We are extremely grateful to the Chaplain of the Grand Priory of England for this meditation. There will be two others, on Good Friday and on Easter Day, which form a trilogy. Many of our readers will know that Monsignor Conlon needs our prayers at this time, and we are certain they are forthcoming from many quarters. We are all very grateful for his nearly 30 years of service to the Priory, and for the inestimable canon of teaching he has offered the Order over the years. May it long continue.
Pope Benedict XVI makes the point in his book The Spirit of the Liturgy that the Exodus from Egypt of the Chosen People is inseparably linked to worship. It is not primarily about a land to live in, but a permanent place in which to render appropriate homage to God according to His own mandates. Every time Moses confronts Pharaoh with God’s demand to “let my people go”; it is always followed by this reason: that they may sacrifice, or make a feast to Him in the wilderness. (Ex. 5-10) When they have reached it, the supremacy of that aspect of this covenant is emphasised. The Book of Exodus itself devotes six chapters (Ex. 35-40) to liturgical prescriptions. The essence of the Passover is therefore indisputably liturgical. It is so in a sacrificial sense.
Later, in the land where they came to dwell, they continued to acknowledge this and rendered appropriate homage to God whose power had saved them. It signified both absolute dependence and obedience. The only true title deed to the territory they came to possess rested in their fulfilment of those rituals of worship commanded in their sacred writings. In the course of time a designated permanent sanctuary and a system of priesthood came into existence. The synagogue services carried on throughout Israel, Judea and the Jewish Diaspora in the first century AD had begun only in the 6th century BC. That was the time of the exile in Babylon, when there was no Temple and therefore no sacrifices. The synagogue services continued when they came back to the Promised Land. But they were always secondary and in addition to what was happening in the Temple. By the time of Our Lord, this was still very much the case.
We must bear this in mind when we come to reflect upon the New Testament narrative of the Passion.
The events of those days are seen by the evangelists as fulfilling the prophecies of old and also of corresponding to the rituals being carried on simultaneously in the Jewish festival of the Passover. For the Gospel writers, as for all the Jewish converts to Christ, those rites were now seen as imperfect and temporary substitutes for the true and the real perfection of the ultimate propitiation, that of God Himself in the human nature of the man, Jesus of Nazareth. The Fathers of the Church later developed this theme of completion and realisation. Pope Leo the Great, preaching in the fifth century expresses it in the following words “ Lord, you drew all things to yourself so that all the nations everywhere in their dedication to you might celebrate in a full, clear sacramental rite what was done only in the Jewish temple and in signs and shadows.” [1] What happened in Holy Week is definitive of everything that follows from the Christian perspective on Christ and the Church. She wants us to be in no doubt that the events of these days are of paramount importance. To commemorate and celebrate them is to become involved with the sacramental sources of the Church’s very existence. The Holy Week liturgy is the Church ceremonially opening the divine charters of her foundation and inviting us all to see and verify her claims to be and to do what Christ intended and initiated.
The events of those days are seen by the evangelists as fulfilling the prophecies of old and also of corresponding to the rituals being carried on simultaneously in the Jewish festival of the Passover. For the Gospel writers, as for all the Jewish converts to Christ, those rites were now seen as imperfect and temporary substitutes for the true and the real perfection of the ultimate propitiation, that of God Himself in the human nature of the man, Jesus of Nazareth. The Fathers of the Church later developed this theme of completion and realisation. Pope Leo the Great, preaching in the fifth century expresses it in the following words “ Lord, you drew all things to yourself so that all the nations everywhere in their dedication to you might celebrate in a full, clear sacramental rite what was done only in the Jewish temple and in signs and shadows.” [1] What happened in Holy Week is definitive of everything that follows from the Christian perspective on Christ and the Church. She wants us to be in no doubt that the events of these days are of paramount importance. To commemorate and celebrate them is to become involved with the sacramental sources of the Church’s very existence. The Holy Week liturgy is the Church ceremonially opening the divine charters of her foundation and inviting us all to see and verify her claims to be and to do what Christ intended and initiated.
The Gospels, coupled with extracts from the earliest instructions of apostolic epistles, provide the narrative excerpts around which the liturgy of these days is constructed. Its faith context is the end of one covenant and its replacement by another, more enduring and efficacious. For all the evangelists, writing after several decades of oral evangelization, the purely symbolic character of the old Jewish rites are already an accepted fact. The first apostles were confirmed in this belief after the crucifixion of Jesus was followed by His Resurrection. We are familiar with the chronology of the events in the last week of the life of Lord, because of the Gospels. Precision of detail is carefully maintained because the writers believe that all that went before was leading up these events. They indicate that he intentionally and positively initiated the sacraments and the sacrifice of the new and everlasting covenant precisely within the setting of the supreme religious festival of the Chosen People; the memorial of their deliverance.
