A Fool's Feast

Maundy Thursday

I believe that none of you would need to be reminded that yesterday, the 1st of April, was April Fool’s Day. It’s a day when we traditionally pull pranks on each other, not maliciously but in jest. If a day’s pranking was not enough, sometimes it spills over to the remainder of the week. But sometimes pranks can test the limits of friendship. People can be the best of friends before this but after having suffered a prank in bad taste, even the closest of friends can from henceforth become sworn enemies.

How the world judges our actions as foolish is exactly how the world judges Christians from the early centuries of the Church until present day. Our liturgical celebrations, though it may not seem to be so, always had a certain edge to them, like those who engage in extreme sports who court death as they experience a rush of adrenaline. You may find this unbelievable. How could the Mass, which so many find boring, be a dance with death? Perhaps, the only danger we could perceive is to die of boredom.

We often forget the context of today’s celebration. Today we commemorate the Lord’s Last Supper, a Passover Feast and tomorrow, we commemorate His death. They are not two different events but a single one, for what our Lord celebrated today at His Last Supper, He will complete on the cross. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Mass of the ages is a bloodless re-enactment, re-presentation of the gruesome bloody sacrifice of our Lord at Calvary. Risk, death and danger have always been part of the DNA of the Holy Mass from the moment of its institution.

The juxtaposition of celebration and death is a constant reminder that the Church of Christ, our Church, is indeed a Church of Eucharistic fools because Christians were willing to do the craziest things in order to receive the most precious thing that could sustain them, not just in this life but for eternity. For example, there is the amazing story of the courageous martyrs of Abitene (in modern-day Tunisia). In 303, forty-nine Christians suffered torture and martyrdom because they defied the Roman Emperor’s order not to celebrate the Eucharist on Sunday. Despite this cruel law and the real prospect of death, this group of Christians risked everything to gather for Mass. When asked by the magistrate why they had disobeyed the emperor and put themselves at risk, one of them defiantly said, “Sine dominico non possumus” — “Without Sunday, we cannot live.” “Without the Eucharist, we cannot live.”

In fact, for nearly 2,000 years, Christians have risked their lives to participate at Holy Mass. During the Reformation in England, priests were martyred when caught offering Holy Mass clandestinely for English Catholics. Courageous lay people who gave their homes over as places of Catholic worship, and who harboured priests, suffered torture and death. This trend continued over the centuries. In the Twentieth century, Catholics in former Communist countries like the Soviet Union or Vietnam were persecuted for practicing their faith. Today, in places such as Egypt, China, North Korea, Iraq, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and countless other areas, Catholics risk their lives and travel for hours to attend Mass.

We rejoice that, unlike those in poor areas, we do not have to walk for miles, over hills or on dirt roads to attend. The vast majority of us can make a short drive to arrive at our beloved parish. In fact, we are spoilt for choices. But the ease, convenience, and accessibility of the Mass should not cause us to ever lose sight that the Mass is so precious that many of our Catholic brothers and sisters around the world are braving great inconvenience and persecution to receive what we, by God’s love, have available near us.

In his first Holy Thursday letter to priests, Pope Saint John Paul II touchingly recalled situations of the faith triumphing over persecution from his own personal experience of living under religious oppression, at a time when the priests were rounded up and there were none left to celebrate the Eucharist: “Sometimes it happens that [the lay faithful] meet in an abandoned shrine, and place on the altar a stole which they keep, and recite all the prayers of the Eucharistic liturgy: and then, at the moment that corresponds to the transubstantiation a deep silence comes down upon them, a silence sometimes broken by a sob … so ardently do they desire to hear the words that only the lips of a priest can efficaciously utter.”

I would like to close this evening with the words of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, at the 2005 World Youth Day in Cologne Germany:

“The Eucharist must become the centre of our lives. … This is because the Eucharist releases the joy that we need so much, and we must learn to grasp it ever more deeply, we must learn to love it. Let us pledge ourselves to do this – it is worth the effort! Let us discover the intimate riches of the Church’s liturgy and its true greatness: it is not we who are celebrating for ourselves, but it is the living God Himself who is preparing a banquet for us.”

The Towel and the Cross

Maundy Thursday

Some people are so good at talking big but fall short in delivery. When push comes to shove, they will easily bend and break. This is what we witness in the gospel. Our first Pope whom the Lord Himself declares as a rock-hard foundation to His church, changes his position not because of some profound enlightenment but melts under pressure. One can’t help but laugh at the 180 degrees turn of St Peter, from refusing to accept the Lord’s offer to wash his feet, to clamouring for a full-body bath!

First, he starts with this: “You shall never wash my feet.” We may even suspect that his refusal was just fake shocked indignation at best, or false humility at worst. And as for the turnaround, doesn’t it seem to be some form of histrionic over-exaggeration on his part? “Not only my feet, but my hands and my head as well!” In both instances, St Peter had misunderstood our Lord’s intention and the significance of His action. And in both instances, his incomprehension and misstep had given our Lord an opportunity to make a teaching point.

