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Station - St. John Lateran
- Details:
- Apr. 9, 2:00 am
STATION – ST. JOHN LATERAN
Holy Thursday, the beginning of the Paschal Mysteries! Hail, thrice blessed day, birthday of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, of the Eucharistic priesthood and of the Eucharistic commandment! Hail also to you, blessed “upper room,” for you witnessed the birth of this triple gift.
1. How intensely the Lord longed for this day! “With desire I have desired to eat this Pasch with you.” Today His longing is to be fulfilled. For the last time He celebrates with His disciples the ancient Pasch, observed for the first time fifteen centuries before, in that sacred night when God brought the children of Israel out of Egypt.
Tonight our Lord bequeaths to the world His sacrificed Body and Blood, the priceless pearl of the New Law, the center of Christian life, the Sacrifice of salvation, the food of pilgrims, the “elevator” into the Mystical Body, the guarantee of immortality.
“As often as you shall do these things, you shall do them in remembrance of Me.” Today we are doing these things, most solemnly, most gratefully, most joyfully, with desire we have desired to eat this Pasch with Him! Today!
2. Intimately related to His first gift is His second: the Eucharistic priesthood. He pours His priesthood into human beings, sending them as the Father had sent Him, making them carriers of the blessings of redemption, “ministers of Christ and dispensers of the mysteries of God.” Holy Thursday, a blessed day for every priest!
But let the faithful also rejoice! Is not every Christian – through the indelible character bestowed in baptism and confirmation – a sharer in Christ’s priesthood? The noblest deed of a priest is to offer. How well do you, a partaker in the Lord’s priesthood, perform this noblest of deeds today?
3. “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another; that as I have loved you, you also love one another. By this will all men know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” A new commandment. A Eucharistic commandment. The holy Eucharist is the difference between paganism and Christianity. The holy Eucharist is the source of union, of charity, of that love “whereby men know that we are the disciples of Christ.”
May “the right hand of the Lord” imprint the full meaning of this triple gift on our heart as we assemble today around God’s altar to carry out what “on this day Christ commanded His disciples to celebrate in memory of Him.”