Holy Thursday 2025

It can be tempting to look at the Last Supper as a kind of final celebration, one last hurrah with the apostles before our Lord’s terrible and bitter passion.  But it was much more than a celebration, much more than a meal.  To call the Last Supper merely a meal would be akin to calling the crucifixion merely an execution.  Much more is happening below the surface.  And it would be a shame to look past Holy Thursday to Good Friday and Easter without pausing and delving into its rich significance.

The Last Supper is an inauguration.  In that upper room, Jesus gives us three gifts: the priesthood, the Mass, and the Eucharist.  These three gifts have been handed down through the centuries, serving as a font of grace for countless souls.  And all three find their roots in one reality: sacrifice.

The priest is the one who offers the sacrifice on behalf of the people.  The Eucharist is the victim offered.  The Mass is the action of sacrifice itself.

There is something about our humanity, deep in our bones, that needs sacrifice.  It is not just a Jewish instinct.  Through all of human history across various cultures and religions we find the impulse to offer sacrifices – often with startling intensity.  The Aztecs, the Greeks, the Romans, ancient Eastern and Middle Eastern peoples – all recognized a rift between the human and the divine.  They sensed disharmony a brokenness, and they sought to repair it by offering gifts, by immolating victims.  But each offering to the divine fell short.  None could truly bridge the gap.

The closest humanity came was in the sacrifices of ancient Israel.  These were commanded by God, although they too were never fully successful.  They could not bridge the gap or pay the debt owed to the divine.  The most sacred of these, the Passover sacrifice, commemorated the God’s liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.  And it is precisely in this context – the Passover – that our Lord gathers with His disciples.

The Last Supper is not merely a meal.  It is first and foremost a sacrifice.  But the victim is no longer a lamb – it is Christ Himself.  And the one who offers is not a Levitical priest – it is Christ Himself.  He is both priest and victim.  And, because He is God, He is the perfect priest and the perfect victim.  No further sacrifice is needed.

At the table in that upper room, He offers His body under the form of bread, His blood under the form of wine – anticipating the separation of His body and blood on the cross which will take place the very next day.  And He commands His apostles, “Do this in memory of me.”  Not simply to remember a past event, but to make present that very sacrifice, again and again.

Many today think of the Mass as a mere gathering to recall something our Lord once did.  But if that is all we see, we’ve missed the heart of it.  The Mass is so much more.  It is the re-presentation of Calvary.  It is the offering of the eternal sacrifice.

Before I begin the Eucharist Prayer, I say “pray brothers and sisters that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God the almighty Father.”  In that moment, we begin to step over the threshold of time to arrive at the foot of the Cross.  The Sacrifice of Christ is about to be offered to the Father through the hands of the priest.

And so, just as the the Last Supper is not merely a meal, the Mass is not merely a meal.  It is above all, a sacrifice.  Msgr. Ronald Knox captures this mystery beautifully:

“From the moment of his death on Calvary until the time when he comes again in glory, the dying Christ is continually at work, is continually available. It is in this posture of death that he pleads for us, when the Mass is offered. And it is in this posture of death that he comes to you and me when he comes to us, the living Christ, in holy communion. “This is my body which is being given for you…this is my blood which is being shed for you”; so he spoke to his apostles when his death still lay in the future, so he speaks to us now that his death lies in the past” (The Pattern of His Death, 316).

Just as the Israelites had to eat the Passover lamb to complete the Passover sacrifice, so too must we consume the Lamb of God, the Eucharist, to receive the fruits of His sacrifice.  The Eucharist is not dead flesh – it is the living Christ, hidden under the appearances of bread and wine.  Jesus humbles Himself to become food for us.

Each time we come to Mass, we are brought to Calvary, and His Blood covers us.  Each time we receive Him worthily in Holy Communion, we are united to His one, eternal sacrifice.

May our eyes be opened to the mystery before us.  May we never grow indifferent to this immense gift.  And may our hearts be filled with reverence and awe for the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world by the shedding of His Blood.