Let us look at the first response given by our Lord to Peter when he refused to allow his feet to be washed: “If I do not wash you, you can have nothing in common with me.” A superficial reading of this statement may lead us to conclude that our Lord was just asking Peter and all of us to imitate His humility in serving others. This may be the message at the end of the passage, where our Lord says: “If I, then, the Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you should wash each other’s feet. I have given you an example so that you may copy what I have done to you.” But the words of our Lord in His response to Peter’s refusal to have his feet washed, goes further than that.

What is this thing which makes us “in common” with our Lord? In other words, what does it mean to have “fellowship” with Him? It is clear that it cannot just mean menial service, but rather the sacrifice of our Lord on the cross. This statement actually highlights the relationship between the foot-washing and the cross. The foot-washing signifies our Lord’s loving action and sacrifice on the cross. If foot-washing merely cleans the feet of the guest who has come in from the dusty streets, our Lord’s sacrifice on the cross will accomplish the cleansing of our sins which we have accumulated from our sojourn in this sin-infested world. Peter must yield to our Lord’s loving action in order to share in His life, which the cross makes possible.

The foot-washing may also be a deliberate echo of the ritual of ablutions, washing of hands and feet, done by the priests of the Old Covenant, before they performed worship and offered sacrifices in the Temple. This may explain Peter’s further request to have both his feet and head washed by the Lord. Without him knowing it, he may have inadvertently referred to his own ordination as a priest of the New Covenant. It is fitting that the washing of feet occurs while the Apostles are entrusted with the Eucharist. No priesthood, no Eucharist - it’s as simple as that.

“No one who has taken a bath needs washing, he is clean all over.” Our Lord was not just making a common-sense statement that those who are clean have no need for further cleansing, but an allusion to the Sacraments which leave an indelible mark on their recipients, two in particular - baptism (confirmation) and Holy Orders. Our Lord’s words resonate with two popular Catholic axioms: “Once a Catholic, always a Catholic” and “once a priest, always a priest.” There is no need for re-baptism or re-ordination even if the person had lapsed. What is needed is confession.

This second set of words also points to the efficacy and sufficiency of what our Lord did on the cross. Christ’s bloody sacrifice on Calvary took place once and for all, and it will never be repeated, it need not be repeated because it cannot be repeated. To repeat His sacrifice would be to imply that the original offering was defective or insufficient, like the animal sacrifices of the Old Testament that could never take away sins. Jesus’ offering was perfect, efficacious, and eternal.

The Holy Mass is a participation in this one perfect offering of Christ on the cross. It is the re-presentation of the sacrifice on the cross; here “re-presentation” does not mean a mere commemoration or a fresh new sacrifice each time the Mass is celebrated, but making “present” the one sacrifice at Calvary. The Risen Christ becomes present on the altar and offers Himself to God as a living sacrifice. Like the Mass, Christ words at the Last Supper are words of sacrifice, “This is my body . . . this is my blood . . . given up for you.” So, the Mass is not repeating the murder of Jesus, but is taking part in what never ends: the offering of Christ to the Father for our sake (Heb 7:25, 9:24). After all, if Calvary didn’t get the job done, then the Mass won’t help. It is precisely because the death of Christ was sufficient that the Mass is celebrated. It does not add to or take away, from the work of Christ—it IS the work of Christ.

When the Lord tells us: “I have given you an example so that you may copy what I have done to you,” it is not just the ritual of foot-washing that He is asking us to imitate. Our Lord is most certainly pointing to His work of salvation on the cross which He offers to us as a gift through the Sacraments. Some people continue to resist Christ because they do not consider themselves sinful enough to require Him to wash them in Baptism or the Sacrament of Penance. Others have the opposite problem: they stay away because they are too ashamed of their lives or secret sins. To both, our Lord and Master gently but firmly speaks these words as He did to Peter: “If I do not wash you, you can have nothing in common with me.”

He Humbled Himself

Maundy Thursday

Footwashing has becoming a fad among Christians and Catholics, especially during retreats and camps where participants are encouraged to wash each other’s feet. It’s a dirty job because our feet are that part of our bodies which are most prone to getting soiled and smelly. But the aversion to this is not just on the part of the doer but also the receiver. Most of us are too embarrassed to expose our dirty smelly feet to others. The messaging of this action, however, is clear. This ritual is meant to express our willingness to emulate the Lord’s humility and heart for service. But I can’t help but think that it has become a tool of virtue signalling, declaring to the world “see how humble I am!”, the exact opposite of what the action is meant to signify.

And most recently, it has also been used as a means of propaganda in promoting a certain ideology - woke ideology, to be precise. In a recent advertisement played to millions of Americans who watched live the National Football League playoffs, it was a means of conveying a vanilla message of non-judgmentalism and universal acceptance of traditionally problematic moral issues under the guise of Jesus “gets us.” In a highly selective montage which included scenes depicting members of the LGBT community and abortion clinics, those who paid for this multi-million dollar advertisement would have wanted to showcase and proclaim the gospel of nice and tolerance while conveniently leaving out the essential call to repentance. The message was not so subtle for us to read between the lines: Jesus “gets us” translates as Jesus accepts us for who we are and despite what we’ve done. In other words, Jesus embraces both the sinner and the sin, and makes no demands of us to repent and change.

