20190418
DO
THIS IN MEMORY OF ME
18 APRIL, 2019,
Maundy Thursday
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First reading
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Exodus 12:1-8,11-14 ©
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The Passover is a day of festival for
all generations, for ever
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The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the
land of Egypt:
‘This month is to be the first
of all the others for you, the first month of your year. Speak to the whole
community of Israel and say, “On the tenth day of this month each man must take
an animal from the flock, one for each family: one animal for each household.
If the household is too small to eat the animal, a man must join with his
neighbour, the nearest to his house, as the number of persons requires. You
must take into account what each can eat in deciding the number for the animal.
It must be an animal without blemish, a male one year old; you may take it from
either sheep or goats. You must keep it till the fourteenth day of the month
when the whole assembly of the community of Israel shall slaughter it between
the two evenings. Some of the blood must then be taken and put on the two
doorposts and the lintel of the houses where it is eaten. That night, the flesh
is to be eaten, roasted over the fire; it must be eaten with unleavened bread
and bitter herbs. You shall eat it like this: with a girdle round your waist,
sandals on your feet, a staff in your hand. You shall eat it hastily: it is a
passover in honour of the Lord. That night, I will go through the land of Egypt
and strike down all the first-born in the land of Egypt, man and beast alike, and
I shall deal out punishment to all the gods of Egypt, I am the Lord! The blood
shall serve to mark the houses that you live in. When I see the blood I will
pass over you and you shall escape the destroying plague when I strike the land
of Egypt. This day is to be a day of remembrance for you, and you must
celebrate it as a feast in the Lord’s honour. For all generations you are to
declare it a day of festival, for ever.”’
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Responsorial Psalm
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Psalm
115(116):12-13,15-18 ©
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The blessing-cup that we
bless is a communion with the blood of Christ.
How can I repay the Lord
for his goodness to me?
The cup of salvation I will raise;
I will call on the Lord’s
name.
The blessing-cup that we
bless is a communion with the blood of Christ.
O precious in the eyes of the Lord
is the death of his faithful.
Your servant, Lord, your servant am I;
you have loosened my bonds.
The blessing-cup that we
bless is a communion with the blood of Christ.
A thanksgiving sacrifice I make;
I will call on the Lord’s
name.
My vows to the Lord I will fulfil
before all his people.
The blessing-cup that we
bless is a communion with the blood of Christ.
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Second reading
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1 Corinthians 11:23-26 ©
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Every time you eat this bread and drink
this cup, you are proclaiming the death of the Lord
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This is what I received from the Lord, and
in turn passed on to you: that on the same night that he was betrayed, the Lord
Jesus took some bread, and thanked God for it and broke it, and he said, ‘This
is my body, which is for you; do this as a memorial of me.’ In the same way he
took the cup after supper, and said, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood.
Whenever you drink it, do this as a memorial of me.’ Until the Lord comes,
therefore, every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you are proclaiming
his death.
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Gospel Acclamation
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Jn13:34
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Praise and honour to you, Lord Jesus!
I give you a new commandment:
love one another just as I have loved you,
says the Lord.
Praise and honour to you, Lord Jesus!
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Gospel
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John 13:1-15 ©
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Now he showed how perfect his love was
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It was before the festival of the
Passover, and Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to pass from this world
to the Father. He had always loved those who were his in the world, but now he
showed how perfect his love was.
They
were at supper, and the devil had already put it into the mind of Judas
Iscariot son of Simon, to betray him. Jesus knew that the Father had put
everything into his hands, and that he had come from God and was returning to
God, and he got up from table, removed his outer garment and, taking a towel,
wrapped it round his waist; he then poured water into a basin and began to wash
the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel he was wearing. He came to
Simon Peter, who said to him, ‘Lord, are you going to wash my feet?’ Jesus
answered, ‘At the moment you do not know what I am doing, but later you will
understand.’ ‘Never!’ said Peter ‘You shall never wash my feet.’ Jesus replied,
‘If I do not wash you, you can have nothing in common with me.’ ‘Then, Lord,’
said Simon Peter ‘not only my feet, but my hands and my head as well!’ Jesus
said, ‘No one who has taken a bath needs washing, he is clean all over. You too
are clean, though not all of you are.’ He knew who was going to betray him,
that was why he said, ‘though not all of you are.’
