When asked about the upcoming feast, Jesus sends His disciples, with a very detailed set of directions, including who they will meet, what they should say and what they will be shown. Perhaps He is trying to let them see that what is about to unfold has been well prepared for. At the meal, Jesus both takes and gives thanks for the bread and the cup of wine. He acts and then speaks the words of one who is actively engaged in His own destiny. He connects bread and cup with His broken body and His poured out blood. He unites dining with dying, Eucharist with crucifixion. Notice too, that even though there are only a few at the table,
He spreads the cloth to include ‘many’. This is a meal that strengthens the bonds of love between disciples, the One who will not be held by death, and their Father in Heaven.
When I turned 60, from this place I notice how younger people, the twenty and thirty somethings, struggle with the questions of who to be with and what to do with their lives. They live in a more challenging and complex world than I did at their age. In that world, they journey from mountains to valleys with amazing speed! They are thrown from clarity to confusion in a heartbeat. I marvel at their faith and how resilient they are. I worry too about how vulnerable they are. They return again and again to the challenges of companionship and meaningful work. Just like us ‘oldies’, they long to find people and places to whom they can give
themselves. They want to break their bodies and pour out their life blood. And when this is not happening, they know something is missing.
We might say they are trying, in their own way, to answer the call to sacrifice. Sacrifice is the work of making life better, or holy, by giving something back. Da Free John, in his “Scientific Proof of the Existence of God Will Soon Be Announced by the White House”, has written (p.33-34) ‘Those who cling to one or other religious or spiritual way must realise that the foundation of all such ways is the disposition of sacrifice – not of self-preservation or of immunity to life…. This must be expressed in a new, free, sober and truly compassionate disposition … which freely anoints the world with help and intelligent consideration. Therefore … let us give ourselves up so that each temple … may become a temporary altar of self-giving into the mystery that pervades us.’
Catholics, of course, have been promoting this for centuries. Jesus command to ‘Do this in memory of Me’, is wrapped in a new Wisdom. Every word and every gesture in the last supper are a clarion call to gather up our lives and act with compassion. Our lives are a gift but they are not our own. They are given to us by God moment by moment. Holding fast to this truth increases our gratitude. Gratitude fills us up from the inside. Once filled, we overflow. The life freely given becomes the life we seek to freely give away.
On this great Feast, I encourage a new and deeper consideration of and meditation on the Eucharist. I believe this can make us smarter and more effective at sacrificing, to which we are naturally disposed. The words and the gestures of Jesus invite us to hold together transcendence, gratitude and sacrifice. We need all three for full living. If we cling only to transcendence we run the risk of becoming aloof and uninvolved in the suffering of others. Never truly ‘in’ the life we are living. If gratitude does not move us to sacrifice, we might count our blessings in a way that separates us from others. If we try to sacrifice without gratitude we might become resentful. We pour ourselves out till we are running in empty. So, we short circuit and stop giving ourselves away. We might tell ourselves that we have finally wised up. But the only Wisdom worth remembering, is the one which invites us to re-enter the company of the One who knows all about breaking and pouring. In gratitude we can return to this place again and again to draw strength for the journey
