MAUNDY THURSDAY

MAUNDY THURSDAY: 21st April, 2011

Ex. 12:1-8.11-14; Ps. 115: 12-13.15-18;1 Cor. 11:23-26; Jn. 13:1-15

My dear Brothers and Sisters,

Today is Maundy Thursday. “Maundy” is an old English word which means “commandment”. Today then is the Thursday of the Commandment. It is the only commandment that Jesus gave us: Love one another as I have loved you. Jesus commands us not merely to love but to love one another as He loves us. How does Jesus love us?

Jesus loves us with a personal love. He loves us by name. We are not just a cipher in the social scale; an anonymous face in a motley crowd. He loves us just as we are – yes, with our dimples as well as our pimples, with our strengths and weaknesses, with the beautiful and the ugly, the saint and the sinner that is in each of us. That is how Jesus wants us to love one another. We need to love others as they are and not as we would like them to be. We need to love them even when they do not meet with our expectations. Our love like the love of Jesus must be a gift that is freely given and not a merit that deserves a reward. Love is the only gift that can never be given away because it always comes back to you.

Jesus loves us with a pursuing love. He never gives up on us. He is in the words of the poet Francis Thompson that Hound of Heaven that pursues us even when we try to put him off the scent. He catches up with us even when we try to run away from Him. He is a Tremendous Lover who never forgets or forsakes us. That is how Jesus wants us to love one another. Others may spurn our love and reject it. We must continue to love because love never ends.

Jesus loves us with a pardoning love. How often have we not offended Him? How often have we not hurt His goodness? Yet, He continues to love us. That is how we must love one another. There are persons in our life who may have hurt or harmed us; persons who may have maligned and messed up our good name; persons who may have betrayed or beguiled us: it could be a spouse, a sibling or a superior. We need to continue to love them because love is never overcome by evil but overcomes evil with good.

Today we celebrate the Thursday of the Commandment of Love. And love means giving. To perpetuate that giving, Jesus instituted the Holy Eucharist, in which He gives us Himself. “Take and eat: this is my body…Take and drink: this is my blood.” There is nothing more precious and profound that we can give another than the gift of ourselves. What a sublime sacrament the Holy Eucharist is! The Holy Eucharist is not a thing; it is a Person. We believe that Jesus is truly present in the Holy Eucharist: body, soul and divinity. The same Jesus who fed the hungry multitudes, the same Jesus who healed the sick and forgave sinners, the same Jesus who calmed the stormy the sea, , the same Jesus who raised the dead back to life – the same Jesus is present every time we celebrate Holy Mass, the same Jesus is present in our tabernacles. The whole country is revving up its enthusiasm for the royal wedding that will take place next week at Westminster. How fortunate would we not count ourselves to be among the invitees to the nuptials? Could there be a greater privilege than that of being present at and participating in the nuptials of the Lamb at the celebration of the Holy Eucharist? To these nuptials all are invited prince or pauper. It is such a privilege to be in the presence of Jesus. Nowhere in the world are we more warmly welcomed, nowhere in the world are we better understood, nowhere in the world are we more forgiven, nowhere in the world are we more loved than in the presence of Jesus!

Love never says enough. To ensure that the Holy Eucharist would always be celebrated until Jesus returns at the end of time, He ordained on that first Maundy Thursday, the first priests. My dear Brothers and Sisters, please pray for us priests. Despite our unworthiness Jesus calls, consecrates and commissions us to be His ministers. We carry such a precious treasure in vessels of clay; vessels that are beautiful but ever so brittle because we can so easily get chipped and broken. It is not easy to be a priest; it is even more difficult to remain a priest. To be everybody’s and yet belong to nobody; to see other people’s children who will never be your own; to shake a hand and not want to retain it; to be haunted and hounded by many hours of silence and solitude; to be a pillar of strength for those who are falling and have no one humanly speaking to lean on when one is collapsing oneself; to have a heart of bronze for chastity and heart of flesh for charity; to be told such sacred secrets and be unable to share them with others; to be a spotless lotus surrounded by the muck and mire of a secular world; to give without counting the cost; to labour and seek no reward; to fight without heeding the wounds. Oh what a life is yours, Oh priest of Jesus Christ!

To conclude, let us live the commandment of love by which the world will know that we are disciples of Jesus; let us make every mass as if it was our first mass, our last mass and our only mass; let us pray for our priests that they may grow more and more into the likeness of Jesus in whose priesthood they share. Amen.

[St. Tudwal Church, Barmouth – Msgr. Alex Rebello (975 Words)]