HOMILY FOR HOLY THURSDAY OF THE LORD’S SUPPER, CYCLE A. (2)
HOMILY FOR HOLY THURSDAY OF THE LORD’S SUPPER, CYCLE A.
THEME: Mandatum Novum—A New Commandment.
BY: Fr. Anthony O. EZEAPUTA, MA.
Holy Thursday is also known as “Maundy Thursday.” The word “Maundy” comes from the Latin word “mandatu
HOMILY FOR HOLY THURSDAY OF THE LORD’S SUPPER, CYCLE A.
THEME: Mandatum Novum—A New Commandment.
BY: Fr. Anthony O. EZEAPUTA, MA.
Holy Thursday is also known as “Maundy Thursday.” The word “Maundy” comes from the Latin word “mandatum,” which means “command.” So, the name “Maundy Thursday” came about because it was in the context of the Last Supper, also called the Lord’s Supper, that Jesus gave his disciples his last commandments. His last commandments are as follows: “If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet” (John 13:14–17), “Love one another as I have loved you” (John 13:34), and “Do this in remembrance of me” (1 Corinthians 11:23–26).
On Holy Thursday, the Catholic Church celebrates the mysteries that unfolded during the Lord’s Supper with his apostles in two main ways: the institution of the Holy Eucharist and the ordination of the first priests with the command to make present, sacramentally, His Body and His Blood and to continue through the centuries the sacrifice of the Cross; and the Lord’s command about brotherly love by washing the feet of his apostles. Let’s focus on the Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper, especially on the institution of the Holy Eucharist and the mystery of Jesus washing his apostles’ feet.
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Our gospel passage (Jn 13:1–15) tonight is a section of John’s account of the Last Supper. Both the Gospel of John and the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) make it clear that the Last Supper was a Passover meal. But John adds that it was “before the feast of Passover” (John 13:1).
When John mentions a Jewish feast, he wants his reader to understand that Jesus is applying its meaning to himself. So, understanding the Jewish Passover is the key to figuring out the meaning of the Last Supper, which we celebrate today as Holy Thursday.
The Jewish Passover recalls the sacrifice of a lamb, whose blood was put on the doors of the Hebrew households to guard against the Angel of Death, who was killing all Egyptian firstborns in the tenth plague. The angel was “passing over” the Israelite households with lamb’s blood on the doors and sparing them.
As Jesus dies on the cross, John tells us, “It was the Day of Preparation, about the sixth hour” (19:14). It was the day on which the lambs were slaughtered in the Temple in readiness for the Paschal meal. So, Jesus, the lamb of God, the true Passover lamb, dies on the cross while countless thousands of lambs are being slaughtered in the Temple.
Jesus gave the Jewish Passover its definitive meaning at the Last Supper. His death is a liberation—not from Egyptian servitude but from sin and death. It is his passing over to his father by his death and Resurrection that saves.
Thus, when John the Baptist saw him coming toward him, he said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). The book of Hebrews tells us that Jesus Christ “has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself” and “offered one sacrifice for sins forever” (Hebrews 9:26; 10:12).
Before his death on the cross and during the Passover meal, to leave his disciples a pledge of his love, to never depart from his own, and to make them sharers in his Passover, he took the bread and the cup and instituted the Holy Eucharist—a memorial of his death and Resurrection. And in commanding his apostles to celebrate the Eucharist until his return, he constituted them as priests of the New Testament (1 Cor 11:23–26).
Saint Cyril of Jerusalem tells us that bread and wine are more than just natural elements. The Lord himself has expressly said that they are his body and his blood. And faith assures us that they are his body and blood, though senses suggest otherwise.
People often wonder why the gospel about washing feet is chosen on the night when we remember the Last Supper, the new Passover, and the institution of the Eucharist. Some people say that love and service are as important as the Eucharist and that actions speak louder than words.
In that light, Jesus, the master, uses a towel, a bowl of water, and his disciples’ feet to demonstrate how love looks in action. And Jesus then tells them: “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 as I have done for you, you should also do.”
But as important as fraternal love in action is, it is not the theology of Jesus washing his apostles’ feet. Instead, Jesus washes their feet to show them what his death is all about and how low he will have to go to cleanse us of our sins. The Son of God stoops down from his heavenly throne to wash us clean from our transgressions.
“Jesus represents the whole of his saving ministry in one symbolic act. He divests himself of his divine splendor; he, as it were, kneels down before us; he washes and dries our soiled feet in order to make us fit to sit at the table for God’s wedding feast,” says Pope Benedict XVI.
But Peter says, “You will never wash my feet.” And Jesus tells him, “Unless I wash you, you will have no inheritance with me.” Here, it becomes clearer what it meant for Jesus to wash the feet of his disciples. Jesus is “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.”
Today, let’s spend some time on these words of Jesus Christ: “If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet” (John 13:14–17). Let us ask him for the strength and grace to do as he does.
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