Hidden in God, our lives become a living mystery, a never ending sacrament of love. This night God opens the door for us and invites us to enter into His Divine Presence and to live, safe from all sin, in the eternal embrace of His love. In our second reading St. Paul reminds us of the sacrament of the Eucharist that Jesus instituted on this night. Jesus is hidden in this sacrament. Here we encounter him in his Real Presence, body and blood, soul and divinity, where those who have the eyes of faith may always find him. In John’s gospel, Jesus tells his disciples, “a little while and you will no longer see me, and again a little while later and you will see me again…” (Jn 16,16) There are those who seek to destroy Jesus in the night but they can never take him away from us. The presence of Jesus is hidden in the sacrament of the Eucharist. No one can take his life away from him for he freely gives us his life, laid down for us, in the Eucharist. In the Eucharist, Jesus is hidden from the world but is visible to those who have the eyes of faith to see him.
This night, Jesus also institutes the sacrament of the priesthood so that we might have priests to guide us in faith into the mystery of the sacraments. As a people who live in the mystery of God, it is in the sacraments that we will find our home in God, a place of love and mercy, a place to find rest. The priesthood is a gift to the Church that invites men to a life of service to God’s people.
Tonight, Jesus washes the disciple’s feet and establishes the priesthood as a ministry of service. The priest is ordained to wash the pilgrim feet of God’s people who walk the road of Christ, to remove the dust of the world and to anoint the people in holiness. The ministry of priests is one of humility, love and service. If we refuse the gift of Jesus in our pride and cannot serve as he served then we have no part in His life. The priest does not seek self-realization and personal power as those in the world but he seeks Christ-realization in surrendering himself to the mystery of God’s will, lived in “Persona Christi”, always ready to meet the pilgrim people of God along the Way and to serve their needs to be made clean and to grow in holiness. His power is the power of the Cross, of sacrifice, love and mercy. This is a power that truly transforms the Church into the Bride of Christ and prepares the Church for betrothal to the Bridegroom who is Christ. The priest helps to dress the Bride in the pure white garments of a people who have been washed in the blood of the Lamb, have put on Christ and who are adorned in holiness, prepared to share in his glory.
Through the sacraments of the Eucharist and priesthood, God opens the way for us to flee from betrayal and to enter into a life of betrothal. We must flee from the betrayal of Judas, who is corrupted by the allure of power and material wealth, and embrace a life of betrothal, united in love to Jesus who is meek, humble, simple and poor and who serves his people in love and mercy, cleansing them and raising them up to new life. The Eucharist becomes for us the “wedding feast of the Lamb”, an eternal banquet in which we encounter the beloved Bridegroom who is Christ and, through communion in him, we are united to him in a life of self gift, love and service to others.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, this is a night of flight, to flee from the corruption of sin and selfishness, from the tyranny of relativism in the world and to seek our home in God through Christ who is hidden for us in the Eucharist and who we find once again with the eyes of faith. We must fly from the betrayals that burden our hearts and find joy and rest in a new life, betrothed to Christ in love. Finding him we must seek to be like him in his humility and service to others. The road that we walk as a pilgrim people leads us through a world that is filled with those who are weighed down in poverty, misery and neglect. We cannot be so caught up in our own pursuits that we pass them by rather, we must stoop down and humbly wash their feet, give them new hope and lead them into God. We must pray to have the eyes of faith that can see Jesus, our beloved Bridegroom, hidden in the Eucharist, hidden in the priests who guide and serve us, and most of all hidden in the poor, both materially and spiritually, who cry out to God in their need.
After we have been fed on the Word and Sacrament this evening, we must go out into the night with Christ to pray and to prepare for the Cross that awaits us. It is at the Cross that we will meet Jesus who, “loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end.” (Jn11,24) We will see God’s great love for us revealed in the sacrifice of his Son, Jesus, who becomes the Way opened for us into new life. So let us go to die with him so that we might also be raised up with him and find life in him, a life hidden in the Father’s love and mercy. So begins our pilgrim journey this night into a life of love. What he has done for us, we must now do for one another. Amen!