We begin with the accounts of Maundy Thursday. From the supper on that evening, came the central action of Christian worship and the ordained priests to celebrate it. So it is important to know something of the context as well as to understand the outcome. The choice by Jesus for His Last Supper of that day of the week is rooted in the Jewish tradition of the new day beginning not after midnight but after sunset of the previous day. Hence, the Passover festival of Preparation Day began on Thursday evening. It was on the Thursday that the lambs were sacrificially slain in the temple, to be eaten ceremonially at the Passover meal. We can observe that everything Our Lord does is carefully planned and nothing is left to chance. He has known all along what is to be done and how. He is shown as fully in control of the situation. The disciples are sent ahead to an upper room, provided by a nameless friend, where this final meal will be eaten. The man who will lead them to it will be seen carrying a water jar (Mk. 14:13. Lk. 22:10). A significant sight because uncommon. Only women customarily carried water jars at that time. This man would stand out. The disciples found all as the Lord had said. The room was the upper floor of a house, reached by an outside stairway and frequently used for gatherings of this kind. There in the room were the couches and the table with all that was necessary. This meal was eaten reclining and not sitting –as were all the many formal meals at which Our Lord had been a guest. It was certainly not as Da Vinci depicts it in his famous canvas: Jesus in the middle of the table, with the Disciples ranged on either side. The meal would include the following essential items: the paschal lamb, slain that day in the Temple, its blood poured out as an offering to God: the bitter herbs to remind them of the slavery of Egypt, the charoshethor sweet dish of apples, nuts and pomegranates, to represent the clay with which they made the bricks; the bowl of salt water, to recall the tears they shed. There was also wine: enough for four cups per person. Finally there was the unleavened bread, baked and eaten in haste as they prepared to leave the land of bondage. For the Jews the bread and the wine symbolized also the Torah; the bread being seen as divine truth and the wine as the fruit of the vine of the Lord. The rituals of the meal were very particular and strictly to be observed. The dishes were used exclusively for it and for no other meal. The cup of blessing used would never be of glass, pottery or ceramic as sometimes later depicted. The Holy Grail was made of bronze or silver.
The original Passover meal mentioned in the book of Exodus (Ex. 12) preceded deliverance from bondage and required a lamb of sacrifice. For every Jew, the annual eating of this meal was a ritual recreation of that night as well as a celebration of the full initiation of the covenant. To share the Passover Meal was to re-live the night of deliverance. Our blessed Lord now introduced into this memorial setting of Old Testament salvation, the memorial and sacrament of His own death, a sacrifice of obedience and propitiation which accomplished once for all the atonement that the later Temple oblations had symbolized. The bread and wine of the meal received a substantially new reality in His transformation of them into His Body and Blood. His death, symbolized by the separate blessing and reception of the bread and wine embodied this new covenant. Not one of deliverance from political slavery but from the bondage of sin and its effects. The supreme difference in this memorial of Jesus, from that of the Jewish Passover is the guarantee of His presence. The Passover was celebrated so that the people might actively unite themselves to an historic event and never forget what God had done for them. It was also seen as a way of reminding God of his covenant with them. That memorial was now to be transformed: its effects beyond doubt because the Son of God was both oblation and agent of the transformation. In the Eucharist, Christ, ever present to the Father and interceding for us, is also ever present to us in the Sacrament of His love. We are united to Calvary and it is present to us in manner which is real but without the actual shedding of blood.
The table setting at the meal was arranged so that Jesus would sit well to the right, at the end, in the place of honour, that of the paterfamilias. On this night he took the place of the head of the family. The law required that no less than 10 persons be present. Jesus and the disciples made 13. The washing of the feet, the ceremony of the morsel and the giving of money to the poor – all mentioned in the gospel narratives – are all essential customs to be observed. Our Lord observes them but they are invested with a different sense. It is not a servant but He who does the washing. Judas received the morsel of special favour and accepts it but it is a token of betrayal, as is the instruction to him “do quickly, what you have to do”. (Jn. 13:27). John’s Gospel invests the occasion with a long discourse by Jesus which stands as a spiritual testament to the disciples. It is an extract from this Gospel that is read at the Maundy Mass. The institution of the Eucharist is not mentioned in John’s account of the Last Supper. The Maundy Mass provides it a scriptural reference to it in a lesson from the First Epistle of St Paul to the Corinthians. (11:20-32).
The Passover meal ended with the singing of psalm 136, on a note of praise to God for His mighty deeds. Immediately after, Our Lord and the Disciples left for the Garden of Gethsemane. The name means “oil press”. It was one of those properties of someone rich who was well-disposed to Jesus and often used by Him as a place of refuge (Jn. 18: 1-3). Tonight, it would be the scene of His arrest and betrayal. The Maundy Thursday liturgy encourages us to move in spirit with Our Saviour, in His desolation. The journey to the Altar of Repose is our equivalent of the walk to the Garden. In our minds’ eye we try to visualize that scene, aided possibly by numerous artistic or other visual images. Principally, we spend time watching. Our vigil is one of gratitude as well as contemplation. Let us remember at what cost to Himself, Jesus gave us His Body and Blood. Let us also remember how he willed that the Sacrament should be provided by priests drawn from among us and faithful in the midst of so many temptations and sinful urges. He should not be betrayed by His own. We ought to pray for weak and dis-heartened priests as well as those who seek to be faithful. Finally, let us pray charitably that all the insults, contempt and blasphemies heaped upon Our Lord on this night, may no longer be replicated in the casual and indifferent attitude to His presence found in too many of His temples in our own time.
Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.
[1] Sermon 8 on the Passion, 6-8.
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