Thursday, 9 April 2020

Maundy Thursday 2020

Today is a sort of feast day for Leonardo da Vinci’s famous depiction of the Last Supper. The context for this masterpiece is hinged on the mandate that Christ gave His apostles as they celebrated the ancient Jewish feast of the Passover.
 
During the Passover, a sacrificial lamb is offered and when Israel was to be delivered from the bondage in Egypt, the people were told to smear the blood of the sacrificed lamb on the lintel and doorposts. That way, the scourge of the angel of death will pass over them. Tonight, the blood of Jesus will replace the blood of the sacrificial lamb—His blood is poured out not just for a few but for the many. Jesus is the new Moses. Instead of sending manna from heaven, Jesus is the true Manna—He is the bread that will satisfy our deepest hunger.

The 5th Luminous Mystery reminds us that Maundy Thursday is dedicated to the Institution of the Eucharist. Interestingly, whilst the Gospel chosen this evening is set within the Last Supper, we hear nothing of the Institution Narrative. In its place, Jesus washes the feet of His disciples and He gives them the commandment to love as He has loved them.

One of the points of convergence between the Passover and the Last Supper is the cloak of darkness. Both the house of the Jewish people on the night of the Passover and the Cenacle during the Last Supper provided shelter—albeit temporary shelters. They were not meant to remain there. The Jews escaped from Egypt whereas right after the Supper, Jesus left the security of the Cenacle and ventured into the darkness of the night. There He faced the forces of evil. This darkness is instructive for us today. Jesus was surely conscious of the betrayal that was set in place by Judas and yet He was not daunted. In the Garden and in the face of His destruction, Jesus was armed with no weapon except love. The love for His Father and the love for His disciples.

This love put on the apron, stooped low and washed the feet of every one of His disciples, including Judas. Since there is no Institution Narrative in the Gospel today, this is the Eucharist at work. The same love of Jesus that washes the disciples’ feet then goes out to enlighten the darkness.

Where there is darkness, light is all the more needed. I am reminded of the type of fire that gives light and heat. One is the candle. It burns and it gives out light, but it is vulnerable to the winds. A candle’s flame needs to be shielded from the buffeting wind. The other is the charcoal. We need an external fire to light a charcoal but once it is lit, the wind does not put it out. In fact, it glows when the wind blows. Love can be like the flame of a candle; it wavers and is easily put off. Or, love can be the flame glowing from within the charcoal. The stronger the resistance, the redder it glows.

The fiery charcoal is a reminder of what Holy Thursday is about. Christ gave us a mandate through the Eucharist. We love and our love is made stronger when we are fed with His Body. This love is so strong that it must go out from the Church into the darkness of the world to shed the Light of Christ. It is meant to meet with resistance for with trials and tribulations, it grows even hotter. Sadly, many of us flicker like the flame of a candle.

Today is also called the birthday of the Priesthood. The is no Eucharist without the Priesthood and there is no Priesthood without the Eucharist. Yet, this relationship between the Eucharist and the Priesthood must be set within the context of the love and the light that is shed by Christ. We are reminded often that there is a sickness in the Church. It is called clericalism. It is often associated with a particular bent of some priests, meaning that it is linked to those who like bells and whistles. Those who wear the cassock or clerical garb. Those who are liturgically correct and those who are conscious that they are hierarchy etc.

Well, the emptiness of the Church just proved one thing about the priesthood. It is useless when it does not serve. These days of the pandemic, this fact is definitely staring so many priests in the face. We can play pretend with livestream Masses but still what is a priest if he is only celebrating Mass for himself and one helper?

The Eucharist makes the Church means that the Priesthood confects the Eucharist for the Church, that is, for the people—for the many. The Body of Christ which the Holy Eucharist is, is needed as strength for the Body of Christ, which is the Church. Service is the raison d’être of the Priesthood. It is essential that there be priests, but this requirement is in view of Christ’s service of His Body. Thus, it only makes sense for the priest to put on the apron, bend low and to wash the feet of those whom he has been tasked to serve. Without the people, the Priesthood is purely clericalism with or without bells and whistles, clerical cassock or garb etc. Focussing on the anything other than service is to miss the point of what the Priesthood is about.

Tonight, as we enter into the Holy Triduum, perhaps, it is an invitation for priests to truly embrace more fully and humbly the meaning of service. If the analogy of candle and the charcoal have more to teach us, apart from light and glowing fire, it is this: both candle and charcoal are useless unless they are burnt. It is only by burning away that one is useful. Thus, service is the only reason for a priest’s ordination. No greater love a man has than to lay down his life for his friends. Here, it is to lay down one’s life, à la Christ, for the Church.

The word “unprecedented” has been bandied around a lot these days in relation to the pandemic afflicting us. A little contextualisation might be useful here as it reveals how trivialising the word “unprecedented” can be. Covid-19 is contagious and can be deadly. But it is not Ebola. It is not the plague. It is not polio. It is not the Spanish flu. Let me state categorically that this is not a suicidal wish that it should be like the mentioned pandemics. But, in the context of the mandate that we have received from Christ on Holy Thursday, we must reflect on the current situation which the Church finds herself in.

In her history, the Church has experienced many a tyrannical government’s attempt to deny her mission in the work of Christ’s salvation. Perhaps what is “unprecedented” is the Church almost everywhere caving in to civil authority’s diktat that the churches be closed and as a corollary, the sacraments be denied. Instead of fulfilling her mandate from God Himself, the Church now defers to an authority which should itself also be subjected to God but is often not. What makes our decision so much more meaningless is that the MCO in place does not make proper sense. The precautions taken by so many of the essential service are a mockery to what it means to be “contactless”. Our collusion appears to send the message that the Church is incapable of taking precautions whereas some “essential services” are allowed to pay lip service to precautions. You will not get Covid-19 from the supermarkets or banks or post offices but definitely when you enter a church.[1]

Covid-19 has uncovered our priority. Physical well-being has become the only essential measure for life. Whereas the empty churches are testimonies of the uselessness of the priesthood because its objective rests on a service while essential to spiritual health is deemed superfluous to physical health. While it is true that the birthday of the Priesthood is the birthday of the Church, it is also true that the Church exists only because she is the instrument of God’s salvation. Without the Church, how can Christ save the world? If there is anything to learn on Maundy Thursday it is the necessity of the Priesthood and the Eucharist for the salvation of the world. The emptiness of the churches is for us to reflect what the Church is for. For now, the Church is useless and so is God.

Sounds depressing, I know but let me quote extensively from an unexpected source. Hulk Hogan who tweeted recently, ‘In three short months, just like He did with the plagues of Egypt, God has taken away everything we worship. God said, “You want to worship athletes, I will shut down the stadia. You want to worship musicians, I will shut down civic centres. You want to worship actors, I will shut down theatres. You want to worship money, I will shut down the economy and collapse the stock market. You do not want to go to church and worship Me, I will make it where you cannot go to church. If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land”. Maybe we do not need a vaccine. Maybe we need to take this time of isolation from the distractions of the world and have a personal revival where we focus on the ONLY thing in the world that really matters: Jesus’.

As empty and depressing as the Triduum can be, we can enter into it with a spirit of penitence. We acknowledge that the Priesthood is useless without God’s people to serve. Our sin is great but greater is God’s love. We ask Him to take our sins away and to deliver us from the wrath of judgement so that we may be restored to His grace and mercy. We beg Him to heal us that we may once again partake of the Eucharist in a church full of His people.






[1] The missionary gathering of another religion could have taken the necessary precautionary measures to mitigate contagion. But they did not. The point here is, if supermarkets et al, which is deemed an essential service could take precautionary measures, so too can the Church or any other religious bodies.