Hey Ya’ll,

This day, Holy Thursday, marks the end of the penitential season of Lent and the beginning of the Triduum – those three days in which, by remembering, we celebrate the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God. But this is also the day when, at our liturgy, we are mandated to imitate Jesus’ humility. This mandatum is demonstrated to us through the remembrance of Jesus, the Christ, washing his disciple’s feet. Fr. Reynold and Fr. Philip will wash the feet of 12 members of our community, thus making a pledge of service and humility in serving our community. And we must likewise embrace humility and serve God and our neighbors.

This day, our liturgical prayer also remembers Jesus’ last Passover supper with his disciples, in which He expands all that we remember. At Passover, God’s people remember God’s grace by which the Hebrew nation was freed from slavery. At His last supper, Jesus reveals a truth that will be only understood after His resurrection. For his resurrection is a new freedom from the slavery of sin and sin’s consequence, which is death. And Jesus feeds us for the first time and forever with a new supper, a new covenant, after His resurrection. The resurrected, glorified Savior of all who are fallen feeds us his own Body and Blood. We remember all of that on this night and at this Mass of the Lord’s Supper.

Finally, we remember, in anticipation, the suffering of the passion of the Christ, which is celebrated tomorrow on Good Friday, so we leave from tonight’s liturgy without a final blessing. We process with the Body of Christ to a place where the Body of Christ will repose, waiting for the celebrations to come, Good Friday, Holy Saturday and the great Easter Vigil, and the glory of Easter morning. On that morning, our greeting must be “He is risen. He is risen indeed.”

We hope you will join us tonight and all throughout the Triduum and Easter celebrations.

God bless you and yours,

Fr. Reynold