On behalf of myself and my community we welcome all of you who have come to share with us this great celebration and to pray with us.

This will be a different kind of homily. We want to focus on Jesus. How John presents him at the Last Supper. Jesus is now close to 35. He’s coming to the end of his earthly life. His work is coming to an end. And he knows that he= s returning to the Father through the Passion. He can look back at his public life how he was preaching, how he worked miracles, how he instituted the sacraments and pretty much put in place the outline of the church. As he looks back it seems meager to him. How little he seems to have accomplished. People responded selfishly and superficially to his miracles, few or more deeply converted by them. Not too many of them understood his preaching of the kingdom especially when he started to talk about the Father. Not too many were truly committed so that they became disciples. Yet this is in contrast that when he left Mary and went to preach he had an ambition, he wanted to bring the whole world to the Father. He must see that his life looked like a failure. Jesus is clear sighted. He knows where he= s coming from and passionate. So now he wants to fill to the brim these last hours with his flock. He wants to do all that= s humanly possible to round out his work; he even wants to do more. He wants to lay a foundation that will connect his passion and death to the future unfolding of the whole church. So he wants to put fire. He wants to have soul life, light and love in the mission of his church. So that the church is not only nourished but it= s solidly fruitful so that it can continue his mission down through the ages. Jesus chooses clearly, fully, and passionately, basically fills these hours with his words and deeds.

If you read John= s section of the Gospel, you see that this area explodes into the domain of Divine Life so as to ground the future church in grace. That from this night all will flow. All the necessary and more than necessary graces to develop the church down through the ages so that what he said otherwise may be fulfilled enriched and placed on solid rock. He wills these two hours with something twofold: he focuses first on a concluding deed and a concluding word. Both the deed and the word will crown his earthly work. And at the same time will anticipate his future presence in the church. No small ambition for one night= s work. The deed is twofold: the foot washing and the institution of the Eucharist as a sacrificial meal. As we read he strips himself of his outer garments, washes the feet of the disciples. A foot washing. Jesus is trying to communicate something of the mystery of what he= s about. What= s the meaning of the mystery of the Eucharist and the Passion? Disclosing it. He’s making visible what is invisible. Showing something of the true content of both the Eucharist and the Passion.

So when we see Jesus at the feet of these disciples we have to realize that this is at the same time a symbol and an anticipation of the humiliation of the cross. Or at least the suffering. But that particular humiliation, that particular deed, accomplished the forgiveness of sin. My sins, your sins, sins of the whole world down through the ages.

The gift of bread and wine really are the gifts of his flesh and blood poured out. So they also point to the bloody sacrifice of the cross. Therefore, it= s a crowning work of his redemptive love made available to each and every person that believes and comes to receive his presence in the Eucharist.

John has a long section on the last discourses and they are connected to the twofold deed of foot washing and Eucharist. First of all the chapters are a summary of all that Jesus had said during his public life in his teachings. But they are more than that. They are the spiritual side of understanding the Eucharist. Those who want to understand the Eucharist, take out John= s gospel and start reading and meditating on Chapters 14 through and including Chapter 17 and let it come in.

Unlike the synoptic gospels that teach us the sacramental dimensions of the Eucharist, John want to show us the spiritual aspect. And he does a good job. The farewell discourse is really the Eucharist expressed in word. When this word is preached and broken and given to the church assembly the mystery of the Eucharist, the Eucharistic presence of the Lord unfolds in our lives. Whoever hears these words and accepts them lovingly in faith hears more than a lesson about God. He hears the lesson of the Father as the Incarnate Word proclaimed it when he was in the flesh.

These chapters proclaim the Eucharistic presence of the Lord as he’s found in the church today. In the church situation. The vine and the branches. The gifts of the Spirit. The commandment of Love. Read them and you will hear and more much more.

In these Chapter= s of John, Christ is pouring out his love, his infinite love, just as much as the blood and water flows from his side when pierced by the lance. Mystery and grace are abundantly poured out. The mysteries of Holy Thursday.

Finally, Jesus is deeply aware that he= s departing. Like all love he wants to be present to his beloved. So he wants to leave this remembrance, this memorial of his life, for us. In his teaching he lays down a clear foundation of the church and grounds it in this Eucharistic meal which is to remind us of how ordinary and readily available is this grace. So we all live by daily meals. So the church could easily see down through the ages the spiritual and effective presence in its midst. We could easily trace it back to the simple deed, but very profound passionate deed, of the Last Supper. Jesus said: A Do this in remembrance of me.@ Thereby opening the door for continuous enrichment of his redemptive love that teaches, consoles, guides, feeds, cleanses, renews, and transforms you and me. This is what we are about.