HOLY WEEK REFLECTION - Holy Thursday

Maundy Thursday

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who of thy tender love towards mankind, hast sent thy Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ, to take upon Him our flesh, and to suffer death upon the cross, that all mankind should follow the example of his great humility: mercifully grant, that we may both follow the example of his patience, and also be made partakers of His resurrection; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

A New Commandment of Divine Love

The Jewish festival of Passover is approaching, and Jesus knew that His hour was coming, when His own Passover and exodus was to occur. This is the new Passover which would accomplish all that the Father had asked Him to do. The new Passover is His Passion, Death and Resurrection which we celebrate over the next three days.

The New Passover is the great act of salvation in which God’s love defeats the power of sin and ransoms those enslaved to sin. The Cross would definitively reveal divine love. When we see images of the cross, we should see that it is the revelation of divine love.

On this night when we celebrate the institution of the Most Holy Eucharist and also the Ordination of the first priests (the Apostles) who bring the Eucharist to God’s people, we do so in the context of the New Commandment that Jesus gives the disciples – gives to us all.

We might however ask, what is new about the New Commandment?

Our Lord had already agreed with teachers of the Law that all of the Law of Moses can be summarised in the Great Commandment to love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, and to love our neighbour as ourselves. This is known already. So what is ‘new’?

The New Commandment is a love on a different level altogether. The Law of Moses summarised all the Law as two commandments of human love. We are to first love God with every part of our being, and then we are to love our neighbour in the same way we love ourselves. What is new is that Jesus commands His disciples to love not just as they love themselves, they are now to love as Christ loves them. In other words, He is commanding them to love with divine love. That is what is new.

And what is divine love? The Cross of Jesus Christ is the revelation of divine love. If you want to know what the New Commandment is about you must meditate on the Cross of Jesus Christ. Tomorrow’s Good Friday liturgy is the best time to do that.

Our Lord also interprets the meaning of the Cross by His washing of the disciples’ feet. In His time feet would get very dirty on the road. So hospitality would demand the washing of feet when guests arrived and this would be done by the lowest members of the household, usually slaves. Jesus is saying in this gesture of washing that the master must do the degrading work of the slave. On the Cross, Jesus, the divine Word, must descend to the most miserable depths of human existence. It enacts what St Paul speaks of in Philippians 2: “Though He was in the form of God… taking the form of a slave… he humbled Himself, becoming obedient to death… Because of this God greatly exalted Him…” (Phil 2:6-9)

St Peter came to realise that He must yield to Jesus’s action to wash his feet which displays Christ’s saving work on the Cross. We too must yield to Christ’s action in our lives. Some people resist Christ because they do not consider themselves sinful enough to require Him to wash them (in baptism or sacrament of penance). Others have the opposite problem, they stay away because they are ashamed of their lives or secret sins. To both, Jesus speaks gently but firmly, as He did to Peter, “Come, for unless I wash you, you cannot share in my inheritance.”

Psalm 22

Deus, Deus meus

MY GOD, my God, look upon me; why hast thou forsaken me : and art so far from my health, and from the words of my complaint?

2. O my God, I cry in the day-time, but thou hearest not : and in the night-season also I take no rest.

3. And thou continuest holy : O thou worship of Israel.

4. Our fathers hoped in thee : they trusted in thee, and thou didst deliver them.

5. They called upon thee, and were holpen : they put their trust in thee, and were not confounded.

6. But as for me, I am a worm, and no man : a very scorn of men, and the outcast of the people.

7. All they that see me laugh me to scorn : they shoot our their lips, and shake their heads, saying,

8. He trusted in God, that he would deliver him : let him deliver him, if he will have him.

9. But thou art he that took me out of my mother's womb : thou wast my hope, when I hanged yet upon my mother's breasts.

10. I have been left unto thee ever since I was born : thou art my God, even from my mother's womb.

11. O go not from me, for trouble is hard at hand : and there is none to help me.

12. Many oxen are come about me : fat bulls of Basan close me in on every side.

13. They gape upon me with their mouths : as it were a ramping and a roaring lion.

14. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint : my heart also in the midst of my body is even like melting wax.

15. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaveth to my gums : and thou shalt bring me into the dust of death.

16. For many dogs are come about me : and the council of the wicked layeth siege against me.

17. They pierced my hands and my feet; I may tell all my bones : they stand staring and looking upon me.

18. They part my garments among them : and casts lots upon my vesture.

19. But be not thou far from me, O Lord : thou art my succour, haste thee to help me.

20. Deliver my soul from the sword : my darling from the power of the dog.

21. Save me from the lion's mouth : thou hast heard me also from among the horns of the unicorns.

22. I will declare thy Name unto my brethren : in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee.

23. O praise the Lord, ye that fear him : magnify him, all ye of the seed of Jacob, and fear him, all ye seed of Israel.

24. For he hath not despised, nor abhorred, the low estate of the poor : he hath not hid his face from him, but when he called unto him he heard him.

25. My praise is of thee in the great congregation : my vows will I perform in the sight of them that fear him.

26. The poor shall eat and be satisfied : they that seek after the Lord shall praise him; your heart shall live for ever.

27. All the ends of the world shall remember themselves, and be turned unto the Lord : and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before him.

28. For the kingdom is the Lord's : and he is the Governor among the people.

29. All such as be fat upon earth : have eaten and worshipped.

30. All they that go down into the dust shall kneel before him : and no man hath quickened his own soul.

31. My seed shall serve him : they shall be counted unto the Lord for a generation.

32. They shall come, and the heavens shall declare his righteousness : unto a people that shall be born, whom the Lord hath made.