Liturgical Colour : White
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this evening we are all celebrating the beginning of the important events of the Paschal or Easter Triduum in which we immerse ourselves into the very moments when the Lord Our God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, had His Last Supper with His disciples the night before He was to suffer and die on the Cross at the pinnacle of His Passion. On this commemoration of the Last Supper, we celebrate the moment when the Lord instituted two important Sacraments of the Church, namely that of the Eucharist as well as the Holy Orders, especially that of the ministerial Priesthood. And at the same time, at that moment the Lord also mandated to His disciples what they all ought to do as His followers, which is why this Thursday is also known as Maundy Thursday, after the ‘Mandatum’ that the Lord gave to His disciples.
On this day, at the moment of the Last Supper, the Lord revealed to His disciples yet again how He would have to suffer grievously for the sake of the world and for all of us mankind, and how He would be betrayed by one of His own, persecuted, tortured and eventually die on the Cross. It was also at that moment, in which the Lord revealed that He would lay down His life, and get His Body broken, and His Blood shed for everyone, and He gave His Most Precious Body and Blood to all through His disciples, as He instituted the Eucharist by the sharing and giving of His Body and Blood when He prayed over the bread and wine that He and His disciples shared and partook in during that Last Supper. The bread and the wine had been transformed into the essence of the Lord’s own Most Precious Body and Blood, at the very first Mass.
That Last Supper itself was in fact part of the celebration of the Jewish Passover as how it was celebration two millennia ago, which in itself was based on the original first Passover that happened in the land of Egypt at the moment when the Lord brought out all the people of Israel out of the land of their slavery. That is what we heard from our first reading today, from the Book of Exodus in which the Lord told Moses and Aaron how they should be marking and celebrating the Passover, with the proper preparations before the event, and most importantly the provision of an unblemished lamb which had to be set aside and prepared, and then slaughtered, so that the blood of that Passover lamb can be used to mark the houses of the Israelites, and so that the lamb itself could be shared during the Passover meal.
In the Last Supper, what is obviously missing is the Passover lamb, which was not mentioned anywhere in the accounts of the Supper. From the earlier accounts of the preparation of this Supper, it was clear that this Last Supper was the Passover meal, as the Lord asked His disciples to find a place for them all to have the Passover meal, also known as the ‘Seder’. That particular meal then, was a peculiar one because the Passover lamb, the centrepiece of the whole meal was not mentioned. The truth and reality is that, the Lord Himself was the Passover Lamb, as He was to be the Paschal Lamb of sacrifice, the One Who would offer Himself as the worthy offering and sacrifice, for the atonement of all of our sins. Through His willing offering of His own Most Precious Body and Blood, slain for us, broken up for us, and His Blood outpoured upon us, He has marked us all for salvation, just as how the blood of the Passover lamb marked the houses of the Israelites that Death might pass them all by.
Therefore the Last Supper marked for us the beginning of the new Christian Passover, the one true and eternal Passover, the heavenly banquet which the Lord has prepared for each and every one of us. In that Passover, Christ Our Lord Himself is the Passover Lamb, Who offered Himself as the Sacrificial Victim, as the One Who willingly gave Himself so that through His suffering and death, He could lead us all into a new and everlasting life, a new existence filled with God’s love and grace. All of us who have share in His Body and Blood, given to us through the Eucharist, all have received the Bread of Life Himself, and as He Himself had said, that we who have eaten and shared of this Bread of Life will never perish but have eternal life. He did all these as He went through His Passion or suffering, all the things which He had done for us, out of His ever generous and ever present love.
The bread used in the Passover meal is known as the matzo, a type of unleavened bread used because the Israelites ate in haste when they were on their way out of the land of Egypt. The unleavened bread are wrapped in layers of cloth, which came with it deep symbolism to the Lord’s Passion, suffering and death, because this bread which the Lord took, blessed and then gave to His disciples is His own Most Precious Body, free from all blemish and corruption of sin, represented by the unleavened bread, which would soon be broken and slain on the Altar of the Cross, and those who are familiar with the detail of the Seder or Passover meal will know how the three matzo bread represent God’s work of salvation made through His Son, Our Lord and Saviour Himself.
