Holy Thursday

Lent has come to an end, and yet now we enter into the Holy Triduum, the most intense and solemn days of the year.

It has been a difficult Lent for me, and all I have learned, as usual, is that I can't save myself. I cannot overcome my weaknesses, I cannot overcome sin. There is nothing I can do to save myself; again and again I went crawling back to Jesus to confess my faults and ask for forgiveness. And each time, I was forgiven and sent back out, only to fall again.

It is in this condition that I enter the Triduum, knowing my Savior waits, knowing that without Him, I would fall and never rise again.

I am so much like Peter in that way; even as he could not seem to keep from shooting off his mouth, he also could not stay away from Jesus, following him even after His arrest. Following Him, desiring to follow Him as he'd promised, only to deny Him. Not once, not twice, but three times.

I do the same thing. I stand with Christ, and proclaim that I love Him and I will follow Him, and I am willing to DIE for Him. Jesus looks at me probably with the same expression as that which He gazed upon Peter 2,000 years ago. He sees my enthusiasm and desire to do great things for Him and with Him, the same things, hopefully, that Jesus desires. And He says, "You say that now, but before you even leave my presence you will deny me three times."

Jesus, ever patient, ever faithful, understanding our weakness more clearly than we.

It is we who are impatient and unfaithful. It is we who cannot understand. It is we who fail in love and charity.

It is Jesus who constantly forgives, accepts our apologies and reminds us that it is for THIS reason that He goes to the Cross.

Tonight, Holy Thursday, we celebrate the institution of the Eucharist and the Priesthood. Tonight, we see how Christ has begun to empty Himself in preparation for His Passion and death.

We can understand Peter, and the rest of the Apostles, because, in Lent, we have all probably recognized our weakness and sinfulness...our unworthiness. How shocked the Apostles must have been when Jesus Christ washed their feet, in this act of ordination which they did not recognize at the time. How proper that they were cleansed and instituted before the Eucharist, for even though none can be worthy, Christ chooses and calls those whom He desires to serve in His place, with His own authority.

Let us all reflect deeply on how Christ emptied Himself, ask for the ability to do the same, and enter with Him into His Passion and Death on the Cross. We can only rise again with Him if we, too are willing to suffer for others in dying to ourselves in order that Christ might live in us.

Let us also understand the great gift of the Priesthood of Jesus Christ which He has passed on through His Apostles, and the gift of His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, without which none would have life.
*