Sunset

Our blessing-cup is a communion with the Blood of Christ.
How shall I make a return to the Lord
for all the good he has done for me?
The cup of salvation I will take up,
and I will call upon the name of the Lord.
--1 Cor 10:16 and Psalm 116:12-13

Today, as I walked to the parking lot at the end of my last class for the evening, the sun was setting. It was just meeting the horizon, taking on the blood red hue that appears in the last minutes before it passes out of sight.

The irony in the symbolism of the moment was enough to make me snicker a little.

We made it; after all the waiting we've done, the Easter Triduum is upon us. It seemed to arrive more quickly this year, at least for me. Perhaps my anticipation made Lent seem less difficult than it's been in years past.

Tonight, the readings hearken back to what are, for me, two of the most astounding scenes in Jesus' ministry: the washing of the discples' feet, and of course, the Last Supper.

What makes these events so special is paradoxical because they are so ordinary and normal. This is the Son of God that kneels before his sinful, prideful, foolish friends to wash the dirt from their feet. If anything, they probably should have been washing His, but even if they had offered, He likely would have refused. He was not only our Lord, but our Servant as well, just as our faith asks us to be--servants to our brothers through our common humanity. That in itself is an incredible mystery, one that I must admit baffles me. Christ was God Incarnate in every sense, yet...fully man. Just like us. Such a simple act of service, humility and compassion only underscores that point.

Then, of course, there was the Last Supper, when Jesus sat at table with these same sinners and gave them not only bread and wine to share, but the incredible gift of Himself. For the first time, He presented them with His Body and Blood--again, freely given, with nothing asked of Him. All He asked of them, and us, was to remember Him in partaking of that same meal. The only difference is that now that He is gone from us in the flesh, the meal we share in the Mass, while still humble, exalts Him. Unlike the Last Supper, we now know without question what it is receive.

"This is My Body," He tells us. Who are we to deny that truth, the reality of His Presence in those gifts? Who are we to question His words, both spoken then and revealed as written by St. John, just as Christ repeated the truth so insistently? Furthermore, He says, "If you do not eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man, you have no life in you." Jesus didn't joke about things that grave.

So tonight we lift Him up for adoration one last time, before the table is cleared and stripped bare, and our hymns, like the ones sung that night by Jesus and the Twelve, fall silent.

In a mystical way, the Mass transcends time. We're not just reenacting this. We're there. And now we follow Him to Calvary.