The action of our Lord in washing the feet of His disciples certainly demonstrates humble service but it is so much more than that. It points to two significant events of His life which form the basis of His work of salvation - the Incarnation on the one hand; and His passion and death on the other. When our Lord began to lovingly wash the disciples’ feet, His actions symbolised how He became a slave for us with His Incarnation. It also reminds us of the humiliating death He was about to undergo for our redemption. Why would He do this? He did this for our sake and for our salvation - He did this to save us from our sins and not leave us in our depraved condition. For if He had just tolerated our sinfulness, there would be absolutely no reason why the Word would become flesh and for Him to choose to die on the cross. He did it to redeem us from our sins, to liberate us from our sins, to save us from our sins.

Yes, we are to imitate our Lord in living out lives of love, service, forgiveness, and humility, as we reach out to help and sacrifice for one another. But more than that, we are to live with the certain hope that He has washed away our sins with His blood. We can no longer live our old lives trapped and wallowing in the murky muddy waters of sin. He has come to give us new life, to make us a new creation. He did not come just to wash our feet as an example of humble service, and then leave the filth of sin within us untouched. For that would be virtue signalling. No, He came to wash away our sins, to defeat sin not just by pouring clean water over it but by shedding His own blood on the cross.

Our Lord truly “gets us.” He truly understands our condition and our plight. He knows and He understands that left to our own devices, we are lost; left to us wallowing in our sinful lifestyle, we are heading in the direction of our own destruction; that a life without Him means that we are ultimately lost. Our Lord “gets us” by seeking the lost, healing the wounded, pardoning the sinner. If He has done this for us, so must we imitate Him in reaching out to others to offer them the forgiveness and salvation which is our Lord’s greatest gift to us.

Yes, the action of washing feet is indeed a profound expression of humility but in order that it remains a sign of humble service, instead of virtue signalling, we must never forget that this action is tied to both the Incarnation and the Paschal Mystery. This is how Pope Benedict XVI seeks to remind us:

"The greater you are, the more you humble yourself, so you will find favour in the sight of the Lord. For great is the might of the Lord" (3: 18-20) says the passage in Sirach; and in the Gospel, after the Parable of the Wedding Feast, Jesus concludes: "Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted" (Lk 14: 11). Today, this perspective mentioned in the Scriptures appears especially provocative to the culture and sensitivity of contemporary man. The humble person is perceived as someone who gives up, someone defeated, someone who has nothing to say to the world. Instead, this is the principal way, and not only because humility is a great human virtue but because, in the first place, it represents God's own way of acting. It was the way chosen by Christ, the Mediator of the New Covenant, who "being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross" (Phil 2:8).

Here, at this Mass of the Lord’s Supper, where our Lord instituted the Eucharist - the Sacrament of Love - we will witness again what our Lord did two millennia ago. He, who is Lord and Master, King of Kings, took off His Cloak of Royal Splendour and became a Servant. He washed the feet of those whom He had chosen to continue His Redemptive work. He gives Himself to us as food for the journey and went on to die on the cross. He showed us what we were chosen to do. On that night, our Lord enlisted His disciples and tonight, He enlists all of us to live lives of self-emptying Love for the world. To bear the name "Christian" is to walk humbly in this love in the midst of a broken and wounded world that is waiting to be reborn.

The Bloodless and Bloody Sacrifice

Maundy Thursday

The readings provide us with a historical evolution of the Paschal Sacrifice, from the bloody sacrifice of the Lamb at the time of the Exodus, the Passover, to the bloodless sacrifice of the Mass as attested by St Paul in his letter to the Corinthians. The all important and most essential ingredient of the Passover meal, the lamb, seems to be missing from the Christian ritual. But is it? In place of the Lamb, we have Jesus the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Instead of being deficient, the Christian sacrifice of the Mass is wholly sufficient and far superior than the pale shadow of the past.

But the whole point of the lamb to be sacrificed was the shedding of its blood. Blood is valuable not for the pain it caused but for life it gave. In the Old Testament, blood represented life itself, and therefore in ancient Jewish worship, the blood of a sacrificed animal had to be poured as an offering to God, the author of that life, and it was never to be consumed by men. It would be sprinkled on the congregation as how holy water today is sprinkled on us. It was literally a blood bath! According to Leviticus 17:11, there can be no reconciliation without blood. Since blood is a cleansing and enlivening agent, renewing life, it takes away the deadness of sin.

The ceremonial use of blood is also found in the ritual associated with the first Passover. To avert the disaster of the sentence of death which hung over every first born son living in Egypt, the blood of the lamb was shed and then painted across the doors of the Israelites. The lambs served as a substitute for Israel’s first born son, their blood was the price paid so as to spare the blood of these Israelites. This ritual was repeated every year to commemorate this foundational event of the Israelites and during the time of Jesus, the Passover lambs were slaughtered at noon outside the city wall. This foreshadowed the sacrifice of Christ, the “Lamb of God,” who shed His blood and died for us on a Friday afternoon outside the city wall of Jerusalem.

