Posted on 04/02/2015 8:32:52 AM PDT by Salvation
The Last Supper is, strangely, a sad study in the kind of affliction the Lord had to endure from His own disciples. Of all the meals the Lord must have shared with them, this was the one that should have gone beautifully and perfectly; it did not. From one moment to the next the blows just got worse. There were inept responses, distractions, bullheaded debates, and rebukes directed against Jesus … and then of course betrayal. It was nothing short of a disaster. The ineptitude would be almost comical if it weren’t so sad. If ever the Lord needed His disciples’ attention and understanding, it was at the Last Supper. But to a man, they let Him down. There was squabbling, misunderstanding, argumentativeness, and betrayal, all packed into one evening.
I am mindful that the unleavened bread Jesus took in His hands that evening was called “the bread of affliction.” Scripture says, You shall eat [the Passover] with unleavened bread, the bread of affliction—for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste—that all the days of your life you may remember the day when you came out of the land of Egypt (Dt 16:3).
Indeed it was an evening of affliction! It was so awful that one could hardly have faulted the Lord for saying, “That’s it, Father. I’ve had it with them; I’m coming straight home!” Praise God that He chose to stay and die for the likes of us. And further, He takes this “bread of affliction” we dish out to Him and lifts it to the glory of the Sacrament of His Body and Blood.
Lest we be too critical of The Twelve, remember that we are often like them in many ways. Indeed, they are we and we are they. And the Lord loved both them and us to the end.
So on Holy Thursday, let’s examine the sequence of events at the Last Supper. It illustrates pretty well why the Lord had to die for us. We will see how earnest the Lord is about this Last Supper, how He enters it with an intense love for His disciples and a desire that they (we) heed what He is trying to teach them. We shall see, however, that they (we) show forth a disastrous inattentiveness and a terrible lack of concern for the Lord.
Here, then, are the movements of the Last Supper. Watch how things begin with the loving and careful attentiveness of the Lord and end with a selfish, inept, and unloving response from the Apostles (us?).
What a grim picture of us the Last Supper was! A disaster, really. But the glory of the story and the saving grace is this: the Lord Jesus Christ went to the Cross anyway. Seeing this terrible portrait of them (us), can we really doubt the Lord’s love for us?
May your Holy Thursday be blessed. I hope you will attend Mass and the Last Supper/First Mass will be made present to you. Never forget what Jesus endured!
Monsignor Pope Ping!
I really like the painting. A much more realistic representation than most of what a meal in Biblical times would have really looked like.
Rather Jesus by His last supper, agony in the garden, passion, death, and ressurection WILL, and HE WILL, OVERCOME the HATRED of this world.
a great Holy Thursday reflection, thank you!
Excellent article. One of Msgr. Pope’s best.
Thanks.
Ping
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