HOLY THURSDAY-YEAR –B

CELEBRATION OF THE LORD’S SUPPER

(THE LAST SUPPER OF JESUS)

I Reading: Exodus 12:1-8, 11-14: Instruction concerning the Passover meal.

II Reading: 1 Corinthians 11:23-26: Every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you are proclaiming the death of the Lord.

Gospel: John 13: 1-15: Now he showed how perfect his love was.

We have gathered this evening not as individuals but as a family to commemorate the Last Supper or the Last Meal of our Lord Jesus on earth before on the night he suffered. He is in our midst and we are around Him, as the twelve disciples were with Him. Jesus is already in our midst though we cannot see him with our eyes of flesh, he welcomes us at this very moment, repeating to us the very words he spoke to his twelve disciples on that occasion. “I have eagerly desired to eat this meal with you” (Lk 22:15).

On this Holy Thursday, Jesus instituted the two sacraments: The sacrament of the Holy Eucharist and the sacrament of the Holy Priesthood.

We are lucky to have the priests of the Lord to celebrate the Eucharist in this church daily and all over the world to eat and drink the Body and the Blood of Jesus Christ.

The readings of today speak to us about the three groups of people:

1.    The Jewish family: God gave instructions to the people of Israel through Moses to celebrate the most important event of the year: The Passover Meal. That meal was meant to remind them how their ancestors had been delivered from the slavery of Pharaoh in Egypt. In celebrating the Passover, the eyes of the Jews were set on their past: they praised God for the love he had shown to their ancestors.

2.    The group of the twelve disciples around Jesus: The Gospel speaks of a new family created by Jesus and his twelve disciples; who represent the new Israel and new people of God.

At this time Jesus was giving to the Passover Meal a new meaning. At his Last Supper, Jesus celebrated a new deliverance, one he would carry out the next day on the cross: the deliverance not just of one nation but of all mankind from the slavery of the devil; he would obtain it at the price of his own blood. Jesus anticipated the deliverance, so to say: he took bread, and by his power, he changed it into his Body. He took a cup filled with wine and changed the wine into his own Blood. He gave his Body and Blood to his disciples and said to them, “do this in remembrance of me.”