If you knew you were going to die tomorrow, you wouldn’t want to be alone. Nor would you want to be in just any old crowd. There would be a very special, very particular list of people you wanted around for your last night. You’d gather them together. Whatever else you did that night, you’d probably have supper together. Your last supper. That meal, and the conversation that accompanied it, would be a meal unlike any other in your life. For the people who shared it with you, it would be a vivid memory seared into their minds forever.
If you knew you were going to die tomorrow, you’d be sure to make provisions for anything you wanted to continue after you’d gone. If you were the head of a business, or an institution of some kind, you might appoint your successor and pass along some critical instructions. If there were some life’s work, some mission to which you’d dedicated yourself, you wouldn’t just leave it to chance. So it isn’t surprising that we priests look to Holy Thursday as the beginning of our vocation, the start of the Holy Order in which we are consecrated. Every baptized Christian is anointed to continue the work of Christ. For we who are ordained, it begins and ends with the sacrifice and Sacrament of this night, this Last Supper.
If you knew you were going to die tomorrow, there might be something you wanted to say, something very close to your heart, something about what you’d learned in life that you wanted to teach others. It wouldn’t be some complicated theory or philosophical treatise. It would be some very basic, very simple lesson that summed up the heart of what you were about. Jesus, at his Last Supper, had much to say, but his greatest lesson that night was not a speech but a demonstration. He put a towel around him and went to his knees to show them “This is how you do it. This is what service looks like. This is what leadership looks like.”
If you knew you were going to die tomorrow, you might ask a little too much of your friends. They’d try, and it would mean the world to them, but at some point you’d be crushed and disappointed that they were starting to nod off. It wouldn’t mean they didn’t care, just… well, the flesh is weak.
If you knew you were going to die tomorrow, it would very likely occur to you to give out some gifts. They would be the most treasured, the most valuable, the most meaningful items that you had to give. Something to remember you by. Something solid that would continue to say “I love you”, something that will remain present when you have gone. For your friends it would be, symbolically, like a little piece of you that was still with them. But what God Incarnate gives is not a symbol of his presence nor a dim reflection of someone long departed. He gives perfectly and completely, and the gift is not a shadow of his presence, but his presence in full. A Real Presence.
There’s a sense in which the words and actions of Our Lord on his last night are so easy to understand. They aren’t really any different than the way any of us would go about our last night. As man, his actions are human actions. But as God, they are infinitely more. He gathers his friends -- and establishes a Church for the rest of time and beyond. He looks after the continuation of his work -- and fulfills the sacrificial priesthood, establishing the ministry of the New Covenant. He gives a final lesson -- that is still reenacted all over the world two thousand years later, that will be reenacted here tonight, and still we try to learn from what we see. He leaves us something to remember him by -- and the Sacrament Most Holy is established, his Real Presence for all peoples and all times until he comes again. Blessed are they - blessed are we - who are called to the supper of the Lamb.
So beautifully put, thank you!
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