The first bread which remained hidden in the layers of cloth throughout the meal represents God the Father Whose works were shown to us through Christ, Who manifested His love and compassion to us, and while the Father is not visible to us, it is the Son Who has revealed Him to us. The third bread is the representation of the Holy Spirit, through Whom God made His work tangible to us, through the Incarnation of His Son, and through all the works that the Holy Spirit had done in our midst, assisting the Father and the Son in the work of salvation. Lastly, the second bread which is broken, is the very representation of Jesus Christ Himself, the Son of God, Who would be slain, broken and put to death for our sake, and this broken bread represent His death, which also represents His burial, when half of that second bread is put and wrapped back with the cloth.
It was indeed truly wonderful how the Lord’s instructions and rules regarding the Passover so many centuries before the time of Christ has already prefigured and prepared everyone for His coming and for all that He would do for the salvation of the whole world. Certainly no one could have foreseen or knew about it back then, and only after everything had happened, then those who have been blessed with hindsight and knowledge of the matter realised that God had been in the working all along, and the New Passover which Christ has brought unto us, which began at the Last Supper and culminated on His Crucifixion and death, all are in tandem and parallel with the original Passover, that while the original Passover marked the liberation of the Israelites from their slavery in Egypt, the New Passover marks our liberation from sin and death.
And if we pay attention more carefully to the details of what happened, the Last Supper was not properly concluded as per the Jewish Passover, as there were four cups of wine to be drunk during the occasion of the Passover meal, namely the Cup of Sanctification, the Cup of Deliverance, the Cup of Redemption and the Cup of Praise, in which the promises of God’s salvation and the memory of how God had saved His people out of their slavery by the Egyptians were remembered. When the Lord shared and drank from the cup of wine in the Last Supper, He also told them that the next time He would drink the fruit of the vine would be in the Kingdom of God, representing the moment when He would accomplish everything that He had come to do in this world, with His Passion and death.
The Passover as mentioned, culminated on the Cross, when the Lord mentioned that He was thirsty. Many of us may be puzzled of the significance of these phrase that the Lord mentioned at the time. But when the Lord had drunk of the sour wine or vinegar as mentioned in the Gospel, He then mentioned, ‘It is accomplished.’ This signified the moment when the Passover of the New Covenant that the Lord had established, was indeed accomplished perfectly and completely, as the Lord drank the Cup of Redemption, the fulfilment of the New Covenant made between God and mankind, sealed through none other than His own Most Precious Blood. It is through the Lord, Our Paschal Lamb and Our Eternal High Priest, Who had offered on our behalf such a great and worthy offering and sacrifice, that we have been redeemed.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, therefore, as we continue to journey through these important moments of the Easter Triduum, and as we traditionally keep vigil with the Lord after the Mass this evening, let us all therefore reflect upon our own lives and our disposition in faith. Let us all remember the great love which God has shown us through His Son, Who has given us all His own Most Precious Body and Blood, through which He instituted the Most Holy Eucharist, so that we can partake in Him and therefore gain admittance into the promise and assurance of eternal life, grace and true joy with Him. At the same time, we have also been reminded of the Mandatum or the commission which He has entrusted to us, to do as He had done, in serving and loving one another. In that, He has also instituted the Priesthood, for those whom He has called and chosen to be His servants and ministers to His people, to all of us.
However, this does not mean that for the rest of us we do not have things for us to do. As Christians, each and every one of us are expected to do our part and live our lives most worthily, in doing what we can so that more and more people may come to know the Lord through us, and be inspired by our own faith and commitment to God. All of us should continue to do our part so that in everything that we say and do, we will always continue to be good examples for others, and that we will continue to show God’s love in all things, in caring for the needy and for the marginalised, and in inspiring others who are downtrodden and troubled. Let our lives be the beacons of God’s light and truth, and be the bearers of hope for all those who are in darkness and sin.
May the Lord continue to bless us and guide us in our journey of faith so that especially throughout our Paschal Triduum observance, and all that we are commemorating in the coming few days, we will grow ever stronger in our faith, commitment and love for God. May the Lord bless us in our every good efforts and endeavours, now and always. Amen.
petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang 