Holy Thursday Homily

9 April 2020

by Fr. Stan Gumula at Esmeraldas, Ecuador

The mystery we celebrate in this great banquet is, of course, the mystery of the Cross.  The Eucharist in its being is not a thing, but an action.  The bread is the body broken, the wine is the blood outpoured.  The hymn we have taken as our entry into the mystery of this Semana Santa tells us this so evocatively.  Let us listen:

Esta es la Pascua que libera al hombre,
el éxodo de las tinieblas a la luz.
Esta es la puerta sellada por la sangre,
resplandece el amor entregado a la cruz.
Cruz de luz, Cruz de fe, nube y guía.

In giving us the Eucharist, Jesus has given us his very self in his total surrender to the Father.  The Eucharist glows with the light of the love handed over, entregado a la cruz.  And as we were told on Palm Sunday that we are marked to our core with this Cross of light, today we are sealed with the very blood of Christ, as the doorposts of the Israelites were sealed with the blood of the Paschal Lamb.  The Cross marked in ashes at the beginning of our journey has become the brilliant red of Jesus’ very blood.  We are marked and we are sealed in the Blood of our Paschal Lamb.

Our hymn reiterates we are on a journey, a Passover.  It is a passage from bondage to freedom, from the shackles of sin and weakness and fragility to the freedom and the joy of the children of God.  It is an exodus, a going out from darkness into light, from the blindness which keeps us locked within ourselves into the light that allows us to see the glory shining forth from the face of God in Christ Jesus.

Once again, the Eucharist is not a thing but an action.  We move, we go, we walk by the light shining from the Cross as the Israelites followed the Lord God in the desert by the light of the cloud.  Jesus is our shining cloud, Jesus on the Cross is our sure guide lighting the way to the Father.

Cruz de luz, Cruz de fe, nube y guía.

Like the Israelites, let us eat this manna and quench our thirst from the living Rock and in the strength of this food and drink let us travel with Jesus on the via dolorosa, knowing that sealed with this blood and nourished with the love given over, we cannot fail to reach our heavenly homeland, where we shall live with the Father and the Spirit for ever and ever.