Holy Thursday - April 21, 2011: The Friendship of Christ Revealed

Click Here for the Mass Readings for Holy Thursday: Mass of the Lord's Supper - April 21, 2011:

"He loved His own in the world and He loved them to the end."  (Jn 13:1)

And so the Easter Triduum begins.  The Mass of the Lord's Supper places us in the Upper Room in Jerusalem as Jesus celebrates the Last Supper with His Apostles.  We listen to His words and are invited to ponder and celebrate three wonderful mysteries on this holy evening: the institution of the Eucharist, the institution of the priesthood, and fraternal love.  Each of these mysteries reveals the unfathomable love of Jesus for man, and it's that divine love which unites them and makes them sacred.

Tonight I would like to focus on a particular quality of the divine love we see displayed during the Last Supper.  It's not an ambiguous or intangible kind of "love", but one which is concrete, intimate, and constant: the love of divine friendship.  In fact, the entire paschal mystery, which begins with the Last Supper, offers the ultimate opportunity for Jesus to prove His love to His friends: "no one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends."  (Jn 15:13)

Even as Jesus foretells Judas' betrayal, He dips a morsel of bread into the dish of herbs and passes it to Judas - a sign of close friendship.  Moments later, Jesus will also predict Peter's betrayal.  And yet, it is in the context of the betrayal and abandonment of His most intimate friends that Jesus gives us the gift of the Eucharist and the priesthood.  Instead of abandoning us to loneliness and eternal misery, Jesus gives us the two gifts which will perpetuate His presence among us - so that He may be with us always, even till the end of the world.

May we never despair of God's mercy and friendship, but continually seek to deepen that divine friendship which has the power to recreate, renew, and redeem us.  And may we realize that our friendship and intimacy with Christ becomes real only through fraternal love and concrete acts of charity.  Have a blessed Triduum!

(Photo of the "Betrayed with a Kiss" courtesy of Dcn. Lawrence Lew, O.P.)