Abbot Brendan OSB
“On the night he was betrayed”, this is how St Paul names this night in his first letter to the Corinthians and it is a phrase repeated in all the Eucharistic Prayers of the Church. This is the night of betrayal, the night of non-recognition, the night of abandonment by the disciples. It is in this context of our betrayal that Jesus gives us the gift of the Eucharist, his everlasting covenant of fidelity and love. We should embrace in all its scandalous truth the context in which the gift of the Eucharist was bestowed upon us.
On the night he was betrayed, on the night when the covenant is broken, Jesus celebrates the new and eternal covenant. The Eucharist was gifted on this night not because it was the last night before his arrest, but because it was the night when Jesus underwent exactly what we human beings are capable of: betrayal, denial and abandonment.
It is clear from all the gospels that Jesus wanted to share this final meal with his disciples. He planned it carefully, sent his disciples ahead to prepare it, and when the hour came, he declared: “I have longed to eat this Passover with you”. Jesus wanted his disciples not only to eat and drink, in a context of prayer and liturgy, but he wanted above all, through this bread and wine, to celebrate the new covenant.
The Eucharistic table, our altar, is not defined by our being righteous or unrighteous: there were no worthy people with Jesus at the Last Supper. However, Jesus in that very context took bread saying: ‘This is my body given up for you’. At the Last Supper Jesus broke the bread for the apostles who abandoned him, denied him and even betrayed him.
During his life on earth, he had broken bread with his friends in Bethany; he had broken bread in the homes of public sinners; he had broken bread with the crowds who came to him and understood little of what he said and did. The truth is that Jesus broke bread with all sorts of people and all of them were sinners!
St Paul goes on to remind us that there is also a second rite: “In the same way … he took the chalice, saying: ‘This is the new covenant in my blood. Every time you drink from it, do this in memory of me”. That cup, thanks to the word of Jesus, contains his blood, and that blood is the new covenant, the mystery of faith.
The Lord Jesus offered this covenant to everyone: to those who betrayed him, to Peter who denied him, to the disciples who were without the courage of their convictions. These were Jesus’ guests at the Last Supper, just as we are his guests here this evening. We may well ask ourselves, am I one of the disciples who abandoned Jesus. Yet what St Paul asks of us is very different. Paul asks that we ‘recognise the body of Christ’. In his letter to the Corinthians, ‘body’ carries two meanings: the body of the Lord in the bread and wine and the body of the Lord in the community. To help us with this recognition on this unique evening the Church gives us a third ritual, that of the washing of the feet. This too comes with a command, “Do as I have done to you”.
Eucharist means thanksgiving. On this most holy night, let us be thankful that we, though sinners, are numbered among the guests at this Supper of the Lord. Let us be thankful for this new covenant and let us be thankful for the mystery of faith.