Holy Thursday – 2020
Jesus, having loved his own, he loved them to the end
Jesus began to wash the feet of his disciples, and wipe them with the towel.
Take this and eat – Take this and drink
A new commandment I give you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you.
In these brief verses, Jesus sums up his very life and the message he leaves with us. We are to love one another, as He has loved us. We are to give of ourselves to one another, as He has given Himself to us. We are to be willing to give even our very lives for one another, even as He has given His life for us.
All of this is the parting message of Jesus Christ to His disciples at table and to us here in this place. But surely we cannot fully do as He has done. We are weak and poor. We are sinful creatures, who depend on Him when He tells us; “Apart from Me, you can do nothing!”
But He has also promised us that “I will be with you all days, unto the end of the world”. He remains with us in the very sacrament which we are privileged to celebrate here today. He gives Himself to us as our food and drink to sustain our very lives. This sacrament is the very soul of the Church – the Mystical Body of Christ. It is the manna which is given to us to nourish us on the way.
In the hymn the Te Deum which we frequently sing at Vigils, one phrase tells us that “you did not shrink back from the chaste virgin’s womb”. Likewise He does not shrink back from our own sinful flesh, in order to become to very source of our life, in order to continue His life and message in and through each one of us.
And yet we are left with the strange anomaly that on this very day when Jesus says “Do as I have done”, the majority of the Church is left without this very sacrament. What can the Lord be saying to us? Perhaps He is telling us that His Love for us is greater even than this Sacrament – that just as He continues to love us even as we depart from Him by our sinful ways, so He continues to be with us even if many are unable to share in the Sacrament. That His Love is greater than any poisonous virus that might be released on our world, and that He wants us to continue to spread His Love through our mutual actions as we strive to live out each day as His disciples. Certainly many are showing Christ’s Love in their willingness to sacrifice even their very life in order to help others in myriads of ways. And we are left powerless to do any more than living our monastic life in the simple ways of loving one another – even as He has loved us, knowing by faith that that is how we are to show that we are truly His disciples, that the power of His Love is truly present in our very lives as simple monks, and that that is the way we are to wash the feet of one another, that is how we are to give our lives for one another in our limited daily existence.
Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end!