Daily Reflection: Holy Thursday

Posted by Karin on March 20th, 2008 filed in Lent

The reflections for the next few days are probably going to be longer than usual because I don’t want to leave out very many of the readings. They are just too important.

There are two masses on Holy Thursday - Chrism Mass (blessing of the oils) in the morning and Mass of the Lord’s Supper in the evening, although Chrism Mass (which is usually concelebrated by the Bishop of the Diocese and the other priests of the diocese) can be held on another day. I have been to one Chrism Mass (the year I was confirmed into the Catholic church) and it is actually a pretty cool mass. I was also honored to bring one of the oils to the altar the night of Holy Thursday that year. Of course, I remember being terrified I was going to trip and fall, but I made it up there without incident.

The readings for the Chrism Mass are focused on the Holy Spirit and oil and anointing and they are some beautiful ones. The first reading is Isaiah 61:1-3, 6, 8-9:

The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,
because the LORD has anointed me;
He has sent me to bring glad tidings to the lowly,
to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives
and release to the prisoners,
To announce a year of favor from the LORD
and a day of vindication by our God,
to comfort all who mourn;
To place on those who mourn in Zion
a diadem instead of ashes,
To give them oil of gladness in place of mourning,
a glorious mantle instead of a listless spirit.

You yourselves shall be named priests of the LORD,
ministers of our God shall you be called.

I will give them their recompense faithfully,
a lasting covenant I will make with them.
Their descendants shall be renowned among the nations,
and their offspring among the peoples;
All who see them shall acknowledge them
as a race the LORD has blessed.

This scripture is the basis for one of my favorite songs - “He Has Anointed Me” - and the whole first section is beautiful, but I think the most important line in the reading is: You yourselves shall be named priests of the LORD, ministers of our God shall you be called. We are all priests. We are all ministers. Just by the sake of calling ourselves Christians, we are priests and ministers of God by the way we live our lives. Scary and awesome at the same time.

The response is another of my favorite songs (Psalm 89:21-22, 25, 27)

For ever I will sing the goodness of the Lord.
“I have found David, my servant;
with my holy oil I have anointed him.
That my hand may always be with him;
and that my arm may make him strong.”
For ever I will sing the goodness of the Lord.
“My faithfulness and my mercy shall be with him;
and through my name shall his horn be exalted.
He shall say of me, ‘You are my father,
my God, the Rock, my savior!’“
For ever I will sing the goodness of the Lord.

Forever will I sing the goodness of the Lord. Beautiful, beautiful words.

The second reading is Revelations 1:5-8:

[Grace to you and peace] from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness,
the firstborn of the dead and ruler of the kings of the earth.
To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his Blood,
who has made us into a Kingdom, priests for his God and Father,
to him be glory and power forever and ever. Amen.

Behold, he is coming amid the clouds,
and every eye will see him,
even those who pierced him.
All the peoples of the earth will lament him.
Yes. Amen.

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God,
“the one who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

I am the Alpha and the Omega, (the Beginning and End) the one who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.

I don’t know about you, but the concept of God always being there - having no beginning and no ending - has always boggled my mind, especially when I was a child. I think we as humans like to think that things are black and white and concrete. And the concept of God being infinite is very abstract. It’s still hard for me to fathom, even as an adult. I just have to go on faith.

The Gospel is Luke 4:16-21:

Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had grown up,
and went according to his custom
into the synagogue on the sabbath day.
He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah.
He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring glad tidings to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.

Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down,
and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him.
He said to them,
“Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”

Jesus himself quotes scripture from today’s first reading. And then he said “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” I don’t know about you, but I think if I had been there, I’d have had goosebumps.

Now for the readings from the Mass of the Lord’s Supper. This mass, next to the Easter Vigil, is actually the second most important mass of the church year because this Mass celebrates the institution of the Holy Eucharist, which to a Christian, is the most important part of our faith (along with baptism - but Eucharist is the thing we do every time we go to Mass to commemorate Jesus’s sacrifice).

The first reading is Exodus 12:1-8, 11-14:

The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt,
“This month shall stand at the head of your calendar;
you shall reckon it the first month of the year.
Tell the whole community of Israel:
On the tenth of this month every one of your families
must procure for itself a lamb, one apiece for each household.
If a family is too small for a whole lamb,
it shall join the nearest household in procuring one
and shall share in the lamb
in proportion to the number of persons who partake of it.
The lamb must be a year-old male and without blemish.
You may take it from either the sheep or the goats.
You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month,
and then, with the whole assembly of Israel present,
it shall be slaughtered during the evening twilight.
They shall take some of its blood
and apply it to the two doorposts and the lintel
of every house in which they partake of the lamb.
That same night they shall eat its roasted flesh
with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.

