Homily for Holy Thursday 2024 by Fr. Joe Tedesco
As we begin the Triduum, we see clearly there is a wound at the heart of these holy days. A scarlet thread binding both the divine and the human in an experience of deep love and great suffering. These days are the fulfillment of sacrificial love. The climax of the whole story of salvation history in the final chapter – the Incarnation of the beloved Son of God offering himself as a sacrifice for all. Who becomes the very lamb of God, our salvation. The one who redeems us by his sacrificial love. Christ becomes our Passover.
So today we celebrate in a particular way the outflowing love of God present in the Eucharist, in Christ who is broken open and poured out in self-emptying love. This sacrament that was instituted for us and for our salvation. The remembrance of these sacred events that brought us the very salvation, that return of our intimate relationship with God for all eternity. Jesus memorializes his total giving of self for us in the giving of his body and blood during his Passover Meal with the disciples. Take and eat – take and drink.
This sacrifice also overflows into loving care and concern for others, as we encounter Christ’s presence in both the Eucharist and in our brothers and sisters as we are in service to them. We in our service, bring Christ’s presence to the world.
As St. Bernard tells us so powerfully, that the measure of love is to love without measure.
This is for us God’s mercy that we live out in our lives. Mercy is the power of self-giving; it is meant to flow ever onward; the more of it we give the more we receive. Christ wants to pervade our whole person so that we each become his Real presence in the world. He wants to be born into the world – he wants to be handed over by each of us to others, through our deeds of love, until his love becomes the vital law and spontaneous impulse of our being, just like his.
There’s our whole spiritual journey – to become Christ in the world. As monks, our community life is the ground of learning this new way of being for others. Day by day living in sacrificial love. For Christ and so for each of us, it’s following Christ’s loving surrender of himself to each member of humankind, to the glory of God the Father. Christ will be satisfied with nothing less than intimate union with our souls. Remember our Ancient Cistercian prayer where we pray that Christ be the Bridegroom of our souls, for God yearns for the spirit that he has made to dwell in us. For Christ to dwell in us.
Our daily Eucharist, partaking of His body and blood, is the driving force of the whole Christian life, precisely what enables Christians to strive to be the tenderness and mercy of God in the world that we see in Christ. Communion in the body and blood of Christ is a participation in everything that Christ is, both the human and the divine levels. So, we share in his total person as Christ’s self-giving to us, unites us to him.
Now it is the Church – all of humankind – the bride of Christ – that is sanctified by this continuing surrender of Christ to us. The Eucharist is this solemn institution at the very heart of the life of the Church. The very heart of our life as well. Christ is the Father’s gift to us. Let us be gift to one another through our service and love.