But in a kind of spiritual jiu-jitsu, Christ poured out His own blood, making a perfect offering to God. Then in true generosity, He transformed blood from a thing offered by man to God into something given as a free gift from God to man. Moreover, it was made accessible in a way proper to human beings: sacramentally present in the Eucharist. No longer gruesome or taboo, it became a means of metaphysical cleansing and entry into divine life. Because Christ shed His blood for us, it is no longer necessary for blood to be shed when offering a sacrifice to God. We offer the bloodless sacrifice of bread and wine, because that is how Christ instituted the Eucharist. Today we offer the “sacrifice”, the offering of bread and wine, without shedding blood.

The author of the letter to the Hebrews noted the distinction between the Old and New covenantal sacrifice: “In fact, according to the Law, practically every purification takes place by means of blood; and if there is no shedding of blood, there is no remission. Only the copies of heavenly things are purified in this way; the heavenly things themselves have to be purified by a higher sort of sacrifice than this.” Far from being inferior, the sacrifice of Christ which is perpetuated by the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the sacrifice of a “higher sort.” The Jews shed the blood of lambs which failed to take away their sins despite repeating the ceremony year in year out. But our Lord shed His own blood on the cross, once and for all, rendering the old sacrifice obsolete and inaugurating the supreme sacrifice of the Holy Mass for all times until the end of this age.

The gospel seems to add another odd ritual to the already reworked Passover meal - the washing of feet. At first glance, this second ritual seems disconnected to the first. Though not mentioned in the Synoptic Gospels, foot washing could most likely be presumed before the start of the meal, as in every meal, as the disciples marched in from the dusty streets and would at least offer the courtesy to their colleagues to ensure that their feet were relatively clean (and odourless) when positioned near their neighbour’s face (remember that they would have to be in a reclining position, with bodies and feet close to each other). But what was novel about this action and which draws our attention to this seemingly innocuous ritual is the reversal of roles - instead of the servant washing the feet of the master, it is the master who stoops down to wash the feet of his subordinates.

Our first impression of this reversal would be to conclude that Jesus is indeed extremely humble. But is this the only moral lesson which we can assign to His action? If this is so, was Jesus not guilty of partaking in some performative act of virtue signalling - “look at me and see how humble I am”? Yes, humility is certainly an important theme but actually a sub theme to two others. Our Lord’s act of foot-washing is both a symbol of His humble outpouring of love expressed by His sacrificial death on the cross and an example of how His followers should act: “I have given you an example so that you may copy what I have done to you.”

But there is something more to this action which ties it back to the sign of the blood. The significance of this action can be fully understood in the Book of the Apocalypse 7:14. In response to a question by St John the seer, the elder provides this explanation of the multitude arrayed in white robes, holding palms in their hands and worshipping the Lamb: “These are the people who have been through the great trial; they have washed their robes white again in the blood of the Lamb.” Here lies one of the greatest paradoxical imageries in scripture, the blood of Christ, the slain but now resurrected Lamb of God, cleanses, leaving the saints spotlessly clean, not covered with the blood and gore of their martyrdom. Blood and spotless-ness can both co-exist in the sacraments of redemption, the Sacrament of the Eucharist, the Sacrament of the New Passover and the Sacrament of Penance, confession.

The appointed hour has come. We have escaped the whirlwind of our lives to gather, not in the cenacle but in this Church. We are weary. Lord knows that we are weary. Weary of the discipline of Lent, the tumult of life, the empty promises of love and the sting of betrayal of friends. So many are so weary that they cannot bear to look upon the bruised, scarred and bloodied face of our Lord on the cross. It is just too painful. But if we care to look, our Lord wishes to show us how love looks like. It’s not worn as a badge or as a slogan emblazoned on our t-shirts. It’s not sweet platitudes or found in boxes of chocolates or large bouquets of roses. There is nothing warm or fuzzy, nice or sentimental about it. So, what does love look like? It looks like the cross. It looks bloody and gory but now made spotless in the purity of the Holy Eucharist. To love means to follow Christ, and this is what He did: “And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (Phil. 2:8)

In common with the Lord

Maundy Thursday 2022

One can’t help but laugh at the 180 degrees turn of St Peter, from refusing to accept the Lord’s offer to wash his feet, to clamouring for a full-body bath! First, he starts with this: “You shall never wash my feet.” We may even suspect that his refusal was just fake shocked indignation at best, or false humility at worst. And as for the turnaround, doesn’t it seem to be some form of histrionic over-exaggeration on his part? “Not only my feet, but my hands and my head as well!” In both instances, St Peter had misunderstood our Lord’s intention and the significance of His action. And in both instances, his incomprehension and misstep had given our Lord an opportunity to make a teaching point.

Let us look at the first response given by our Lord to Peter when he refused to allow his feet to be washed: “If I do not wash you, you can have nothing in common with me.” A superficial reading of this statement may lead us to conclude that our Lord was just asking Peter and all of us to imitate His humility in serving others. This may be the message at the end of the passage, where our Lord says: “If I, then, the Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you should wash each other’s feet. I have given you an example so that you may copy what I have done to you.” But the words of our Lord in His response to Peter’s refusal to have his feet washed, goes further than that. This text is more than just a call to emulate our Lord’s example.

