Holy Thursday Mass of the Lord’s Supper 2026
Cathedral of Mary Our Queen
April 2, 2026
I. With the Eyes of Love
A. On Palm Sunday, following the lead of Pope Benedict XVI,
I reflected on the extravagance of God’s love in creating and redeeming us.
The God who is love expended himself
in calling us into being and in saving us from our sins.
On this Holy Thursday, this Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper,
permit to extend that reflection
in the hope of shedding light on the mystery we are celebrate tonight,
and on our very lives as followers of the Crucified.
B. In the Gospel of John we read that Jesus,
‘knowing that the “hour” of his death was approaching,
loved his own in the world, and that he loved them to the end.’
What does it mean?
C. Surely it has something to do with the depth and quality of his love.
Jesus’ love for his disciples was absolute,
untainted by self-interest, love in its purest form.
But even that does not do it justice.
Jesus’ love was pure but also passionate:
a combination of agape and eros that could only emanate
from the fiery center of the God who is love.
D. And because Jesus is “God from God and light from light,” his love is enduring.
It is a love that will more that survive
the ignomy of the Cross and the ignomy of our sins.
The Psalmist never tires of repeating, “His love is everlasting!”
Jesus loved his disciples with an enduring love.
Love without limit. Love without beginning or without end.
This is how Jesus loved the apostles seated at table with him.
E. And let us be clear. Jesus knew what was unfolding.
Judas would betray him. Peter would deny him.
The others, save John the beloved disciple, would flee.
Even so, Jesus “loved them to the end.”
Looking round the table, he gazed at them with the eyes of love,
the same eyes of love that delivered the Jewish people
from the slavery of Egypt to the freedom of the promised land,
the same eyes of love that opened the eyes of the blind man,
brought peace and forgiveness to the woman caught in adultery,
the same eyes of love that wept at the death of his friend Lazarus,
then raised him from the dead.
Thus does he gaze upon his disciples, seeing what only one who loves can see.
He looks beyond betrayal, denial, and fear
and sees the foundation of the Church that will be born from his wounded side.
No one but Jesus, “this tremendous lover”, could have seen this.
II. Memorial of Love
A. And how could a love this deep, this expansive, this enduring
be reduced to a single moment in time or a fleeting sentiment?
That is why, in the midst of a sacred meal,
Jesus hands the disciples broken bread that is his Body,
and the outpoured chalice that is his blood,
the blood of the new and everlasting covenant for the forgiveness of sins.
B. At that moment in time, the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist,
the heart of the Church, her source and summit, came into being.
It brought to fulfillment all the sacrifices of the God’s Chosen People,
especially the blood of the paschal lamb
by which they were spared death and delivered from slavery to freedom.
It encapsulated the immeasurable love
by which God the Father would give away his beloved Son to ransom us,
the immeasurable love by Jesus would lay down his life for us & our salvation.
In the simplicity of bread and wine transformed,
‘love to the very end’ was captured for all time – reaching even ourselves!
Thus do we partake, no less than the apostles in the Cenacle
of the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus, crucified and risen.
As the Fathers of the Church often said,
“God does not reckon his gifts by the measure.”
III. Love Alone Understands
A. Did the Apostles understand? And do we? Only if we love.
Love alone knows. Love alone understands.
Otherwise, as a poet said,
‘we shall look upon the consecrated Host with unconsecrated eyes.’
If we do not love, the Host is little more than a piece of bread,
perhaps a reminder of the Christ,
but not “the living bread come down from heaven”!
We understand only when we love the Christ who loved us first
and only when, like him, we lay down our lives for others.
B. That is why Christ bent down and washed his disciples’ feet:
to ensure that their love for him would not be merely an idea or a feeling,
but a way of life shaped, enlivened, molded by “love to the very end”.
That is why tonight I will repeat what our Redeemer’s humble gesture:
to manifest the love at the heart of the Eucharist and the Priesthood.
When Jesus says to his Apostles and to every priest until the end of time,
“Do this in memory of me” – he is not merely commanding us
to repeat a ritual that he inaugurated at the Last Supper.
He is asking us to perpetuate in Word, in Sacrament, and in our lives,
love without limit, love without beginning or end,
love that transforms us from sin to grace and from grace to glory.
C. This night the altar is laid bare for the celebration of Christ’s Passion & Death.
As Jesus retreats to the Garden to suffer the agony of our sins,
let us keep watch with him, perhaps even for an hour,
and in those moments of eucharistic adoration,
let praise and thanksgiving well up in our hearts,
to him who loves us ‘to the very end’,
and who lives and reigns with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, forever and ever. Amen.