When
he had washed their feet and put on his clothes again he went back to the
table. ‘Do you understand’ he said ‘what I have done to you? You call me Master
and Lord, and rightly; so I am. If I, then, the Lord and Master, have washed
your feet, you should wash each other’s feet. I have given you an example so
that you may copy what I have done to you.’
DO THIS IN
MEMORY OF ME
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [ EX 12: 1-8, 11-14; PS 116:12-13,15-18; 1 COR 11: 23-26; JN 13: 1-15]
This evening we
celebrate the Mass of the Last Supper. We
do this by following the command of the Lord to “Do this in memory of
me.” But many of us do not understand what this command of the
Lord really means. So many of us do it externally by celebrating or
participating in the Eucharistic celebration. A priest can just
merely literally “say the mass” and repeat the Words of the Institution of the
Eucharist perfunctorily. The congregation can just participate in the
celebration as an observer or be active in the prayers and songs and join in
the liturgical actions. But 99% of our Catholics receive Holy Communion
and yet their lives are not changed. It has become a ritual and an
external piety. They do not understand what they are doing.
So, it is important to
understand what Jesus is asking of us when He instructed us to do this in His
memory. The key word is “memorial.” But we must go back to the Hebrew
origin of this word. ‘Memorial’ is not simply a recollection of past
events as we do when we look at our old photos. Indeed, some of you
celebrate a different form of “memorial” at mass, taking photos during the
celebration for memory’s sake. But this is not what it means to
celebrate the memorial of the mass. The word “memorial” in Hebrew
means more than just remembering but making present what we remember and what
we celebrate. It is to relive the events of the past in our lives here
and now.
A good analogy is the
way we remember our hurtful events.
Every time when we think of the painful events of the past, we feel hurt all
over again. In fact, the chronological event itself is less painful than
the psychological event that continues to play on our minds, like a
video-recorder, making us live out that event often in a more embellished and
vindictive manner. We replay the event all over again whenever we think
of it and then we cry and feel hurt. That is why we must make a distinction
between chronological forgetfulness of an event and psychological
forgetfulness. In the same way too, the mass is not just a chronological
memory of a historical event during the time of our Lord, but the real presence
of that event in our lives again, as if we are really in it but in a
non-historical manner. We enter into the psychological meaning of the
event but in this case of the Mass, it is not merely a figment of our
imagination but a reality.
What are we called to
render present in the celebration of the Eucharist? In the Old Testament,
the Israelites were asked to celebrate the Passover. The Lord said, “It is the Passover
Festival to honor me, the Lord. You must celebrate this day
as a religious festival to remind you of what, I, the Lord, have done.
Celebrate it for all time to come.” What did the Lord do for them?
The Lord set them free from the slavery of the Egyptians, worked miracles in
their sight, saved the firstborn of the Israelites whereas the First Born of
the Egyptians died when the Angel of Death passed over the doors of the
houses. Finally, the Lord led the Israelites from Egypt, the land of
slavery, to pass over to the Promised Land, the land of freedom, plenty,
flowing with milk and honey.
So the Israelites celebrated
the Passover since then, to reenact the events of the Exodus so that these
events will always be remembered by them and help them to conform their
lives to the events that they celebrated. Indeed, every time they celebrate the
Passover, they remember the salvific work of God in their history. By
appealing to this great saving event, the Israelites will not live in fear
because as the Lord said, “You have seen what I did to the
Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.
Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my
treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine,
but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.” (Ex 19:4-6) This is the basis for God to
give the great commandment to the people through Moses, “You shall love the
Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your
might.” (Dt 6:5)
The Passover was also
celebrated in thanksgiving for the mighty works the Lord had done for them. The psalmist expressed this
sentiment when he prayed. “How can I repay the Lord for his goodness to
me? The cup of salvation I will raise; I will call on the Lord’s
name. O precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his
faithful. Your servant, Lord, your servant am I; you have loosened my
bonds. A thanksgiving sacrifice I make; I will call on the Lord’s
name. My vows to the Lord I will fulfil before all his people.”
For us, Christians, our
Passover is that of our Lord which we celebrate. What memorial should we
recall and make present? It is within the context of the Israelites’
Passover that Christians celebrate the Passover of our Lord as a memorial of the sacrifice of Christ
who saves us from our sins. Through the celebration of the Eucharist, we
recall and make present the saving events of our Lord in the Paschal Mystery,
His Passion, Death and Resurrection as an act of thanksgiving. By
partaking of the meal that the Lord instituted at the Last Supper, we enter
into communion with Him.
So the Christians’
Passover is first and foremost to commemorate Jesus’ passing over to the Father
at the end of His ministry. At
the outset of the gospel, we read, “It was now the day before the Passover
Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go
to the Father. He had always loved those in the world who were his own, and he
loved them to the very end.” The Passover of our Lord also involved
the sacrifice of blood of a victim. Unlike the Israelites’ Passover, the
victim is no more just the life and blood of the first born of a lamb to save
them from death; it is Christ Himself who is the Lamb of God, also without
defects, because He is without sin, to save us from our sins. It is
through the suffering and death of our Lord on the cross that the world is
saved as we come to recognize the depth of God’s mercy and love for us.
But of course, we know
that the cross is not the end of the story but a prelude to the fullness of
life. By overcoming
death, He destroyed death forever. By conquering the fear of death, the
Lord set us free from all our sins, since it is the sting of death that hinders
us from living fully and loving unconditionally. By His
resurrection, we are all set free from the fear of death. To take part in
the Eucharist is to participate in the New Life given to us at Easter. With
Jesus, we are risen and made participants of His divine life. This is
what we say at the Acclamation, “Dying He destroyed our death, Rising He
restored our life.” It means that we are now called to live the new
life given to us by Christ, for we have been set free from our slavery to sin
and death.
This new life entails
that we do what Jesus has done for us. “You
call me Teacher and Lord, and it is right that you do so, because that is what
I am. I, your Lord and Teacher, have just washed your feet. You, then, should
wash one another’s feet. I have set an example for you, so that you will do
what I have just done for you.” Participation of the Eucharist must
be expressed in Christian love and humble service. To wash each other’s
feet also means that like Christ we are called to forgive one another, even the
Judas in our lives whose feet Jesus also washed. The washing of
feet means both service and forgiveness of our enemies.
This is what St Paul is
asking of us when he said, “This means that every time you eat this bread and
drink from this cup you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” The sacrifice of the Mass which we
celebrate must become our own. We too must follow Jesus in giving up our
body for others and shed our blood for the forgiveness of the sins of our
fellowmen. So we cannot be mere observers of our Lord sacrificing Himself
for us at the Mass; we must also join Him in giving ourselves to our fellowmen
in humble and unselfish service. It is not enough to even participate
actively in the singing and celebration of the Mass. We who enter to
worship must depart to serve.
Otherwise, the same
words of our Lord to Judas will also apply to us. Jesus said, “Anyone who has taken a
bath is completely clean and does not have to wash himself, except for his feet.
All of you are clean – all except one.” (Jesus already knew who was going to
betray him; that is why he said, “All of you, except one, are
clean.”) We can be baptized, that is, taken our bath but we have
dirtied our feet, that is our soul, through sin. We need to come to the
Lord for forgiveness through the sacrament of reconciliation and celebrate His
love and mercy for us at the Eucharist so that in turn, we can become God’s
mercy and instrument of love in the world.
Written
by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All
Rights Reserved
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