What is this thing which makes us “in common” with our Lord? In other words, what does it mean to have “fellowship” with Him? It is clear that it cannot just mean menial service, but rather the sacrifice of our Lord on the cross. This statement actually highlights the relationship between the foot-washing and the cross. The foot-washing signifies our Lord’s loving action and sacrifice on the cross. If foot-washing merely cleans the feet of the guest who has come in from the dusty streets, our Lord’s sacrifice on the cross will accomplish the cleansing of our sins which we have accumulated from our sojourn in this sin-infested world. Peter must yield to our Lord’s loving action in order to share in His life, which the cross makes possible.

The foot-washing may also be a deliberate echo of the ritual of ablutions, washing of hands and feet, done by the priests of the Old Covenant, before they performed worship and offered sacrifices in the Temple. This may explain Peter’s further request to have both his feet and head washed by the Lord. Without him knowing, he may have inadvertently referred to his own ordination as a priest of the New Covenant. It is fitting that the washing of feet occurs while the Apostles are entrusted with the Eucharist.

While Peter finally agrees to let the Lord wash his feet after our Lord had framed His answer in this way, Peter again misunderstands because he thinks that the Lord is talking about the literal washing of different body parts. Again, well-intentioned but not understanding, Peter suggests that the Lord wash more of his body - why stop with his feet when he could also have his hands and head washed too? The naïveté of Peter is amazing. The point is not how much of the body the Lord physically washes, but what the humble gesture of foot-washing signifies: the sacrifice on the cross. Our Lord’s action on the cross suffices to make us “clean all over.”

Viewing this through sacramental lenses, we may then understand the second set of response to Peter’s request to have a full body wash: “No one who has taken a bath needs washing, he is clean all over.” Our Lord was not just making a common-sense statement that those who are clean have no need for further cleansing, but an allusion to the sacraments which leave an indelible mark on their recipients, two in particular - baptism (confirmation) and Holy Orders. Our Lord’s words resonate with two popular Catholic axioms: “Once a Catholic, always a Catholic” and “once a priest, always a priest.” There is no need for re-baptism or re-ordination even if the person had lapsed. What is needed is confession.

This second set of words also points to the efficacy and sufficiency of what our Lord did on the cross. Christ’s bloody sacrifice on Calvary took place once, and it will never be repeated, it need not be repeated because it cannot be repeated. To repeat His sacrifice would be to imply that the original offering was defective or insufficient, like the animal sacrifices of the Old Testament that could never take away sins. Jesus’ offering was perfect, efficacious, and eternal.

But how about the Holy Mass? Isn’t this “repeating” the sacrifice of Christ on the cross? This is what Protestants falsely accuse us Catholics of doing with little understanding of the theology of the Mass. The Holy Mass is a participation in this one perfect offering of Christ on the cross. It is the re-presentation of the sacrifice on the cross; here “re-presentation” does not mean a mere commemoration or a fresh new sacrifice each time the Mass is celebrated, but making “present” the one sacrifice at Calvary. The Risen Christ becomes present on the altar and offers Himself to God as a living sacrifice. Like the Mass, Christ words at the Last Supper are words of sacrifice, “This is my body . . . this is my blood . . . given up for you.” So, the Mass is not repeating the murder of Jesus, but is taking part in what never ends: the offering of Christ to the Father for our sake (Heb 7:25, 9:24). After all, if Calvary didn’t get the job done, then the Mass won’t help. It is precisely because the death of Christ was sufficient that the Mass is celebrated. It does not add to or take away, from the work of Christ—it IS the work of Christ.

Baptism is not just some initiation ritual that has been handed down to us through the centuries and neither is the Eucharist a mere historical event that happened two thousand years ago and is now being memorialised and re-enacted by the community. St Thomas Aquinas teaches: “The sacraments of the Church derive their power specially from Christ’s Passion.” The Risen Jesus acts in the Church’s Sacraments to communicate the saving power of His passion. Peter could not understand all this at the Last Supper and that is why the Lord tells Him: “At the moment you do not know what I am doing, but later you will understand.” He had to wait for the Lord’s resurrection before He came to understand the actions of our Lord and their significance. We are more privileged. We have the witness of the Church who has seen the Risen Lord in the flesh.

When the Lord tells us: “I have given you an example so that you may copy what I have done to you,” it is not just the ritual of foot-washing that He is asking us to emulate. Our Lord is most certainly pointing to His work of salvation on the cross which He offers to us as a gift. The right response we must make is to receive this gift and yield to His actions in our lives, to say ‘yes’ to Him and the transforming power of His graces which is channeled to us through the Sacraments. Some people continue to resist Christ because they do not consider themselves sinful enough to require Him to wash them in Baptism or the Sacrament of Penance. Others have the opposite problem: they stay away because they are too ashamed of their lives or secret sins. To both, our Lord and Master gently but firmly speaks these words as He did to Peter: “If I do not wash you, you can have nothing in common with me.”

The Fools' Feast

 Maundy Thursday

I believe that none of you would need to be reminded that today is the 1st of April, April Fool’s Day. It’s a day when we traditionally pull pranks on each other, not maliciously but in jest. But sometimes pranks can test the limits of friendship. Well, I hope that what I’m going to say next would not be taken as excessive and cause you to walk out. But if you are going to take offence, blame me, don’t blame God or the Church. Okay, here goes nothing. Being in church today, in a closed, confined and congested area flies against all the public safety advisories during a pandemic. Are you crazy?!!! You must be a fool to be here. What more, on the day the Church celebrates the institution of the Holy Mass.

