Here's the homily I preached for the Holy Thursday Mass of the Lord's Supper. Comments are always welcome. God bless you!
Location: Saint Joseph Catholic Church
(Earlville, IA) – 7 p.m. Mass of the Lord’s Supper
Date: Thursday April 17th,
2014 (Holy Thursday of the Lord’s Supper)
READINGS:
1st Reading: Exodus 12:1-8, 11-14
Resp. Psalm: Ps. 116:12-13, 15-16bc, 17-18
2nd Reading: 1 Corinthians 11:23-26
Gospel: John 13:1-15
FOCUS: Our faith in Christ calls us
imitate Him in a life of sacrificial service.
FUNCTION: Serve those around you,
especially the poor and the marginalized.
To set the tone for what’s about to
unfold tonight, I’d like to share with you a few thoughts; they are the
thoughts of Fr. Robert Barron, the creative mind behind the Catholicism Series
and the founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries. Fr. Barron says this about today’s
celebration:
“Christianity
is a revolutionary religion. It turns
everything upside down, reversing the values and expectations of a sinful
world. Throughout his life and ministry,
Jesus tried to inaugurate people into this new world that he called the Kingdom
of God. The nature of this Kingdom
became especially apparent as Jesus gathered with his disciples in the upper
room, a place of heightened awareness.
There he did something extraordinary.
Jesus took off his outer garments, tied a towel around his waist, poured
water in a basin, and washed the feet of his disciples. He performed an act that was so humble, so
lowly, that it was considered beneath the dignity even of a slave.
We catch the novelty and shock of it in Peter's response:
"Master, are you going to wash my feet?" This is just too much for him; it is such a
violation of the world that he had come to accept, a world in which masters
were masters, slaves were slaves, where the dignified and important were waited
upon while the lowly did the serving. In
that world there was a clear demarcation between up and down, worthy and
unworthy, clean and unclean. Jesus is
putting his followers through a sort of initiation rite. Unless they pass this test, unless they begin
to see the world in a new way, they will not get into the Kingdom.
And this is why Jesus says to Peter, "Unless I wash
you, you will have no inheritance with me." In the vision of the old world, one's life
comes to its high point at a moment of honor, praise, glory, or recognition, at
a moment when one's distinction and superiority over others is most
evident. The old world is predicated on
the great divisions between master and slave, superior and subordinate, rich
and poor, powerful and powerless, included and excluded. Most of our energy goes into maintaining
these distinctions, or trying to get from one side to the other, or keeping
certain people on the far side of the divide.
But in the vision of the Kingdom of God, the climactic
moment comes when one is the lowliest servant of the other: yes, even despised,
reviled, spat upon, and handed over to death.
It is only when we have passed through this startling initiation that we
are ready for the full manifestation of the Kingdom.”
Now for my own thoughts. It’s humbling for me, as a priest, to wash
people’s feet on Holy Thursday, in imitation of what Jesus did for His
disciples approximately two thousand years ago.
It’s humbling for me to stand at the altar and repeat – almost verbatim
– the words that Jesus said at the Last Supper when He instituted the sacrament
of the Most Holy Eucharist and told His disciples to celebrate that same
sacrifice in remembrance of Him. It’s a
reminder for me that to lead means to serve; it’s a reminder that all true
authority is oriented toward serving others.
I have been ordained to serve, to preach, to teach the Catholic and
apostolic faith, to pastor God’s flock, and to help sanctify His people through
the celebration of the Lord’s sacraments.
My life as a priest is at the service of the priesthood of the baptized.
That is simply what my vocation is all
about; but it’s not just my vocation – service is the vocation of all the
baptized. We are all called to
serve. When Jesus spoke to His disciples
at the Last Supper in the Gospel of Luke, “He
said to them, ‘The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them and those in
authority over them are addressed as ‘Benefactors’; but among you it shall not
be so. Rather, let the greatest among
you be as the youngest, and the leader as the servant. For who is greater: the one seated at table
or the one who serves? Is it not the one
seated at table? I am among you as the one who serves,’” (Luke 22:25-27).
Jesus offers each of us a model to
follow and imitate. How well do we serve
our spouses, children, extended family members, brothers and sisters, neighbors,
co-workers, and even strangers? If we
were brought before a court for having been accused of being a Christian, would
there be enough evidence to convict us?
I sure hope so! It is not enough
for us to be Christians in name only; we must also be Christians by
practice. Our faith must always lead to
action. How do we tend to deal with
people who annoy us, or who tend to frustrate us and make us angry, or who like
to push our buttons? How do we tend to respond
to people around us after we’ve had a bad day?
It’s when “push comes to shove” that
our true character is revealed – we are who we are on our worst day. It’s easy to be a Christian by name and by
practice when things are going well; it’s often a little harder when nothing
seems to be going right. Could it be,
that on our worst days, the Lord is offering us a little test to see how well
we live up to the name, “Christian”?
Probably all of us have some work to do if we want to live up to our
vocation to be disciples of Christ the Lord.
How does that happen? We have to live up to the call to serve. We have to do it every day. We have to do it not only in exceptional
circumstances, but in the ordinary context of day-to-day living. When you’ve had a bad day, don’t make it all
about you – think about others; maybe they’ve had a bad day, too, and your bad
attitude is only making things worse!
When your children or grandchildren or your spouse or other family
members of co-workers or neighbors or even strangers ask for your help, try not
to be grumpy; offer a helpful hand with a smile on your face. Let your actions speak louder than your
words. Don’t tell people you love them;
show them you love them.
Let your life look less like your own
and more like the life of Our Lord – He was willing to roll His sleeves up, so
to speak, and get messy helping others.
This isn’t something extraordinary; this is the ordinary call of what it
means to be and to live as a Christian.
To be a Christian means to serve, to imitate Jesus, to practice what He
taught, to follow where He leads.
May our celebration of the Holy
Eucharist and our remembrance of how the Lord washed the feet of His disciples
inspire us to serve others, and through serving them, to serve Him. And may He draw each of us closer to new life
in the kingdom of God.
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