Scripture Reflections for Holy Thursday

“taking the Blessed Sacrament out of the church in procession is a statement of the belief that the church is there to serve the world. That Christ came for all people, not just catholic and Christians. This liturgical celebration, like all good liturgy, mirrors the service of the church to the world.”

“The sacrament of love is also sacrament of death – Christ’s death through which we come to a new life in the love which is the Holy Spirit, in which we shall live for eternity”

“The Eucharist is the moment now, now in the middle of things, we purposely bring the energy of both beginning and end to now that we might have the courage, energy, the conviction to make our way through this present moment. That's why we celebrate the Corpus Christ”

“Christ serves so that we can be more fully servants as he is, because with God, lordship and service are one”

“It is in becoming like Jesus as part of his body that our natural response to each other should be one of love, and that means serving each other even at risk to ourselves”

“When all your body parts move, function, and generally make it possible for you to live, it is hard to fully appreciate what a gift God gives us in being able go about the business of living every day”

“Consider then what Jesus shows us by washing feet. It is not just about being the recipient. It is the measure of how we are to love, of how we are to live now.”

“Jesus takes the place of the lowliest servant and washes the disciples’ feet. Not because they are worthy, but because they are dirty”

“Christ is the way, but we must make him our way. We have to make the journey that he makes possible for us our own in freedom.”

“Our God, THE GOD, because of his love for all of us (outcast, saint, or ordinary person in the pew) deliberately chose to experience death on a cross so that we may live forever.”

“When we contemplate our concerns for this world, we need to reflect on our service to others. Are we so caught up in financial outcomes, the laurels of work, and a competitive society that we lose the message of love, freely given by our God, that Jesus taught us to model? Do we encourage service to others?”

“Obedient, loving service –that was Jesus’ understanding of His Passion. That’s how He would save the world from the rebellious pride of sin. That’s what the washing of the feet proclaimed!”

“when Christ saves us he doesn’t just return us to the state we were in before sin. On the contrary, he elevates our human natures so that we conformed to God”

“Our small acts of kindness, our gestures of humility and our patient service of one another are now sanctified by Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit”

“He would empty himself of His divine majesty and glory and become a servant, obedient to the shameful death on the cross. We, like Jesus, have been called to serve God and each other.”

“As Peter’s surprise at Jesus’ teaching demonstrates, sometimes being open to being served is more difficult than serving. True relationship and connection happens when the service goes both ways. Everyone has something to offer.”

“There is no other way of preaching the Gospel to the multitudes than by passing through the dust and mess of the world in which they are; you cannot love and keep your feet clean. You cannot love and save your life. Sacrifice and fruitfulness are bound up together; they cannot be separated at any stage.”

“religion is also about the need for us to make gifts to the divine, to make offerings which are visible and tangible and precious, and which express our devotion and our love, sacrifices that are channels of a communion between the human and the divine”

“Christ’s death, which we commemorate in the Eucharist, was a self-offering to the Father, a sacrifice to fulfil all sacrifices, offered out of love, to overcome sin and the disunity that follows from it. It was the supreme instance of that love which by word and example he had commanded us to have.”

“human pride is undone by the humility of God. Jesus’ way of humility and service finally shows us what love is.”

“Jesus washing his disciples’ feet leaves this message: It’s more important to be in union in Christ and each other than to be liturgically, aesthetically, and politically correct. What the Eucharist asks of us, among other things, is to acquiesce to each other, to give up our right to be right!”

“that love we have for each other is God’s love within us. It cannot be destroyed. It takes us through suffering and death to a new life in Christ, and to eternal friendship with all those who share his vision, a vision beyond human evil, a vision of that divine goodness which desires to make its home in every human heart”

“the Eucharist is not a private act of devotion, meant to square our debts with God, but a call to and a grace for service. The Eucharist is meant to send us out into the world ready to give expression to Christ’s hospitality, humility, and self-effacement.”

“As the Passover was the meal that marked the transition from slavery to Egypt to the freedom of the Exodus, so the Eucharist is the meal that marks the transition from slavery to sin to the glorious freedom of the children of God”

“When Jesus washes the feet of his disciples he acts out a kind of prophetic sign or sacrament of his whole life and mission. He is the sacrificial Lamb of God.”

“If we want to know what our new life in Christ looks like, we look at the Cross”

“Love is the power which originally created the world and it is love which will establish it afresh in its original goodness”

“To refuse another person’s act of love, no matter how small, is to refuse Christ’s love. We are accustomed to seeing the face of Christ in others that we serve, but it is difficult sometimes to see Christ’s face in those who wish to serve us.”

“One option offered by our sacred scriptures is the economy of kinship which others have called an economy of sharing”

“If he loved us to the bitter end of his passion and death, then we must love one another, because it is precisely through such love that we shall be alive with the new life which he has won for us”