My heart is filled with joy to be with all of you on this holy night when we celebrate that supper that our Lord celebrated with His Apostles on the night before He died. What a great blessing it is for us to come together tonight and recall the blessings that continue to flow from that event. In a special way, this Mass is our opportunity to celebrate two great gifts God has given to the Church: the priesthood and the Eucharist. These gifts are intimately linked together.
When pondering the events of the Last Supper, I am struck by how wise God was in giving us His gifts in the context of a meal. When we gather for meals, it is about more than just sharing food. Meals are a place where we grow in relationships. Around the table our bonds with those we love are strengthened. There is a beautiful movie called Babette’s Feast which illustrates this very thing. It won the 1988 Academy award for best foreign language film.
If you haven’t seen this movie before, I have to warn you that it isn’t in English. But if you can handle the subtitles, definitely give it a watch. The movie follows a French woman named Babette who is forced to flee as a refugee to a small Danish town. She becomes the cook for a pair of elderly women. Her amazing cooking skills soon make her a well known person amongst the villagers.
Every year, a friend from Paris sends her a lottery ticket, and one year she wins. But instead of using the money to go back to Paris and live a comfortable life, Babette decides to use it to create a marvelous feast for the people of the village.
Babette invites the townspeople and a local military general to a French style multi-course feast. She puts so much care into every detail, and as you are watching each glorious part of the meal being prepared and served, you can almost smell the food through the screen! She serves them soup, pastries, roasted bird, fine wine, champagne, fresh fruit, cheese and a bundt cake that looks absolutely incredible! Throughout the feast you see the care and attention that Babette takes to make it special–how she puts all the ingredients together thoughtfully and with an artist’s hand; how she sets the table so that it is gorgeous and inviting. It is inspiring to watch.
You see how Babette is able to express her love through the marvelous gift of this feast. The villagers and the general are literally brought to life through the experience. They start out the meal very rigidly, because their puritan-style beliefs indicate that they shouldn’t enjoy food too excessively. But by the end of the meal, the general makes a heartfelt and moving toast, and the villagers leave the feast in joyous song.
The feast in this movie is a true gesture of love from Babette to these people with whom she has become so close. Even though she had become rich, the most important thing for her was to lavish those riches in a generous way on the people she loved. She simply enjoyed the privilege of being able to serve them in an excellent way. Through her abundant generosity, those who attend the feast are transformed by it.
You can probably see why I have this movie on my mind on a night like tonight. Brothers and sisters, we are blessed because we gather around the table of this altar to experience the most lavish feast this world has ever seen. Jesus, our Savior, on the night before His death, chose to give us everything because of His love. In this feast that He instituted on the night before He died, our Lord gave us the gift of being able to feed on His very own self. What an incredible gift this continues to be for all who approach this altar in faith.
Throughout the almost two-thousand years that the Catholic Church has existed, this feast has continued. Down through the ages, it has fed the souls of kings and servants, rich and poor, saints and sinners. Jesus, with His power, has consistently fed the Church with the fullness of who He is, giving all who receive Him with open hearts the ability to become more than they ever thought they could. I have been so blessed personally to receive the Eucharist consistently in my life. Jesus has strengthened me and walked with me on my best days and my worst days. I can’t imagine life without the Eucharist!
The Church calls the Eucharist the Source and the Summit of our faith because in it we receive Jesus Himself, who is the never-ending Source of abundant life. And at the same time, in receiving the Eucharist, we experience the Summit of our lives–a taste of the Heavenly banquet feast which we hope to join in when our earthly journey is done. Everything flows from Jesus as our Source in the Eucharist and everything returns to Jesus as our Summit in the Eucharist.
In order to make sure that the Church would always have this priceless feast, Jesus set aside the Apostles at the Last Supper to fulfill His command to “do this in memory of me.” In the Old Testament, priests were set aside to offer sacrifice by rituals of washing. So now Jesus washes the feet of his Apostles, setting them apart for a new type of priesthood connected to the Sacrifice of the Eucharist. He reminds them: “Do you realize what I have done for you? You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘master,’ and rightly so, for indeed I am. If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”
There are multiple layers of meaning at work here. On one level, Jesus is showing them that they are being set apart as priests through the washing of their feet. Also, He is indicating the type of priests they are called to be–not ones who lord their authority over others, but who use their authority for humble service. Washing of feet was a job done by the servants of a household. People’s feet in those days would get nasty by walking through dirt, dust, mud and Heaven knows what else. So Jesus bowing down to wash the Apostles’ feet was also a sign of profound humility. In this gesture of foot-washing, Jesus reveals the nature of the new priesthood He is instituting: a priesthood modeled on the humble service that He poured out in His life.
Like the villagers were uplifted by sharing in Babette’s feast, we are unimaginably blessed by sharing in the feast of the Eucharist tonight and every time we gather for Mass. As a priest, I lay down my life above all for what happens at this altar. I am humbled to share in that priesthood which Jesus began at the Last Supper and which has been passed down through the ages for the service of the Church. I am in awe of the fact that Jesus has chosen me to be an instrument of His to make Him present in this feast. Please pray for me and all priests that we would humbly follow the Lord’s command to wash the feet of those we serve. All of our priestly duties involve humbly allowing Jesus to work through us to bring His abundant grace and new life to you: through the amazing feast of the Eucharist, in the powerful Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation by which we receive the saving grace of God and are filled with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, in the healing sacraments of Reconciliation and anointing of the Sick, and in the witnessing of the Sacrament of marriage which builds families and helps couples share in the love of Jesus for the Church. Praise God for the life of humble service He calls us to as priests!
And know that these gifts of Jesus, the Eucharist and the priesthood, would be meaningless without all of you. The beauty of a feast is that there is someone to prepare it and others to enjoy it. You need both! That is the beautiful thing about the Church. God calls us as priests to serve you so that you can be built up to go and serve others! We work together. I am blessed to share this amazing gift of the priesthood with all of you. I pray that as we work together, all that we do can be directed toward the joy of loving God and loving our neighbors as ourselves, washing each other’s feet as Jesus commands. Thank you, Jesus, for the Eucharist and the priesthood which You have given to help us live Your life!
+ Father, thank you for this night. Thank you for sending your Son who has given us such great gifts! Thank you, Jesus, for blessing us with the amazing food of your Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity! Thank you for calling me and my brother priests to serve your Church. Give us all we need to serve humbly and well, so that all we do might help people encounter You. Thank you, Holy Spirit, for opening our hearts to the abundant life available to us in the Eucharist. Help us to always stay close to Jesus in the Eucharist. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen. +