenant
which would be written in the hearts of the people. And Jesus took the cup, and
said, This cup is the new covenant in my
blood. Do this whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me. Every time, then, you eat this bread and
drink this cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes!
The essence of the Eucharist is union with the sacrifice of
Jesus. The Second Vatican Council put this beautifully and poetically: «At the Last Supper our Savior
instituted the Eucharistic Sacrifice of his body and blood to perpetuate the
sacrifice of the Cross. He
entrusted to the Church a memorial of His death and resurrection, .....a
sacrament of love, .....a sign of
unity, .....a bond of charity, .....a paschal banquet in which .....Christ is
consumed, .....the mind is filled with grace, .....and the pledge of future
glory is given to us»[2].
There are some who treat the Eucharist as merely a symbol of
the community. The Eucharist is infinitely more than a meal of fellowship. On the other hand, there are some who
treat the Eucharist only as a time of intense meditation. Receiving the
Eucharist is more than the union of an individual with the Lord! The Eucharist
is the living memorial of Calvary. The Gift of the Last Supper is the
sacramental expression of the crucifixion of the Lord. This is the New Covenant
in his Blood written within the hearts of Jesus’ disciples.
The ability to take bread and wine and transform the reality
of this existence into the Body and Blood of the Lord was given by the Lord to
his disciples. Do this in memory of me. They were given
the power to act in the person of the Lord, or, using the theological
expression, in persona Christi. This
power continues in the Church through the grace of God and the mystery of the
sacrament of orders. Priests take on the person of Jesus. The Liturgy of Holy
Thursday, therefore, focuses on these two sacraments, the Eucharist and Holy Orders, uniting them both to the sacrifice
of the Cross. Through the grace of Holy Orders, the people are provided with
the New Covenant of the Body and Blood of Lord.
This is all dogmatic theology, the theology of what we
believe. It is useless without its practical application to real life. We who
consume the Lord must be consumed by the Lord. The Eucharist is only fully
realized in our lives when we live as a Eucharistic People. We cannot be satisfied with consuming the
Lord. We must be consumed by the Lord. His life must become our lives. We must be Christians in
the fullest meaning of the word, people who are so consumed by the reality of
the Lord that we have been transformed.
We consume the Eucharist so we can
be consumed by Jesus Christ.
Before the meal, Jesus washed the feet of his disciples and
then said to them, What you have seen me
do for you so you must also do for others[3].
The Lord’s action was prophetic and symbolic. It was prophetic in that it
suggested the extent of what the Lord would do in emptying himself for his
people. Not even a slave in the time of the Lord could be required to wash the
feet of a visitor. This was too demeaning. Yet Jesus does this as a prophetic
expression of how much he would humble himself for the sake of his people. The
washing of the feet is a prophetic action that points to the Lord’s humbling
himself on the Cross. Along with
being prophetic, the washing of feet is symbolic. When Jesus says, What
you have seen me do, do also yourselves, he is encouraging us to find ways to reach out to others no
matter how much sacrifice or how personally demeaning this might be. We
Christians are called to extend this love to all. No action is too demanding
for a Christian when this action is an expression of the love of Christ for
others. The nurse’s aid that
empties bedpans, the neighbor who washes the sores of the fellow with AIDS next
door, the teacher who makes time for those students who are not getting any
help at home, are all performing actions that express the reality of the
Eucharist.
We consume the Eucharist so we can be consumed by Jesus
Christ. He is our Everything. Uniting
our lives to his life give our lives meaning and purpose and fulfillment. It
doesn’t end here though. There is infinitely more to life than the here and
now. Being consumed by Christ unites us to the Eternal; for the One Who Always
Was brings those He has consumed before the Throne of the One Who Always Is,
the Ancient of Days, the Glory of the Father, the Fire of the Spirit.
May we allow our Eucharistic union with Him to permeate
every aspect of our lives so that we might truly be a Eucharistic People! ■
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