How the world judges our actions as foolish is exactly how the world judges Christians from the early centuries of the Church until present day. Our liturgical celebrations, though it may not seem to be so, always had a certain edge to them, like those who engage in extreme sports who court death as they experience a rush of adrenaline. You may find this unbelievable. How could the Mass, which so many find boring, be a dance with death? Perhaps, the only danger we could perceive is to die of boredom.

We often forget the context of today’s celebration. Today we commemorate the Lord’s Last Supper, a Passover Feast and tomorrow, we commemorate His death. They are not two different events but a single one, for what our Lord celebrated today at His Last Supper, He will complete on the cross. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Mass of the ages is a bloodless re-enactment, re-presentation of the gruesome bloody sacrifice of our Lord at Calvary. Risk, death and danger have always been part of the DNA of the Holy Mass from the moment of its institution.

The juxtaposition of celebration and death is a constant reminder that the Church of Christ, our Church, is indeed a Church of Eucharistic fools because Christians were willing to do the craziest things in order to receive the most precious thing that could sustain them, not just in this life but for eternity. For example, there is the amazing story of the courageous martyrs of Abitene (in modern-day Tunisia).  In 303, forty-nine Christians suffered torture and martyrdom because they defied the Roman Emperor’s order not to celebrate the Eucharist on Sunday. Despite this cruel law and the real prospect of death, this group of Christians risked everything to gather for Mass. When asked by the magistrate why they had disobeyed the emperor and put themselves at risk, one of them defiantly said, “Sine dominico non possumus” — “Without Sunday, we cannot live.” “Without the Eucharist, we cannot live.”

In fact, for nearly 2,000 years, Christians have risked their lives to participate at Holy Mass.  During the Reformation in England, priests were martyred when caught offering Holy Mass clandestinely for English Catholics. Courageous lay people who gave their homes over as places of Catholic worship, and who harboured priests, suffered torture and death. This trend continued over the centuries. In the Twentieth century, Catholics in former Communist countries like the Soviet Union or Vietnam were persecuted for practicing their faith. Today, in places such as Egypt, China, North Korea, Iraq, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and countless other areas, Catholics risk their lives and travel for hours to attend Mass.

We give thanks to God that we do not have to put our lives in jeopardy to attend Mass at our local parish, except assume the risk of contracting COVID 19. Yes, we should be prudent and not recklessly put ourselves and others in harm’s way. But I suspect that sometimes we seem to have substituted the primacy of salvation for the lesser need for safety.

Perhaps this is the reason why so many have little appreciation for this Sacrament until they were deprived of it. We rejoice that, unlike those in poor areas, we do not have to walk for miles, over hills or on dirt roads to attend. The vast majority of us can make a short drive to arrive at our beloved parish. In fact, we are spoilt for choices. But the ease, convenience, and accessibility of the Mass should not cause us to ever lose sight that the Mass is so precious that many of our Catholic brothers and sisters around the world are braving great inconvenience and persecution to receive what we, by God’s love, have available near us.

In his first Holy Thursday letter to priests, Pope Saint John Paul II touchingly recalled situations of the faith triumphing over persecution from his own personal experience of living under religious oppression, at a time when the priests were rounded up and there were none left to celebrate the Eucharist: “Sometimes it happens that [the lay faithful] meet in an abandoned shrine, and place on the altar a stole which they keep, and recite all the prayers of the Eucharistic liturgy: and then, at the moment that corresponds to the transubstantiation a deep silence comes down upon them, a silence sometimes broken by a sob … so ardently do they desire to hear the words that only the lips of a priest can efficaciously utter.”

In the months of lockdown, when our churches and chapels were closed and Masses suspended, many waited for the day they could return to Church to celebrate the “source and summit” of their Christian lives. But still others lost hope in waiting and some may never return. Of course, many are still not able to return because they fall within a high risk group. But many have chosen not to return by choice. If you are watching this Mass at home, this message is for you. Please know that we miss you, we love you, and we hope you will rejoin our Catholic family for our Masses. Some of you have drifted away from the Church and have been waiting for a good time to return.  I pray that you will consider this the time to join us on our faith journey toward Heaven.  We miss you, the Church misses you, Christ misses you - come home!

I would like to close this evening with the words of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, at the 2005 World Youth Day in Cologne Germany:

“The Eucharist must become the centre of our lives. … This is because the Eucharist releases the joy that we need so much, and we must learn to grasp it ever more deeply, we must learn to love it. Let us pledge ourselves to do this – it is worth the effort! Let us discover the intimate riches of the Church’s liturgy and its true greatness: it is not we who are celebrating for ourselves, but it is the living God Himself who is preparing a banquet for us.”

Tabernacles Full, Churches Empty

Maundy Thursday

One of the most striking visible features of the Sacred Triduum, if you are good at the game of “spot the difference”, is to notice that there is a significant change in the sanctuary.

From the time before the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday, right until the holy communion is finished during Easter Vigil mass on Holy Saturday, the tabernacle remains empty.

