+ Before Holy Mass this evening, as the choir was singing
its prelude, I commented to Father Chrismer how that song—“How Beautiful”—is quickly
becoming a favorite at weddings and also how it fits perfectly with the theme of tonight’s Holy Mass. That is,
tonight we see a divine marriage play out. So, let me explain…
The Divine Marriage
In the Sacrament of Holy Marriage, there are certain
readings to which most couples gravitate: St. Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians,
how love is patient, and love is kind. Or the Gospel of St. Matthew where we
hear Our Lord Jesus teaching that, in marriage, the two become one flesh. Some throw
caution to the wind and choose Ephesians, chapter 5, the famous reading about
husbands and wives.
It is in that last reading on Ephesians that we hear these
words:
Christ loved the church and
handed himself over for her to sanctify her,
cleansing her by the bath of
water with the word.
Cleansing her by the bath. This is baptism. But tonight,
I couldn’t help to think of Jesus as He pours the bath of water for the
apostles’ feet. He kneels, “emptying himself, taking the form of a slave” (Phil
2:7) to free, as a New Moses through a New Red Sea, the slaves of Pharoah, that
is, those enslaved to sin. Jesus washes our feet—feet that walked down wandering paths, feet lost
in the muck. He tenderly washes our feet as a husband lovingly cherishing his
bride.
Paul continues,
For no one hates his own flesh but rather nourishes and
cherishes it, even as Christ does the church…
Nourishes and cherishes it. How? With His own
Body and Blood. At that same Last Supper, Jesus took bread and wine and said, “This
is my body… take… eat…” This eating was to undo the sin of Adam and Eve that
was brought about by… eating. And so Jesus, the divine bridegroom, gives His
mystical bride, the Church, His body and blood, so that His body and blood may mingle
with her body and blood—in other words, that the two might become one flesh.
* * *
Union of Sacrament and
Example
This Holy Mass of the Lord’s Last Supper,
tonight, celebrates the divine love of our Savior for us, His bride. Pope
Benedict XVI calls this the “sacramentum et exemplum” of our Savior’s Love. The
Sacrament and the Example. What does this mean?
Typically, we look at the Last Supper as containing
two separate events: 1) The Institution of the Eucharist and then 2) the
Washing of the Feet. And in them, we see one as a Sacrament (the Eucharist) and
the other as a lesson in morality and ministry-- that is, the Example (Washing).
But there is a problem with that, a problem that
plagues modern Catholicism: namely, that modern Catholicism compartmentalizes
the two. What do I mean by that? Well, for many Catholics, their faith consists
solely of “the Sunday thing” (Sacramentum)—but the rest of the week consists of
doing our own thing without any recourse or thought of God (Exemplum). There is
Sacrament, but no Morality or Ministry.
From a more secular perspective, Catholicism appears
simply an ethical system that teaches people how to be good (Exemplum), but
which ultimately has no connection to the superfluous meetings on Sunday (Sacramentum)-- hence the "I'm spiritual, but not religious" movements.
In the Last Supper, however, Jesus unites Sacrament
and Example. The Eucharist and the Washing are both the outpouring of Jesus’
total gift of self. At the Eucharist, Jesus is pouring out His body and blood.
And, just in case we cannot see it or doubt it (because of its hiddenness under
the appearance of bread and wine), Jesus pours out His body and blood as water
over His apostles’ feet.
We see this union of Sacrament and Example among those who receive the Sacrament of Holy Marriage. They receive the Sacrament, but also the Exemplum:
Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the Church.
Both the Eucharist and the Washing are one: they
are both the outpouring of Jesus’ total love for His bride, the Church.
And He wants us to receive that.
* * *
Receiving Love and Giving
Love
This is why Peter’s protest to not have
his feet washed is quickly rebuked:
Unless I wash you, says the Lord to Peter, you will have no inheritance with me.
Peter must receive Jesus’ outpouring of love. If
not, it does not matter what Peter does—he will not have eternal life.
And yet, at the same time, Judas has his feet
washed, but Jesus remarks that
not all of you are clean.
What is going on here? Judas receives, but he
does not give back a return of that love. Indeed, he betrays Jesus. Judas has received, but then does not give that love back through an integral living; his eternal inheritance is also in jeopardy.
In other words, Jesus, who is love, desires that
we both receive His love and give
a return of His love. We must receive the outpouring of God’s love
for us—through the reception both of the Sacraments and the reception of other’s
kindness to us. And as we receive, so we must give: we must give the
outpouring of God’s love in us through liturgical service (that is, worship in
the Sacraments) and through service to others which is charity (Example).
In this way, then, we see that Holy Communion is
the source and the summit of our faith; the font from which we
must receive love; and the summit of outpouring which to which we aspire to imitate.
And, as such, it unites us to God (“the two
become one flesh”) and to others (“we are one body, one body in Christ.”) And
since we are one body in Christ, whatever we do the least among us, we do to
Him. This is why Mother Theresa, a Missionary of Charity, would comment that
serving the poor is not “like” serving Jesus; it IS serving Jesus.
This is love. This is the “very
process of passing over, of transformation, of stepping outside the limitations
of fallen humanity… of one’s closed individuality… breaking through into the
divine.” (Pope Benedict, Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week, pp 54-55). That is to say,
as we love, we are transformed into God who is love.
And yet, because the Eucharist is the God who is
love, the greatest act of service that both God and man can render, one to
another, is the Holy Eucharist.
* * *
A Priest’s Love to The End
Let me make this a little more tangible. You may
have heard the recent story of a Father Tom. Father Tom is a priest in Yemen
and, earlier last week, he had offered Holy Mass for the five Missionaries of
Charity in his care and then continued with his morning. This would be his Last Communion. ISIS arrived
and began to hunt down the Missionaries. Four were martyred. Father Tom was
kidnapped.
But before he was kidnapped, he was faced with a
decision. He could run and try to escape, or he could run and save the
Eucharist. He ran to the church, went to the tabernacle, and consumed as much
of the Eucharist as he could so that the Body and Blood of our Lord would not
be profaned. And, perhaps, too, Father Tom went to the church, not only to save
the Eucharist, but to be united to the One Jesus who is love and whom he
loved.
It is rumored that Father Tom will be crucified
tomorrow.
For myself, as one who is ordained and offered my
life so as to bring the Eucharist, I must admit feeling a union with Father Tom.
I am pained to know my brother is pained. But this pain leads me not simply to
tears or changing my Facebook profile picture to a tri-color flag. Rather, it
leads me here: to the Eucharist, where I offer my prayers in union with Jesus
and the whole Church to the Father.
This is the greatest service I can give to my
brother. And, wonderfully, by giving his life for the Eucharist, Father Tom has
given the greatest service to me. He has shown me how much this Eucharist is
worth, this Eucharist that we are about to receive-- it is worth more than my life; and he has also shown me
the great outpouring of love this Eucharist can bring-- to the outpouring of my life in total love.
In other words, Father Tom has allowed me to
enter into that sacramentum et exemplum of Christ who pours out His life in
Eucharist and in Washing—it is just that, sometimes, the washing is not with
water, but with one’s own blood. But it is here that I understand what the Gospel meant when it says:
He
loved them to the end.
I pray that those words may enter my heart and all of ours,
and that they may become our own. I pray that I may say them to Jesus at the
end of my life here on earth: “Jesus, I loved you to the end”—You who
loved me, loved me to the end!
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