Last night, all observant Jews around the world began their annual Passover celebration. For us, however, tonight begins the Passover of the Lord. Holy Thursday is act one in the three-part drama that is the Paschal Mystery, the central mystery of our faith. The Passover is a central theme in the readings for this evening’s Mass of the Lord’s Supper. In our first reading, we heard the instructions that God gave to Moses and Aaron regarding the first Passover meal, which included the slaughter of a spotless lamb for each household. We know that Jesus is the true Passover Lamb. He is the Lamb worthy to be slain. He died on the eve of the Passover when that very night the Passover Lamb would be consumed by all of God’s children enslaved in Egypt. Their meal recalls how God set their ancestors free from this slavery with the Blood of the Lamb. During his passion, Jesus, the true Passover Lamb, sets all people free from sin by the shedding of his blood. He is the priest, the altar, the lamb and the sacrifice.
In tonight’s second reading, we hear the earliest account found in the Bible of Jesus performing the traditional blessing of the bread and wine at Passover. But, he transformed it into his own flesh and blood and commanded us to participate in his saving act by saying, “Do this in remembrance of me.” By this action, Jesus at the Last Supper institutes the ministerial priesthood and the Eucharist, the means by which he will remain with his followers long after he has died, risen and ascended into heaven.
But it is at the very beginning of the supper that Jesus gives us another command to follow. He and his Apostles had traveled on foot with thousands of other Jewish faithful coming up to the Temple at Jerusalem to observe all the sacred rites of Passover week, one of which was the preparation meal. After traveling the hot, dusty roads, foot washing was a welcome tradition in preparation for the Passover feast, but it was usually carried out by a servant.
Jesus was not only the priest, the altar, the lamb and the sacrifice but also a servant, and that he would take this task upon himself gives further evidence of his humility. He commands that we, too, be servants of one another: “If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do,” we hear him admonish his disciples – and us.
“Do you realize what I have done for you?” we hear Jesus ask Peter tonight. Jesus can fittingly ask us the same question. Do we really recognize what he has done for us? In the busy-ness, distraction and distress of daily living, the Sacred Triduum that begins tonight provides us a much needed moment to realize all that our Lord has done for us: the offering of his life, giving us the Eucharist and the priesthood, offering us the forgiveness of sins and the promise of new life, both here on earth and for all eternity in heaven. Perhaps we will more fully realize what Jesus has done for us when we return here tomorrow afternoon for the Good Friday Service of the Lord’s Passion and venerate the cross on which he gave us his all and loved us to the end.
During his papacy, our late beloved Pope Saint John Paul II wrote a letter every year to all the priests of the world in preparation for Holy Thursday. In the letter he wrote in 2004, he remarked:
“We find ourselves amazed and overwhelmed, so deep is the humility by which God stoops in order to unite Himself with man! If we feel moved before the Christmas crib . . . what must we feel before the altar, where, by the poor hands of the priest, Christ makes his sacrifice present in time? We can only fall to our knees and silently adore this supreme mystery.”
These reflections that Pope Saint John Paul II offered are worthy of our reflection, not just for us priests but for all of us gathered here around our Lord’s Table. Tonight, with Christians everywhere, and during these holy, quiet days of Triduum, we can only fall to our knees and silently adore the Lamb by whose blood we have been saved.