Holy Week Reflections - Thursday

Today, we witness three manifestations of God’s sovereign glory: Divine Intervention, Divine Protection, and Divine Initiation.

In the first reading from the Book of Exodus, God intervenes in the history of Israel to enable his people to escape from their bondage in the land of Egypt and to pass over to the new life he has designated for them. In Psalm 116, God reveals himself as gracious, righteous, and merciful, as a protector of “the simple” who desire to return to him and to be delivered from death. In First Corinthians, Paul cites as the fruit of his being protected by God his having received a revelation of the Eucharist as a permanent thanksgiving feast celebrated in remembrance of the Lord and proclaiming his death until he comes again. Then, in the Gospel of John, Jesus, the Word made flesh, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, who died on the cross, rose on the third day, ascended to heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father, took off his outer robe, tied a towel around himself, poured water in a basin, and initiated the previously unheard act of washing, wiping, and drying his apostles’ feet.

All three of these manifestations of the Most High concern what the people of God must do to be saved. Their cooperation with grace is essential for God’s plan to be fully fulfilled. In the Exodus account, the Lord speaks to Moses and Aaron and instructs them in regard to how to prepare and consume the Passover lamb. He tells them what to do with its blood. They are to mark their doorposts with it as a sign of God’s favor to them. He describes how they are to dress for the journey ahead of them. The Lord does not miss a detail of this divine intervention, nor does he leave to chance any aspect of it.

Psalm 116 expresses gratitude to God for his protection and care. This psalm is part of the Egyptian Hallel, used since ancient times in the celebration of the Passover. It rehearses the longest journey a soul can make—from death to life, from devastation to deliverance. To love the Lord and believe in him as our Divine Protector gives us the courage to endure pain, to survive persecution, and to proclaim with joy the saving power of God. To drink from this “cup of salvation” rescues us from the “snares of death.” We praise God for the fact that affliction has not retarded but advanced our flight to him and has motivated a renewal of our commitment to servanthood. Our life becomes “a thanksgiving sacrifice,” rooted in the vow of obedience.

Citing Psalm 116:15, Saint John of the Cross says, “that the death of the saints is precious in the sight of the Lord…this would not be true if they did not participate in God’s own grandeur, for in the sight of God nothing is precious but what he in  himself is” (The Spiritual Canticle, Stanza 11.10). He adds in The Living Flame of Love (Stanza 1.30), “the death of such persons…is sweeter and more gentle than was their whole spiritual life on earth. For they die with the most sublime impulses and delightful encounters of love…The soul’s riches gather together here, and its rivers of love move on to enter the sea…”

In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul gives an awesome account of the institution of the Lord’s supper, one received by him from the Divine Initiator himself to be passed on to us. This sacrifice of thanksgiving happened on the same eve that Judas betrayed Jesus, but that treachery did not prevent him from initiating a new covenant sealed with the bread of his body and the wine of his blood. Paul also invites us to remember what Christ’s sacrifice means in our personal life as well as in our communion in the Body of Christ. Though we are privileged to receive this sacrament time and again, we must never take it for granted, a truth beautifully articulated by Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. In her poem, Canticle of a Soul, she writes, “From now on, near the Eucharist, I shall be able to sacrifice myself in silence, to wait for Heaven in peace…In this furnace of love, I shall be consumed…” In her Story of a Soul, she also remembers every detail of the day she received her First Holy Communion, for that was when Jesus himself gave her the kiss of love and when she promised to love him forever. Jesus and Thérèse were no longer two but one. It was as if she “had vanished as a drop of water is lost in the immensity of the ocean.”

The celebration of Maundy Thursday, from the Latin mandatum, meaning mandate, records in the Gospel of John the initiation by Jesus of an act so humble, so unexpected, that the apostles can hardly believe what he does. Peter feels so unworthy that he almost pulls his feet out of the basin until Jesus gives him the mandate that unless he accepts this washing he can have no share in his redemptive mission. Jesus then issues a second mandate that they, too, have to “wash one another’s feet.” This act expresses bodily and spiritually the new commandment they will receive that they must love each other as he has loved them.

To wash feet is in a sense to accept the humble, indeed the humiliating truth, that we are nothing and God is all. Saint John of the Cross explains the deepest meaning of this truth in The Ascent of Mount Carmel (2.7.11): “When they are reduced to nothing, the highest degree of humility, the spiritual union between their souls and God will be an accomplished fact. This union is the most noble and sublime attainable in this life. The journey, then, does not consist in consolations, delights, and spiritual feelings, but in the living death of the cross, sensory and spiritual, exterior and interior.”

Such are the sentiments we bring to the Eucharistic table on Holy Thursday: from Exodus to Passover from captivity to sin to the freedom of the children of God; from Psalm 116 to pray our vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people; from First Corinthians to celebrate the Eucharist in remembrance of the Lord; and from the Gospel of John to do unto others what Jesus has done for us.

Questions for Reflection

1.     Have you begun to interpret every obstacle in your life as a formation opportunity?

2.     Can you personally attest to the fact that affliction has advanced your flight to God?

3.     Do you agree with the psalmist and Saint John of the Cross that the death of his faithful ones is precious in the sight of the Lord and why do you believe this is so?