On Holy Thursday, ‘May Our Hearts Be Filled with Gratitude’ for the Holy Eucharist

Peter Ringenberg

What was in Jesus’ heart when He gathered His disciples for His last supper with them? “He loved His own in the world,” John tells us. Jesus loved these 12 men who were His closest followers. He had chosen them three years earlier when He called them “to be with Him,” to stay with Him. They traveled with Jesus, were personally mentored by Him, and learned from His teachings. They witnessed His miracles. They saw Jesus pray and learned from Him how to pray. They ate with Him and shared many conversations. I’m sure they laughed together, like when Jesus gave James and John the nickname “sons of thunder.” They also mourned together, like at the death of Lazarus. They shared joys and sorrows. They were disciples of Jesus, His students, and so called Him Rabbi, Teacher. And, at the Last Supper, Jesus explicitly told them, “I no longer call you slaves … I call you friends.”

St. Luke recorded the following words of Jesus to the disciples at the Last Supper: “I have eagerly desired to eat the Passover with you before I suffer.” In His heart, Jesus was eager to give Himself to them under the appearances of bread and wine, to institute the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. He was also eager to give them a final lesson in discipleship and apostleship by washing their feet. Jesus was eager to share a final meal with His beloved friends, knowing that it was their final time together as a band of brothers with Him. Jesus was focused and resolute on having this supper with them before His suffering and death the next day. We can only imagine the intense emotions Jesus felt in His heart – His human heart filled with affection for His chosen friends, His human heart that beat in perfect harmony with His divine, eternal love.

Peter Ringenberg

Our Lord intimately knew each of His 12 apostles, their strengths and weaknesses, their personalities and temperaments, their vices and their virtues. At times, He had to correct and reproach them. They were imperfect like all of us. And He loves us as He loved them.

Think about the inner circle of Jesus’ apostles, the three who got to witness His transfiguration and who would be with Him later that night in the Garden of Gethsemane: Peter, James, and John. Peter – so bold and yet impulsive, alternating between profound faith. In today’s categories, we’d probably call his a “type A” personality. He would often speak without thinking first, like in the Gospel today when Peter impulsively told Jesus, “You will never wash my feet.” And then, after Jesus told him that he would have no inheritance with Him unless He washed him, Peter excitedly said to Jesus, “Master, then not only my feet, but my hands and head as well.” As he did so often, Jesus had to explain more to Peter, to try to help him to understand – in this case, the meaning of the washing of the feet. So Jesus said to him, “Whoever has bathed has no need except to have his feet washed, for he is clean all over.” Peter would not completely understand this until after Jesus was glorified. Peter and the other apostles had been bathed by accepting and keeping Jesus’ word. They were clean, but not all of them, Jesus said. Our Lord knew that Judas Iscariot was not clean and had the intention to betray Him.

Peter Ringenberg

And what about the other two closest disciples of Jesus, the brothers James and John, the sons of thunder? They especially needed to learn the lesson Jesus taught in the washing of the feet. Like Peter, they had a special gift for leadership, but remember, they were the ones who requested positions of power, to be at the right and left of Jesus in the kingdom. Jesus had to reproach and correct them for their prideful ambition. If they were going to be good and faithful leaders, continuing their Master’s mission, they needed to learn from Jesus’ example in His washing their feet and from His instruction: “If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”

The foot-washing signified the cross. Jesus was teaching the apostles to practice the same kind of self-emptying humility and love that He would show them on the cross. Saint John would remember this. Decades later, in his first letter, John wrote: “The way we came to know love was that he laid down his life for us; so we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.”

Peter Ringenberg

At the Last Supper, Jesus’ heart was filled with profound love for His disciples. He has a profound love for all His future disciples as well, including you and me. That is why He gave us the most amazing gift at the Last Supper, the holy Eucharist. Pope St. Paul VI described the Eucharist as “the outstanding gift of the Heart of Jesus.” Pope St. John Paul II described the Eucharist as the “gift par excellence” and “the heart of the Church.” Why did these two holy popes give such acclaim to the Sacrament of the holy Eucharist? They did so because it is the ultimate expression of Christ’s love. It is the gift of Himself.

Tonight, on the night of the Last Supper, we give special thanks for the gift of Our Lord’s body and blood, offered in sacrifice for the life of the world, for our salvation. It is the gift offered on the wood of the cross, which Jesus anticipated sacramentally on the night He was betrayed, on the night before His crucifixion, when He instituted the holy Eucharist. Every time the Church celebrates the Eucharist, Our Lord’s sacrifice becomes really present and “the work of our redemption is carried out” (Lumen Gentium, No. 3). We are able to take part in Jesus’ sacrifice sacramentally and receive its fruits. At Mass, we also take part in the mystery of Jesus’ resurrection since we receive in holy Communion the living bread from heaven – the body, blood, soul, and divinity of our risen and glorified Lord. The Eucharist is a true banquet in which Jesus gives us Himself as our nourishment. On this holy night, may our hearts be filled with gratitude for this outstanding gift of the Heart of Jesus!

Peter Ringenberg

Peter Ringenberg