Your Holy Thursday Sermon Notes

Were there any good points made during the sermon you heard if you attended the Holy Thursday Mass?

Let us know.

For my part, I spoke briefly, as I am under the weather, about the significance of the Lord going to the Garden of the Oil Press where His crushing under our sins began such that He sweated Blood.  That’s just a taste.

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Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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6 Comments

  1. Josephus Corvus says:

    “There is no use of Christianity without the Eucharist.”

    Also, a nice little story about how when Father was in the seminary, they were having Mass in the 2nd floor chapel when a small earthquake struck. The seminarians all ran outside. When they returned, the priest saying Mass had stayed. He told them that if it was his time to go, what better way than to be with the Lord. The clincher – the priest was a …………. Jesuit!

  2. iPadre says:

    I talked about the priesthood and ontological change. How the priest is not what he does, but who he is. The priest is the presence of Christ in the Christian community. And, because he is priest, there are things that he does, and only he can do, the most important being offering the Sacrifice of the Mass. No priest, no Mass, no Mass, no priest. The priest and the Mass require one another. Pray for priests, pray for vocations.

  3. frjim4321 says:

    This callout is more in outline/theme form; as presented the outline/theme was fleshed out in real time.

    There was not a stand-alone homily for The Mass of The Lord’s Supper, rather for the entire Triduum there was one homily in three parts, a tryptic so-to-speak, following the model of the Triduum as one liturgy with three movements.

    Everytime a story is told there are at least three things going on; (1) there is the story that is intended, (2) there is the story that is told, (3) there is the story that is heard. With respect to the story of Paschal Love, into which we invited through the celebration of the Tridduum, while the unifying story is that of the mission, ministry, teaching, unjust condemnation, torture, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, told in various ways through various testimonies, each of us hear the stories and their calling out to us in our only unique way. And there are many stories within those stories.

    For example, there are three stories that draw us into the mystery of Paschal Love and demonstrate the uniqueness of Paschal Love versus various popular notions of love. For example, among many other possible things, the Triduum is the Story of Three Marys:

    Mary of Bethany, Brother of Lazarus
    Mary of Nazareth, Mother of Jesus
    Mary of Magdala, Apostle to Apostles

    Each of them illustrate facets of Christian Love:

    (M.B.) Service (and washing of feet / Thursday)
    (M.N.) Sacrifice (and the cross / Friday)
    (M.M.) Solidarity (initiation and communion / Vigil)

    Each of these was fleshed out accordingly for example with The Mass of the Lord’s Supper and loving service (Mary of Bethany):
    The washing of John 12 leads and draws into John 13.
    Mary of Bethany laid down the first example of foot washing, and demonstrated
    Various aspects of Christian service:
    Perfume (costly / vulnerability)
    Drying with her hair (tenderness / gentleness – appreciative of dignity)
    Copious tears (passion; willing to go all the way to the cross
    Jesus had brought her brother back to life)

    Echoing Mary of Bethany (which in a limited sense Jesus was doing in John 13) in a moment of either inspiration or foolishness, after I washed the feet of our “washees” I also anointed their feet with balsam paste.

    For The Celebration of the Lord’s Passion and The Easter Vigil, there will be a more elaborate exposition of how the other two Marys demonstrate elements of Paschal Love. For instance:

    Mary of Nazareth (Mother of Jesus): Her sacrificial love from the outset with her foreclosing on any personal hopes and dreams in acquiescence of God’s plan; her sorrows, her witnessing the unjust condemnation, persecution, torture and death of her son; (more) … we can understand our adoration of the cross as standing at the foot of the cross with Mary (and how that is a lens through which to view Jesus suffering as his embrace of all human suffering and sin) …

    With regard to the Vigil; Mary of Magdala as the Apostle to the Apostles, her being the catalyst of the solidarity of the earliest Band of Believers, and notions of belonging/initiation with respect to baptism, especially in light of the three sacraments and our catechcumen Joseph.

    /\/\/\/\/\

    Sorry, I don’t have a text for this, but this is the rough idea/outline … with the unifying theme being how the Story of the Three Marys draws us into Pascal Love, especially with regard to service, sacrifice and solidarity/communion.

  4. Sandy says:

    Our bishop was the celebrant for our parish’s Holy Thursday Mass, so I was “holding my breath” regarding what I would hear in the homily. It was a pleasant surprise that he sounded orthodox, in fact speaking of the institution of both the priesthood and the Eucharist. I am saddened each year when the priesthood is not spoken of on this holy day, perhaps because the feminists have intimidated men so much, that even many priests do not want to emphasize this special role they have. God bless all our priests, and thank you Father Z!

  5. My homily was a continuation of a series throughout Lent on the Holy Mass. I planned for Holy Week to be focused on the Eucharistic Prayer. Thursday night I drilled into the roots of the Sacrifice, both in Passover but also in Mt. Sinai, where it says the elders of Israel climbed the mountain, and “saw God, and ate and drank” the sacrifice. I looked at several parts of the Roman Canon, and pointed out why we proclaim “Mystery of Faith” at right that moment.

    All this prepares for my Easter homily, which picks up with the “Per ipsum” and the “Our Father,” and our reception of communion.

  6. Elizium23 says:

    Our Parochial Vicar preached for Holy Thursday Mass of the Lord’s Supper. He offered quite a unique perspective, and helped us look forward to the next two nights.
    Father said that the “thread” woven through this Triduum celebration has to do with garments. Jesus’ garments are mentioned in three different situations. Tonight, of His own free will, He removes his outer garment to wash the feet of His apostles. Likewise, our pastor will do the same, and wash the feet of twelve men.
    On Good Friday, we hear of Jesus’ crucifixion, where He was stripped of His garments. It is done forcefully and painfully, but it is still His own free will by which He lays down His life for us. Then they divide His garments and cast lots for the tunic. After Christ’s death, He is lovingly taken down, and wrapped in a linen garment from head to toe, through the ministrations of St. Joseph of Arimathea and St. Nicodemus.
    At the Easter Vigil, we will hear of the empty tomb: it is empty of its primary contents, but yet it holds those garments: the burial shroud of His body, and the head-wrapping, both explicitly mentioned, and furthermore, we encounter a young man who greets Mary Magdalene and the other Mary: he is dressed in a splendid white garment!

    Father has a wonderful homiletic gift for identifying themes: themes that are not so obvious, perhaps he reads of them in his research, perhaps he is just this insightful, but it is always marvelous to hear him preach. His homily was delivered in both English and Spanish, with some overlap of content, but not a word-for-word translation.

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