Holy Thursday 2006

What is there about Holy Thursday which makes it so distinctive and which attracts us to it every year? There is no single thing, I suppose, that can take all the credit for our enduring appreciation of Holy Thursday. The Passover ritual, the Last Supper, the first Holy Mass, the making of the first priests, the solemn priestly prayer of the Lord at the Supper, the agony in the garden, the betrayal of Judas: the ensemble of these events fills this night with significance. In addition to these, I would like to note a little detail about this evening that is often overlooked, something which Pope Benedict once observed in his writing. It is the general rule that prevailed in the time of our Lord by which Jews during the celebration of the Passover, were not permitted to go outside, but rather were required to remain indoors at home for the feast. (You will recall here the historical precedent for this in the Exodus when the Israelites took shelter under their roofs while the angel of death passed over them.) This simple precept of the Passover ritual however was not observed by Jesus and the apostles on Holy Thursday, for, as you know, after the supper had ended, they sang a psalm and went out into the night heading for the Mount of Olives. This then was a departure from the expected practice. Our Lord went out with His apostles in order to commence a new Passover–His Passion–beginning with His agony in the garden, the betrayal and arrest, the biased judicial proceedings, and His all-night imprisonment. Before all these occurred, however, our Lord was conscious of what He would be facing. He did not try to escape it but willingly went forth to embrace the most sorrowful and painful night of His life. The apostles too–all but one–accompanied our Savior on this nocturnal excursion to Gethsemani, carrying in their souls the grace of their first Holy Communion and their elevation to the priesthood.

The outcome of the events of Holy Thursday would have been different indeed had our Lord not made that courageous initiative, against the norm, and ventured out into the night. It would have meant the celebration of the first Mass but without the attached meaning to it of His redemptive suffering, for which purpose He set out immediately following the Last Supper.

The liturgy which the Church celebrates on Holy Thursday is not only the same Eucharistic sacrifice which the Church repeats on all other days of the year, but one with that extended symbolism which embraces the elements that signify the abandonment, the grief, the humility, the pains, as well as the death of Christ. We see the evidence of this in the empty tabernacle, in the abasement of Jesus in washing the apostles’ feet, and–here I wish to make special note–in the Eucharistic procession. After Mass tonight, the Blessed Sacrament will be carried in a solemn way through the Church. While Eucharistic Processions are not unknown at other times in the Church year, this one has a unique significance in being a representation of our Lord’s departure with His apostles from the upper room where the Eucharist was first celebrated, and of His going out into the night air to commence His sacred Passion. This procession then is a bridge between that moment when these words were fulfilled: "Unless you eat of the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you" (Jn. 6:53) and the fulfillment of these words: "The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified" (Lk. 24:7). In this procession we follow our Lord from the Eucharistic celebration (the Last Supper) into the night of His agony, keeping watch with Him, keeping vigil.

The sleeping of the apostles in the Garden is convincing evidence that they did not grasp the significance of their rather long walk with Jesus to Gethsemani. They could not yet have seen the connection between the Eucharist and the Passion. We, by contrast, have the knowledge of what we are about to do this night, of where we are headed, and of the signification this night has for all human history. This liturgical gesture of the Procession is, of course, only symbolic, for it does not claim to replicate our Lord’s issuing forth to encounter His Passion. But our procession does have the implicit meaning, I believe, of expressing our solidarity with Christ in accompanying Him faithfully and loyally right up until the very end, that is, until our death.

The procession of the Church has at least one obvious difference with the procession that left the upper room on Holy Thursday night in that we accompany the Lord is in His Eucharistic body. Our union with Jesus tonight in the Holy Eucharist thus takes on the distinctive character as a pledge of our safeguarding the sacramental Presence of the Lord. With all the appropriate marks of liturgical honor, we render to Christ in the Blessed Sacrament the adoration of His majesty, the recognition of His real Presence, and the pledge of our custody of His Divine Presence in the Holy Eucharist, now so horribly abused, denied, neglected, and even ridiculed. I am here reminded of a psalm: "If this had been done by an enemy I could bear his taunts; but it is you, my own companion, my intimate friend! We walked together in harmony in the house of God" (55:13-14). Sins committed by Catholics against the Holy Sacrament by sacrilegious Communions, by indifference to His Presence on the altar or in the tabernacle, by the casual if not irreverent manner in which He is often received, these call upon us to make this night’s Eucharistic procession one of reparation as well as of homage to our Lord in the Holy Sacrament.

Holy Thursday attracts us in part because we sense in it an opportunity to come close to Christ as His intimate disciples. It makes us feel that we are being drawn in to the very core of the circle of His closest friends. It helps overcome our feeling of helplessness in contemplating our Lord suffering His Passion alone, abandoned by His disciples. We come to pray, to sing, to watch, to keep vigil and to commune with Him at this time when, from a purely human perspective, it appears that our Lord is in the time of His greatest need of our love and fidelity.

If we have the fervent desire for union with Jesus, we are also mindful that we have in times past joined with the forces that opposed and killed Him. We have known ‘the other side’. We have felt the desolation of sin, the emptiness of a life without God’s grace, and the great sadness that results from forsaking Christ for any and all things apart from Him. We then come to this Holy Thursday Mass not as innocents, but as repentants. We want to make amends, if not for our wholesale betrayals, for our past disloyalties, confident that Jesus always receives the repentant back into His friendship.

The liturgy of Holy Thursday has a restorative power, a power which fortifies our souls to enable us to endure our own small–very small–‘passion’ of everyday life. It solidifies our union with Christ, especially in the Holy Eucharist, and helps us carry on faithfully with the Lord throughout the year. It also reminds us of our fragility, of our potential to turn away from Him again, and thus manages to put us in our rightful place. Holy Thursday has an effect on us unlike that of any other day.

Tonight let us keep company with Jesus: let us become as an angel of comfort to Him. Let us stand loyally beside Him as did Saint John and the holy women. Here for a few hours, let us also make amends. Let us be contrite for our sins, but not so ashamed that we lose confidence in the divine mercy and infinite love that made Jesus go out into the night in the company of his beloved friends.