It’s a striking image: the doors of the tabernacle are wide open, exposing a gaping void. Therein our Lord once dwelled, beckoning the wearied to throw their cares upon Him. Normally, before entering and exiting our pews, we give homage by genuflecting toward this abode, perhaps catching a glimpse of the sanctuary lamp that burned as a reminder of His presence. But not on Holy Thursday or Good Friday or for the good part of the Easter Vigil. The lamp is extinguished, the doors thrown open, the tabernacle emptied, the church stripped. In our desperation to see Him, we can feel the pain of Mary Magdalene as she exclaimed: “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” (John 20:13)

Due to this pandemic outbreak this year, where priests throughout the world would have to celebrate the Sacred Triduum alone and without a congregation, Rome has made some alterations to the rubrics (liturgical rules of our celebration). For example, this year, we are suppose to return the Blessed sacrament to the tabernacle instead of processing it to a side altar. Jesus will remain in the tabernacle throughout this Triduum and the sanctuary lamp will remain lit, even on Good Friday.

For me it is a poignant irony. Our tabernacles will remain filled this year but our churches are empty. Jesus is present but the people are physically absent. I would never have envisaged celebrating mass without a congregation for Holy Week, but this is the painful reality we find ourselves in this year, through no fault of ours nor by choice.

On a normal Holy Thursday our tabernacles would be emptied before the Mass of the Lord’s Supper. Have you ever wondered why? It makes better sense to empty the tabernacle on Good Friday, because our Lord died on this day. But why on Holy Thursday, why should we empty our tabernacles on the day the church celebrates the institution of two sacraments - the Eucharist and the priesthood?

Our empty tabernacles serve as a reminder to us that there was a time when there was no Eucharist, there was a time when masses were not celebrated, when Holy Communion was not available. But all this changed with the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave up His body and spirit on the cross so that we may have life. Our Lord gave us the Eucharist as a lasting memorial of His death and resurrection.

So, by emptying our tabernacles on Holy Thursday, the Church is telling us - to really understand what God has done for us in Christ Jesus. We need to experience this absence, so that we may experience His presence more keenly.

As a priest, I yearn for your presence during this time of social distancing. What would a priest be without the Eucharist? Nothing, for we are ordained precisely for the Eucharist. No other person is able to say the words, “This is my Body .. This is my Blood,” and actually produce the real change in the bread and wine. And, what would a priest be without his flock? Nothing, for we are ordained to sanctify our people by administering these sacred mysteries. The sacraments were instituted by Christ for the people, for their salvation. They are not meant to be trophies on a shelf or exhibits in a museum to be admired.

I guess this experience of longing and hungering would be very different for all of us this year. It is not because our tabernacles are empty but our churches are. As a priest I long and hunger for the return of my flock that had been entrusted to me by Christ. For the people, they long and hunger for Christ in the Eucharist which only the priest can give.

This year, we are all required to experience severe fasting.  It must be noted that the Church does not call us to fast from sinful things but good things in order to draw closer to God.  We must fast from the good of communal life.  We must fast from being physically present in our churches to celebrate mass. It is painful but remember fasts do not last forever.  There is a saying often associated with Easter which marks this transition - “The Fasting has ended, the Feasting has begun.” Now we fast, so that our anticipation of the feast may be heightened.

In the past, we may have taken both our communion with our fellow human beings and our sacramental Communion at the Mass for granted.  This pandemic and the physical separation it has caused may seem to be evil but God can always turn it into something good. Social isolation is everyone’s cross to take up now.  But just as Good Friday leads to Easter, if we embrace our cross, it will lead to a fullness of life beyond our wildest imagination. And one day, you too shall return and fill our empty churches where Christ awaits you eagerly in the tabernacle to welcome you home.

There will be no Mass without the Priesthood

Maundy Thursday

Most people would focus on the foot-washing ritual when thinking about today’s mass. Few realise that the foot washing rite is actually optional and is not a central component. Rather, the rubrics clearly spell out the focus of the homily: we are called to shed light “on the principal mysteries that are commemorated in this Mass, namely, the institution of the Holy Eucharist and of the priestly Order, and the commandment of the Lord concerning fraternal charity.” Most people would have certainly heard about the Eucharist, but how about the priesthood? 

I would like to begin by being honest here. It’s been a bad year for the Church. But the truth is: it’s been a bad year for Catholic priests. If our Church has been getting a bad rap this past year, the clergy is to be blamed, no doubt about it. Our Holy Father identifies the problem as the sin of clericalism and describes it in this manner: “Clerics feel they are superior, they are far from the people; they have no time to hear the poor, the suffering, prisoners, the sick.” Clericalism is the cause why priests live a double life and why sometimes they band together to cover up their faults. But there is much more to be said about the problem. The issue just isn’t about our attitude, it has to do with sin. The problem of clergy abuse clearly stems from a sinful lifestyle, from immoral behaviour that is incompatible with the priestly life, with the Christian life.

