Holy Thursday

The Last Supper – Leonardo da Vinci

Why is this day holy, as Christians have always known it to be?

HOLY THURSDAY is the most complex and profound of all religious observances, saving only the Easter Vigil. It celebrates both the institution by Christ Himself of the Eucharist and of the institution of the sacerdotal priesthood (as distinct from the “priesthood of all believers”) for in this, His last supper with the disciples, a celebration of Passover, He is the self-offered Passover Victim, and every ordained priest to this day presents this same sacrifice, by Christ’s authority and command, in exactly the same way.

I wrote about this a few years ago, about the profundity of that unbroken succession from the Last Supper to now.

Christ calls men to the priesthood to be His ministers, and ordains them with certain powers. Central among them the power to preside, in His place, at the daily re-presentation of that ultimate sacrifice of His body and blood to God. The power to make Christ fully present to His people in the Eucharist.

It was for this sacrificial work that Christ came into the world. He established the priesthood to carry it on. “The twelve apostles are the first twelve priests; Judas is the first bad priest”, cites the great French Catholic writer Francois Mauriac in his work Holy Thursday: An Intimate Remembrance. Thus he strikingly notes that from the beginning, the perfection of the ministry has not relied upon perfect ministers, so sufficient is the perfection of the mission.

Mauriac was awestruck by the minstry of the priesthood established on this day.

“The grace of Holy Thursday will be transmitted unto the end of time, unto the last of the priests who will celebrate the last Mass in a shattered universe”, writes Mauriac. “Holy Thursday created these men; a mark was stamped on them; a sign was given to them. They are like to us and yet so different — a fact never more surprising than in this pagan age. People say that there is a scarcity of priests. In truth, what an adorable mystery it is that there still are any priests”.

In his chapter on Holy Orders in this book, Mauriac continues to wonder that men would choose to follow the call. “They no longer have any human advantage”, he points out, and it is remarkable to realize that he did not write this anytime in the past five years.

“Celibacy, solitude, hatred very often, derision and, above all, the indifference of a world in which there seems to be no longer room for them — such is the portion they have chosen. They have no apparent power; their task sometimes seems to be centered about material things, identifying them, in the eyes of the masses, with the staffs of town halls and of funeral parlors. A pagan atmosphere prevails all around them. The people would laugh at their virtue if they believed in it, but they do not. They are spied upon. A thousand voices accuse those who fall. As for the others, the greater number, no one is surprised to see them toiling without any sort of recognition, without appreciable salary, bending over the bodies of the dying or ambling about the parish schoolyards. Who can describe the solitude of the priest in the country, in the midst of peasants so often indifferent, if not hostile, to the spirit of Christ?”

Mauriac’s description is startling because it is apt, as much today as ever. But the grace and promise of ordination rests in being conformed to Christ, and the modern world does not appreciate that His is a timeless and unchanging mission. “The priesthood of Christ, in which all priests really share, is necessarily intended for all peoples and all times, and it knows no limits of blood, nationality or time, since it is already mysteriously prefigured in the person of Melchizedek”.

Mauriac continues…

“The words of Christ concerning priests are proven every day: ‘I am sending you forth like sheep in the midst of wolves… You will be hated by all for my name’s sake’. For centuries, since the first Holy Thursday, some men have chosen to become objects of hatred, without expecting any human consolation. They have chosen to lose their lives because once Someone made them the seemingly foolish promise: “He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it”… But if they did not find their joy even in this world, would they persevere?

Mauriac makes the really important point in this meditation that the truths of the sacraments that emerged from this day, including penance and the grace of absolution it gives, none of this depends on “the majority believing in them.” The Church continues to be their source.

“Only in her bosom is kept the promise that Christ made to His disciples, on that Thursday: “I will not leave you orphans”… Spiritual paternity, which the world deems hateful, is nevertheless the token of salvation… The submission of the penitent to his spiritual director puts it within the power of the most humble of the faithful to make that complete renunciation which is demanded for the slightest progress in the following of Christ… No, it is not to a man that we submit, but to Jesus Christ whose place he takes.”

“Whose place he takes…” It is perhaps easier for many to see Christ in the person of Pope John Paul II

or Pope Benedict XVI

than in the lowly parish priest, but it is the pope who reminds us otherwise. “The world looks to the priest, because it looks to Jesus! No one can see Christ; but everyone sees the priest, and through him they wish to catch a glimpse of the Lord! Immense is the grandeur of the Lord! Immense is the grandeur and dignity of the priest!” And it is to a priest that the Holy Father, himself, submits in confession. “The pope is penitent and is directed”, reminds Mauriac.

“The man before whom we kneel, kneels in his turn — he who judges is judged. He hears our sins but he confesses his own. Confession, penance, contrition, constitute the sacred patrimony shared by all priests and all the faithful.”

We receive three inestimable treasures: the certainty of being forgiven; a kiss of peace received in the very depths of our miserable hearts; a blank page upon which the most infamous man, having become once more like a little child, can begin writing his life anew… for it is never too late to become a saint. Such is the immense stream of grace which has its source in the first priestly ordination of this sacred Thursday.