“This is how you are to eat it:
with your loins girt, sandals on your feet and your staff in hand,
you shall eat like those who are in flight.
It is the Passover of the LORD.
For on this same night I will go through Egypt,
striking down every firstborn of the land, both man and beast,
and executing judgment on all the gods of Egypt—I, the LORD!
But the blood will mark the houses where you are.
Seeing the blood, I will pass over you;
thus, when I strike the land of Egypt,
no destructive blow will come upon you.

“This day shall be a memorial feast for you,
which all your generations shall celebrate
with pilgrimage to the LORD, as a perpetual institution.”

This first reading commemorates the Passover, which is still an important holiday in the Jewish faith.

The Psalm (116:12-13, 15-16, 17-18) is:

Our blessing-cup is a communion with the Blood of Christ.
How shall I make a return to the LORD
for all the good he has done for me?
The cup of salvation I will take up,
and I will call upon the name of the LORD.
Our blessing-cup is a communion with the Blood of Christ.
Precious in the eyes of the LORD
is the death of his faithful ones.
I am your servant, the son of your handmaid;
you have loosed my bonds.
Our blessing-cup is a communion with the Blood of Christ.
To you will I offer sacrifice of thanksgiving,
and I will call upon the name of the LORD.
My vows to the LORD I will pay
in the presence of all his people.
Our blessing-cup is a communion with the Blood of Christ.

The scripture asks “How shall I make a return to the Lord for all the good He has done for me?” And then it answers by saying that we should take up the cup of Salvation and call on the name of the Lord.

The second reading is 1 Corinthians 11:23-26:

Brothers and sisters:
I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you,
that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over,
took bread, and, after he had given thanks,
broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you.
Do this in remembrance of me.”
In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying,
“This cup is the new covenant in my blood.
Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup,
you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.

Jesus took the bread, gave thanks, broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” Then he took the wine in the same way saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.

That’s pretty powerful and pretty clear.

And finally, the Gospel (John 13:1-15) is about Jesus’s washing of the disciples feet:

Before the feast of Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father.
He loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end.
The devil had already induced Judas, son of Simon the Iscariot, to hand him over.
So, during supper, fully aware that the Father had put everything into his power
and that he had come from God and was returning to God,
he rose from supper and took off his outer garments.
He took a towel and tied it around his waist.
Then he poured water into a basin
and began to wash the disciples’ feet
and dry them with the towel around his waist.
He came to Simon Peter, who said to him,
“Master, are you going to wash my feet?”
Jesus answered and said to him,
“What I am doing, you do not understand now,
but you will understand later.”
Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.”
Jesus answered him,
“Unless I wash you, you will have no inheritance with me.”
Simon Peter said to him,
“Master, then not only my feet, but my hands and head as well.”
Jesus said to him,
“Whoever has bathed has no need except to have his feet washed,
for he is clean all over;
so you are clean, but not all.”
For he knew who would betray him;
for this reason, he said, “Not all of you are clean.”

So when he had washed their feet
and put his garments back on and reclined at table again,
he said to them, “Do you realize what I have done for you?
You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘master,’ and rightly so, for indeed I am.
If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet.
I have given you a model to follow,
so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”

Jesus washed the feet of all his disciples - even Judas Iscariot, whom he knew had betrayed him. But what he says at the end of the scripture is the most important part:

“Do you realize what I have done for you? You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘master,’ and rightly so, for indeed I am. If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”

Jesus gave us all a model to follow, and while we do not have to literally wash one another’s feet, we do need to do so figuratively by being humble and dying to ourselves by putting others first. Not always an easy thing to do, but if we want to be like Jesus, then we must. That, I think, is the most important lesson of the Lenten season.

Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank you for your son, who was the ultimate example of dying to self and putting others first. We are asked to follow his example, not by literally dying on a cross, by figuratively dying to ourselves. I think it is the least we can do in gratitude for what Jesus has done for us. Help us to have the strength and courage to do what Jesus asked us to do.
In the name of Jesus the Christ,
Amen