But despite the clergy abuse scandal and sin of clericalism, the Church continues to celebrate today, the institution of not just one sacrament but two. It’s not coincidental that the priesthood and Eucharist are established simultaneously. And this is why today, we commemorate the institution of both sacraments – the priesthood and the Eucharist. Both are intertwined, one cannot exist without the other. Without the priesthood, there would not only be no Sacrifice of the Mass; there would be no Catholic Church. This may sound strange, even audacious. But the truth is that God became man in order to sacrifice Himself on the Cross by dying for the salvation of the world. Having died once on Calvary, He continues offering Himself in every Mass so totally that that sacrifice is made present once again every time that Mass is offered, even until the end of time.

So, what makes the Mass possible? On the one hand, the Mass is possible only because Christ’s death on Calvary is literally repeated in every Mass. But the Mass is only possible if you have a priest because only the priest can offer the bloodless sacrifice of the Mass, for he not only stands in the person of Christ, but is wholly configured to Him; he is another Christ, Alter Christus. Though I may risk sounding arrogant, the truth is that there can be no Mass without the priesthood. That is why Christ instituted the Sacrament of the priesthood, to ensure that His sacrifice on Calvary would be renewed and repeated in every Mass until the end of time.

It is obvious that we can associate the Eucharist with the Last Supper, but how about the Priesthood? We can see this in the action of our Lord washing the feet of His disciples. Most people would easily recognise this as an example of Christ’s humility. This is true but there is more to it.  This action of washing appears to be a deliberate echo of the washing of the hands and feet done by the sacrificial priests of the Old Covenant. 

The washing was not just a practical and hygienic preparation for offering sacrifices at the altar of the Temple, but this washing symbolised the priest’s unworthiness to approach the Lord, so it’s fitting that the washing of feet occurs at the same time that the Apostles are entrusted with the Eucharist (they too are unworthy men).  But notice what’s different: the Old Covenant focused on self-purification. Priests performed ablutions to purify themselves. But the New Covenant is focused on sanctifying others.  We unworthy priests are washed, we are purified, in order that we may now purify, wash, and sanctify others. In fact, some commentators see in the term “bath” (used by the Lord) as an echo of Baptism (which can only be administered once) and subsequent “washings” to the sacrament of Penance.

Having established all of this, consider Christ’s dual commission. Both commissions find its source in these theologically powerful words of our Lord: “Do this in memory of Me.” The key words which solemnise the institution by Christ of the ministerial priesthood in its eternal relation to the Eucharist. Immediately after instituting the Eucharist, the Lord in other scriptural texts orders the Apostles: “do this in memory of me” (Lk. 22:19; 1 Cor. 11:24).  That doesn’t mean “treat this as a symbol.” The memorial offering of Christ’s Body and Blood actually is, Christ’s Body and Blood, it is making present His Death on Calvary.

But there is a second commission which is found only here in the Gospel of St John. It comes at the end of the washing of the feet. When he had washed their feet, the Lord said to them, “Do you understand … what I have done to you? You call me Master and Lord, and rightly; so I am. If I, then, the Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you should wash each other’s feet. I have given you an example so that you may copy what I have done to you.” One may paraphrase this by using the same words of Christ, “do this in memory of Me.” This is the mandate (mandatum) that gives Maundy Thursday its name. 

So, the first commission recorded by St Luke and St Paul, “do this in memory of me,” refers to the Eucharist. But this second commission, refers to the priesthood. Most Christians read the washing of feet as simply a nice gesture, a sign of humble service to others. But Christ makes it clear that it’s so much more. It is about the sacrificial priesthood, about the priestly ministry of offering not only the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, but also forgiveness of sins in the sacraments of Baptism and Penance. And our Lord’s second commission is therefore a mandate to the Church to pass on the gift of the priesthood, without which, there would be no Eucharist, there would be no forgiveness of sins, there would be no Church.

In this day and age, there is so much pressure from people for priests to adopt their way of acting, their attitudes and habits, their agitated lives and occupations. But is this what is really needed?  Pity the poor priest, forced to prove his worth and justify his existence by his affability or other skills, rather than by his priesthood in offering the Sacrifice of the Mass, which is seen as innately worthless in an unbelieving world. Sometimes, I feel that so many of us priests often attempt to conform ourselves to these standards that we forget this one simple truth: the priest exists for one main purpose: to offer the Sacrifice of the Mass. When we forget this, then the cultic nature of the priesthood is diminished at the expense of making him a better manager or a better public speaker. Better managers and better speakers we have aplenty. But only a priest can do what a priest does best – offer the sacrifice of the Mass faithfully and diligently.

So tonight, I ask you to pray for your priests. Pray for us because we are sinners and not saints. If we were saints you would be praying "to" us. We priests are indeed weak, sinful men, men who have failed Christ, our vocation and our flock many times and sometimes in the most scandalous ways. The first "priests", the Apostles, were no different - one betrayed our Lord, another denied Him, and and others fled like cowards. Our ordination may have configured us to the person of Jesus Christ, but it is certainly not a canonisation. The light of Christ has shown in our hearts but as St Paul puts it, “we hold this treasure in pots of earthenware, so that the immensity of power is God’s and not our own.” We priests alone can offer the sacrifice of the Mass but we can take no credit for it. It is the audacity of God’s generosity who chose to make weak unworthy men like us His ministers.   Never cease praying for us because your prayers encourage and support us in times of trial or discouragement, so that there will be good and holy men called to priesthood to ensure that you should always have the Eucharist and the forgiveness for your sins.