Fr Richard's homily for the Mass of the Lord's Supper, Holy Thursday
Holy Thursday:
Divine Charity
“God loves us.”
It’s easy to hear or say these words without contemplating the
awesome reality of what they actually mean. But the mysteries of this holy
night unveil to us exactly how overwhelming God’s love for us really is.
The act of love is what we call charity and at the centre of
the mysteries of Holy Thursday is Divine Charity. In the Old Covenant, God “passed
over” the houses of the Israelites in his striking down of the firstborn in
Egypt, thus delivering His people into freedom. So too in the New Covenant of His
Blood, God frees and saves us, His people, from sin and death by the sacrifice of
His Divine Son. Jesus’ Passion, death, and Resurrection is the greatest act of
love ever known in the history of the universe. Jesus anticipates Good Friday
and Easter Day in the Upper Room by truly bestowing on the disciples that greatest
act of love – the full gift of Himself as food for our salvation.
It is, of course, difficult as a priest to speak about the centrality
of the Eucharist to human life on Holy Thursday night of 2020 when members of
the faithful can’t at present attend Mass. This is a source of great pain. However,
a time of being without the greatest of all Sacraments provides an opportunity
to grow in love of the Lord ever deeper, to long and thirst for the Eucharist with
renewed faith so that, when ‘public’ Masses are resumed, you can approach the
altar with ever greater devotion and hunger to receive this greatest ever gift
of love.
I wonder what it would’ve been like to be a Catholic in the
Yorkshire Dales during the penal times, when it was illegal to practice one’s Faith?
You can imagine those recusants going without the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass
for months, longing to see Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Then, they would get
news that a priest was passing by the town or village and would be offering
Mass in a secret place. What a sense of joy they must have had, knowing that
the Real Presence of Jesus Christ would come into their midst that day. I imagine
that Mass would’ve made them ever more aware of the immensity of Divine
Charity, poured forth in the Lord’s Supper.
Christ loved us so much that he took fruits of the earth and
vine, things created through Him, and made them become His Glorified Body and
Blood, the food of charity. He instituted a way by which He could be truly,
fully, and substantially present to us throughout all time. This great gift is
made possible because on this holy night he also gave the disciples gathered a
direct command: “do this in memory of me.” With these words, He instituted the Sacred
Priesthood, so that His Divine Love may shower down upon His people through the
words and actions of those men ordained with the laying on of hands.
Secondly, in the washing of the feet, we are shown why the Lord’s
Supper is the Sacrament of Divine Charity. God-made-man loved us so much that He’s
prepared to get on His knees in front of fallen humanity and to wash our feet. By
His humble actions, He shows us how we should love our neighbour, having been
showered with Divine Love ourselves.
In two nights, the Exultet proclaiming the Christ's Resurrection will praise the Father saying: "O love, O charity beyond all telling, to ransom a slave you gave away your Son!" While we continue to pray for an end to this awful pandemic and for
the time when ‘public’ Masses can begin again, in this Holy
Week of 2020, may we marvel and rejoice in that Divine Charity poured out for us
in the total self-emptying of our Saviour, Jesus Christ, on the Cross for our
salvation.
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