Holy Thursday -Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper

Lectionary: 39

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup,
you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.

With those words in his First Letter to the Corinthians, Saint Paul ties the Lord's Last Supper to his Crucifixion. We cannot speak of one without the other. We cannot know the meaning of the Lord's passion and death without the Mass. 

Scholars of the Bible try to determine exactly when that meal was celebrated. If he died during the "preparation day for the sabbath," as Saint John says, then the Last Supper was not a Passover meal. On that Friday the Passover fell on the Sabbath, and the priests were slaughtering the lambs in preparation for the Jews who gathered in the city for the feast. At that very hour, as the lambs were slaughtered, the Lamb of God died on the cross. 

But the Church has always known the two events belong together; they mean nothing without each other, and cannot be far apart. And so we celebrate the Lord's Supper on Thursday evening because our liturgical day, like the Jewish sabbath, begins at sundown. The First Eucharistic Prayer says, "On the before he suffered…” which is true by our reckoning. But the Jews began and ended the day at sundown, so Jesus ate his last meal with his disciples on the day he died. 

The Mass without remembering the passion and death of the Lord would be nothing more than an agape meal, a feelgood celebration of friendship. And the death of the Lord without the Mass is just another senseless killing like Cain’s murder of Abel. It’s been going on since the beginning and will continue until the end of human history. 

But as we eat his flesh and drink his blood we relive Jesus’s agony and death. To keep our focus on his Passion, every Mass is celebrated before a crucifix. We do not look at a bare cross, for God told us through the Prophet Isaiah,

See, my servant shall prosper,

he shall be raised high and greatly exalted.

And Jesus told us, “... just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”

The crucifix over our altars also recalls Isaiah’s vision of God. The prophet says,

I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, with the train of his garment filling the temple. Seraphim were stationed above; each of them had six wings: with two they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they hovered. One cried out to the other: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts! All the earth is filled with ..his glory!” At the sound of that cry, the frame of the door shook and the house was filled with smoke.

During the Mass we also cry out with the angels "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts, heaven and earth are full of your glory….” and we see the Crucified Lord God seated on his throne. 

Saint John the  Evangelist adds a third layer of meaning to our ceremony: our care for one another. Holy Thursday Mass and Good Friday mean nothing if the Lord’s disciples are unkind to one another. All barriers of class, wealth, and status must be demolished by our intense, reverent respect for one another. 

No one suffers the curse of Eve in our community. That is, no one "rules over" anyone. Our concern begins with the least among us. The able-bodied, wealthy, and powerful can take care of themselves. They neither deserve nor need kowtowing or special consideration. Those who are set free by the Lord fear the Lord and no one else. 

God’s kindness knows no boundaries; it is openhearted and generous; it does not calculate who is worthy of generosity. We know we have not earned and do not deserve the mercy we’ve been shown. How can we ration mercy to others?  Because of his passion and death, Jesus was given healing power and redeeming authority over all nations and peoples. If our charity begins at home it must go well beyond our homes to every needy person. 

We began this Evening Mass of the Lord's Supper with the sign of the cross. With that gesture we fix ourselves on the Cross of Jesus. We will not use that gesture again until the last blessing on Easter Sunday. Between now and then, we will eat his flesh and drink his blood and do all this in memory of him. This Mass of Holy Thursday, the ceremony of Good Friday, the Easter Vigil, and Sunday Mass are a single event. As we undergo this extended ritual, we will know the Lord has forgiven our sins and for everyone who believes in him has eternal life.