ARCHDIOCESE OF PHILADELPHIA

Dear Friends,

Our Lord Jesus Christ gathers us together on this Holy Thursday evening to celebrate His Supper the Last Supper, the Eucharist.

Christ wants us to enter into His sentiments, to understand His thoughts and His intentions as He gave us the great gift of His Body and Blood.

Our readings this evening emphasize three important aspects of Holy Thursday. This is the day on which Jesus instituted the Holy Eucharist, the day when He instituted the Priesthood, the day when He taught us by example the full meaning of humble service.

In our second reading, Saint Paul explains to us how the institution of the Eucharist took place. When Jesus and his apostles were at supper together, Jesus took bread, gave thanks to His Father, broke the bread and said: This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way, after the supper, He took the cup, saying: This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me. And Saint Paul adds: Every time, then, you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes!

For two thousand years the Church has taught that Christ truly changed the substance of bread and wine into the substance of His own Body and Blood. This change is called Transubstantiation. The appearance of bread and wine remains; the substance is changed. There is a new reality. And for two thousand years the Church has taught that every time the Eucharist is celebrated the Sacrifice of Christ s death is renewed. The Church likewise teaches that, by sharing in the Body and Blood of Christ, we become one body in Christ. We are formed into the Mystical Body of Christ, which is the Church.

The second aspect of the Last Supper that the Church emphasizes today on Holy Thursday is the fact that Christ instituted the Priesthood in order to perpetuate the Eucharist. Jesus said: Do this in remembrance of me. It was not enough for Jesus to offer up the Eucharist. It was His will that, through the Priesthood, the Eucharist would be available to all His people throughout the ages. He would continue to give His Body and Blood as food to all generations of Christians. Through the Eucharist, which only the Priest can make present in the world, Jesus continues to renew the Last Supper, which was the sacramental anticipation of His Sacrifice on the Cross.

This evening, Holy Thursday night, we think of how the plan of Christ has been put into practice during all these centuries. We think of the many priests who have served God s people, who have been able to unite the people of God around an altar in order to celebrate together the death and Resurrection of the Lord Jesus. We think also of everything else that has been accomplished through the other sacramental acts of the priest. We think of the forgiveness of sins. We think of how the pardon and compassion and mercy of God have been kept alive through the Catholic priesthood. For all of this, we give thanks to God today. And as we give thanks to God for the priesthood, we pray that He will raise up many young and generous priests to carry on Christ s priestly work. We accept seriously and with commitment our task to pray and work for vocations to the priesthood.

The third aspect of Holy Thursday is the aspect of loving service. We see Jesus, in the Gospel, exercising his servanthood. We see Jesus kneeling before His apostles. Jesus washes their feet and tells them: What I just did was to give you an example: as I have done, so you must do.

Jesus is talking about much more that the washing of the feet, although the Church does repeat this humble gesture every year on Holy Thursday. What Jesus is talking about is a way of life a life of service. The Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Christ. The Eucharist is our food and our strength, but the Eucharist is also our challenge. We are challenged to use the strength and power of the Body and Blood of Christ in order to imitate His servanthood and serve one another.

We must remember that the Last Supper was indeed the anticipation of the Sacrifice that Jesus offered the next day on Good Friday. On Good Friday, He gave His life for the salvation of the world. He offered Himself completely to His Father and His Sacrifice was accepted. The night before Jesus died, He made it possible for His Church to renew the Sacrifice of His death in the form of a meal under the signs of bread and wine, a meal that would also recall the great Passover meal of the Old Testament that brought God s people into freedom.

The Mass always remains the Lord s Supper. But it is also the Eucharistic Sacrifice, which re-presents and renews the Sacrifice of the Cross. The Sacrifice of the Cross is the supreme act of Christ s giving, the supreme act of His generosity, the supreme act of His service. At the same time, it is for us the supreme challenge to service. There is no doubt about it: Jesus intends that those for whom He laid down His life would in turn lay down their lives for others.

Dear brothers and sisters: The Church proclaims that the Body and Blood of the living Jesus Christ exist under the signs of bread and wine. Our holy Catholic faith also assures us that, after the celebration of Mass, the living Jesus Christ remains present in the Eucharist and that the Eucharist is to be adored. Finally, all of us who are one body in Christ and one body with one another are invited to lay down our lives in humble service.

Let us remember what Jesus told us: What I just did was to give you an example: as I have done, so you must do. Amen.