Holy Thursday

 Holy Thursday 

6 April 2023

 

Tonight we celebrate a night unlike any other in the history of the universe.

 

Paul described the reason for that uniqueness in his First Letter to the Corinthians

when he wrote of how Jesus took bread, broke it, and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”  And how He then took the cup and said: 
“This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this in remembrance of me.”

 

Hoc facite in meam commemorationem

 

“Do this in memory of me.”

 

We will hear those words shortly at the end of the consecration recalling, in a particular way, that Passover meal two millennia in the past. 

 

With this Mass we begin an unbroken liturgy of fifty hours during which the sign of the cross, the sign that signifies the beginning and end of all liturgies, will not be made again until the final blessing at the vigil Mass on Saturday night.  

 

During these three days we enter into a liturgy of silence, a unique and special silence, that is more than simply the absence of external sound. It is a silence that is, in fact,  enhanced and deepened by sound.  The chant. The prayers. The sounds of movement as we stand, sit, and even the occasional cough create the silence of this triduum.  

 

During these three days we ideally enter into an internal silence as well, a silence in which we push the gotta’, wanna’, haveta’, internal conversations to the side.  We enter into a silence of not thinking ahead or behind but a silence of remaining in the present moment. It is a Triduum of silence:  the silence following Jesus’ agony in the garden, the silence of the sealed tomb, and the silence described in Holy Saturday’s second reading in the breviary 

 

“Something strange is happening—there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep.”

 

Enter into the silence.  Embrace it.  Allow it to envelop you.  It is the silence described  by Robert Cardinal Sarah of Guinea who wrote in his book, The Power of Silence,  "Silence is not an absence.  On the contrary, it is the manifestation of a presence, the most intense of all presences." Remain with that presence over the next three days. Remain there to prepare for the great celebration of Our Lord’s Resurrection.