Holy Thursday
Reflection
According to scripture, the night before he died Jesus shared a meal with his friends. During the meal, he broke the bread and shared it and also shared the cup of wine with them. He asked that whenever they did this they would remember him. This has become the primary Christian sacrament and it is based in food and the practice Jesus had during his public life of shared inclusive meals. Jesus embodied inclusivity. We become one body. The Eucharist is about shared food and inclusivity. It is about becoming one with Christ and one in Christ; it is about spiritual food for the journey, and it is about participating in Jesus’ passion for a different kind of world.
Adapted from Speaking Christian
Prayer
May we become the Body of Christ.
Action
What does it mean to be the “Body of Christ”? How inclusive are we as a Christian people? What does it mean for you?
Suggested Reading
He took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to them, and said, “Take; This my body.” Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks, he gave it to them and all of them drank from it. He said to them, ”This is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many.”
Mark14:22 – 24
The great challenge today is to convert the sacred bread into real bread, the liturgical peace into political peace, the worship of the Creator into reverence for the creation, the Christian praying community into an authentic human fellowship. It is risky to celebrate the Eucharist. We may have to leave it unfinished, having gone forst to give back to the poor what belongs to them.
Raimondo Panikkar
For the early Christians, the empowerment activated through the practice of commensality regenerated a whole new sense of what it means to belong to the household. It entails an all-embracing inclusiveness, devoid of class distinctions, ethnicity, purity regulations, or social status. But it also embraces a cosmic, planetary world view that cries out for global justice, so that all can avail themselves of the abundance with which God endows the creative universe.
Diarmuid O’Murchu
We thank you for Jesus of Nazareth who loved greatly and taught so clearly and courageously that he was able to set people free…We remember the night before he died, when he took bread, gave you thanks for everything he had, broke the bread and shared it with his friends asking them to remember his total surrender to you and his enduring love for each of them. Likewise, he shared the cup of wine with them…Jesus died into your loving embrace. We are thankful that his story grounds our belief in our own eternal, loving connected ness with you.
Michael Morwood
For even as our bodily food is changed into our substance, so the Holy Eucharist transforms us into Jesus Christ.
St. John Baptist de la Salle
There is a communion of more than our bodies when bread is broken and wine drunk.
M. F. K. Fisher