Maundy Thursday

April 9, 2009

Homily for the Anglican Usage Mass

of the

St. Thomas More Society

celebrated at

St. Anthony of Padua Roman Catholic Church , 1013 Wood Street

Scranton, PA

John 13:1-15

            In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.  Amen

            My roommate and best friend from college lives in Brooklyn.  For twenty years now, I have traveled to New York City to visit him and explore the Big Apple.  In addition, Kristina’s parents met and married in Queens, and she still has family living in the city.  These two influences in my life have meant that I have been all over our nation’s largest city.  I have seen its tourist attractions, and I have seen its underside.  I learned early on that I could go anywhere in New York if I just acted like I knew where I was going, even when I did not.  Thus, while I have not sought them out, I have not been afraid to enter the “bad neighborhoods”, and in doing so, I have been rewarded with a valuable insight about the Church and her role in the world.

            Much of New York was settled by Catholic immigrants; so Catholic churches are everywhere.  One of the things I noticed early on is that the best kept property in most neighborhoods is the local Catholic Church.  We might find ourselves in a garbage-strewn neighborhood replete with vacant lots and tenements side-by-side, but the Church’s property would be immaculate.  There might be no other grass for twenty-five square blocks, but the church’s miniscule lawn would be trimmed perfectly and lined with planted flowers. This was not always the case, but I encountered it so often that it caused me to reflect on what this phenomenon represented.

            Tonight we celebrate the institution of the Eucharist, the institution of the priesthood, and the washing of the feet.  All three of these point in the same manner to the role of the Church as a sanctifying preserve in the world, and thus point back to these immaculate church properties I have seen all over New York City.

            First, the Holy Eucharist.  St. Paul teaches in tonight’s Epistle that when we receive Holy Communion we proclaim the death of the Lord until He comes.  What this means is that the death of Jesus brought life to the world by the forgiveness of our sins.  When we consume the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, we receive the forgiveness that Jesus’ death accomplished.  Unlike the blood of the lamb that the Jews placed on the doorposts the night of the Passover in Egypt, the Blood of the Lamb of God is more than a symbol.  The Blood of Christ actually accomplishes what it symbolized.  The Blood itself cleanses us from our sins and saves us from death.  Whereas the blood of the Jews’ Passover lambs told God whose lives to preserve, the Blood of Jesus brings life to the world by sanctifying us.  We are not only preserved from death, we are also made holy and thus empowered to proclaim the forgiveness of sins we ourselves have received through the Blood Jesus shed for us.          

            This sanctification of each of us individually is possible only because Jesus gave us more than Holy Communion on the night he was betrayed.  Jesus gave us also the priesthood.  The priesthood is the means by which the sanctifying power of the Holy Eucharist is made available to the faithful.  Therefore, just as the Holy Eucharist is the sanctifying presence of Jesus in the individual; so the priest is the sanctifying presence of Jesus in the world.  Jesus gave us Himself in the flesh by giving us His Body and Blood, but He also gave us Himself in person by giving the Church her priests.

            Through his sacramental office, the priest purifies the world by bringing Jesus to where He is most needed. By virtue of the priesthood, Jesus is not some mere lawgiver who commands and demands holiness of life from His followers. Through the priesthood, Jesus walks side by side with the faithful, encouraging them in their pursuit of purity, while at the same time giving them the means to accomplish the very sanctity they desire.

            Just in case we missed the sanctifying role of the priest in the world and among the faithful, St. John the Evangelist makes it abundantly clear in recounting an episode at the Last Supper that all the three other Gospel authors left out.  As we heard tonight, Jesus washed the feet of the men He had just nourished with His own Body and Blood, the men He had just made priests of the New Covenant in His Blood.  To wash their feet was an explicit act of sanctification.  Jesus said that He was making clean what was unclean, purifying what needed to be purified.  How the episode ends, however, is what is most important as we consider the sanctifying role of the Church in the world.

            Jesus says to them, “If I . . . your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.  For I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.”  We, whose feet are washed by Jesus, are called to do the same to others.  As we have been sanctified, we are to sanctify.  Thus, it is not the role only of the priest to be the sanctifying presence of Jesus in the world, though he has been given this ministry in a special way.  Those whom the priest sanctifies are to sanctify others.

            How do you do this?  You have not been ordained and so have no specific sacramental ministry you can offer.  Yet we must remember that the Church of which we are all members is the Great Sacrament.  So members of Christ’s Body—all of us who have been baptized into the Faith and have partaken of the One Body and One Blood—we bring the sanctity of Jesus to a world defiled by sin and corrupted by the fear of death.  Each of us can stand in the midst of this fallen world and be like the immaculate Church properties I have seen all over New York City.  Where all around us is a slum of terrifying magnitude, our sanctity stands out in contrast to the ugliness and injects the beauty of holiness into an unclean neighborhood.

            We must be sure, therefore, that all that we say and do reflects the beauty of holiness the world so desperately needs.  To do this we can clean up our language and do this by purifying our thoughts.  We must guard our chastity jealously, not only by not sinning, but also by being sure we do not adorn ourselves in a manner that might lead others to sin.  The material we ingest, in terms of what we watch on television or read in books and periodicals should tend towards greater sanctity, and we should not fail to monitor closely our conversation and the images we project.  Very simply, our manner of life should be as beautiful as the Holy Eucharist, as beautiful as the priesthood, as lovely as the sight of our Lord washing the feet of his Apostles.

            If we are to fulfill the sanctifying role of the Church in the world, the way we live must be as obvious and beautiful as the oases I have found in the ghettoes of New York. And, if you cannot imagine that, consider the beautiful vestments I wear at every Mass.  They reflect the beauty of holiness all of us are to put on as we go forth to sanctify the world.