The Last Supper is filled with love

Service, Eucharist, priesthood
 
I invite you to spend quiet time with the Lord in prayer and reflection on the Last Supper passages. Choose different passages for different days of Holy Week. I recommend Matthew 26:17-35, Mark 14:12-26, Luke 21:7-38.
 
The Gospel of John is special since it did not repeat what is found in the first three gospels, or in First Corinthians, regarding the Last Supper but has so much additional material that it helps us get a more complete picture of Jesus’ last hours before heading to the Garden of Gethsemane.
 
Please read and reflect on John Ch. 13 through Ch. 17, which includes “The Prayer of Jesus.” Save John Ch. 6 for the Adoration of the Eucharist after the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday! May the Holy Spirit guide you as you prepare for our high holy days of the Paschal Triduum.
 
The Last Supper has many parts within it, but this is not complicated. They are all connected to love!
 
The Lord begins this evening of love with the washing of the feet, a job normally done by the slaves working at the home. The Last Supper message is simple. Jesus is telling us that his disciples will be distinguished by loving service, even as low as slave work, and not being served or being adulated by others.
 
Then, comes the Passover celebration, the Last Supper, our Eucharist. Pope Benedict XVI in his Apostolic Exhortation, “Sacramentum Caritatis,” he ends his first paragraph with these words, “Jesus continues, in the sacrament of the Eucharist, to love us ‘to the end,’ even to offering us his body and his blood. What amazement must the Apostles have felt in witnessing what the Lord did and said during that Supper! What wonder must the Eucharistic mystery also awaken in our own hearts!”
 
In the previously mentioned document, Pope Benedict reminds us of the Last Supper connections between the Eucharist and love at the end of paragraph 8 and the beginning of 9:
 
“In the sacrament of the Eucharist, Jesus shows us, in particular, the truth about the love that is the very essence of God. It is this evangelical truth that challenges each of us and our whole being. For this reason, the Church, which finds in the Eucharist the very center of her life, is constantly concerned to proclaim to all, opportune importune, that God is love. Precisely because Christ has become for us the food of truth, the Church turns to every man and woman, inviting them freely to accept God's gift.”
 
“‘Christ's death on the Cross is the culmination of that turning of God against himself in which he gives himself in order to raise man up and save him. This is love in its most radical form.’ In the Paschal Mystery, our deliverance from evil and death has taken place. In instituting the Eucharist, Jesus had spoken of the ‘new and eternal covenant’ in the shedding of his blood.”
 
Last, but not least, at the Last Supper, Jesus left us the gift of the priesthood, a unique calling, a vocation to service and love. Paragraph 611 of the Catechism reminds us, “The Eucharist that Christ institutes at that moment will be the memorial of his sacrifice. Jesus includes the apostles in his own offering and bids them perpetuate it. By doing so, the Lord institutes his apostles as priests of the New Covenant, ‘For their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.’”
 
The institution and calling to the priesthood cannot be separated from the statement and mandate that Christ shared in John 15, 9, “As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love.” We need to love and pray for all priests.
 
I end this column with a portion from Pope Benedict’s previously mentioned document, paragraph 86, “The more ardent the love for the Eucharist in the hearts of the Christian people, the more clearly will they recognize the goal of all mission: to bring Christ to others. Not just a theory or a way of life inspired by Christ, but the gift of his very person. Anyone who has not shared the truth of love with his brothers and sisters has not yet given enough. The Eucharist, as the sacrament of our salvation, inevitably reminds us of the unicity of Christ and the salvation that he won for us by his blood.” 
 
Visit Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, recognize his real presence and just seven words, “Jesus, thank you. Jesus, I love you.”  We already know he loves us.