The Gospels of Sts. Matthew, Mark, and Luke have vivid descriptions of the Last Supper. Even St. Paul provides us with rich accounts of the words and actions of Christ the Savior as He gathered with His disciples that night.
St. John, by contrast, links (in chapter 13) the “table fellowship” with the concrete reality of our lives. He says nothing about “the Pasch” or the Passover. He says nothing about the Eucharist, or the Body and Blood of Jesus. Instead he speaks of Jesus, the Lord and Master, getting down on His knees and washing the feet of His disciples. St. John’s Gospel tells us that it is this spirit of love and service of brothers and sisters which is to be the outstanding characteristic of the Christian disciple – from age to age. And this is the true living out of the Eucharistic celebration. To have one without the other is not to live the Gospel. And so the words of the Eucharist are also repeated in John 13: “Do this in memory of me.”
On this Holy Thursday, let us take to heart this stark reality: not to celebrate the Eucharist in community and not to spend our energies in love and service of each other is not to be living the Gospel. Our Catholic life is ideally a seamless garment between Gospel, liturgy, and daily living.
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From St. Augustine: “This evening we devoutly recall the sacred day before our Lord’s Passion when He graciously took supper with His disciples, willingly accepting everything that had been written or prophesied concerning His sufferings and death, in His merciful desire to set us free. It behooves us therefore to celebrate such mysteries in a manner befitting their magnitude, so that those of us who desire to share in Christ’s sufferings may also deserve to share in His Resurrection. For all the mysteries of the Old Testament were fully consummated when Christ handed over to His disciples the bread that was His body and the wine that was His blood, to be offered by them in the eternal mysteries and to be received by each of the faithful for the forgiveness of all sin. Let us therefore approach Christ’s altar in a fitting manner, so that we may be counted worthy to share eternal life with Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.”
