Msgr. Thomas Gervasio
What a contrast we find on Holy Thursday! On a night marked by his betrayal, denial, and abandonment, Our Lord is lavish in His love! He gives to his apostles and to the Church the gift of the Holy Eucharist. The Passover table of the Old Covenant becomes the Christian altar of the New Covenant. From this altar we receive Jesus Himself under the form of bread and wine. Yet, we celebrate and receive the Eucharist with such regularity or so routinely we might ask, “What more do we need to know or understand?”The Lord’s love does not end there. This extraordinary gift comes through the priesthood whose institution we celebrate today. It is a day for priests to renew their commitment and love for their vocation as well as a day for the faithful to renew their appreciation for this sacred gift.“When you begin to understand the Eucharist…you will begin to comprehend the depths of my love for you. Look at the Host…a wafer of bread. Never were appearances so deceiving! The host is myself…healer of lepers, giver of sight…he who wept at Lazarus’ grave, who asked drink of the Samaritan woman…who forgave the adulteress…the Teacher, the Savior…Can you think of a better way for me to give you spiritual sustenance? Do you not see the love that prompts your God…how zealously I work to bring you close to me? To give myself to you…I had to make myself unlike you. I hid myself under the likeness of common food because I did not want you to shrink from coming to me. When I come to you in the Eucharist…I am in you! You are in me! In the Eucharist we become one flesh. You work …not alone, but I work in you. You serve others…not alone…I serve in you. You suffer, …not alone, but I suffer in you. You adore with me; you give thanks with me; you love with me; you live now, not yourself…but I live in you!”
Let us pray that every priest reveal faithfully in his ministry—the Lord Jesus.“The priest is not there as a private person but stands in the place of Christ. What is merely private, merely individual about him should disappear and make way for Christ. ‘It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.’ These words of St. Paul, in which he describes the newness of every baptized person, apply in the special way to the priest. It is not himself who is important, but Christ. It is not he himself whom he is communicating to me, but Christ. He makes himself the instrument of Christ.”
Yet from the cross we receive nothing but love. It is found in the seven amazing utterances of Christ. The cross became a pulpit from which we hear a sermon of divine love.My people, what have I done to you?
How have I grieved you? Answer me.
I exalted you with great power
and you hung me on the scaffold of the cross.
Were every realm of nature mine,
My gift would still be far too small:
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.
Msgr. Thomas Gervasio
What is Easter? It is a day different from all others, a day absolutely new, the day in which a tomb was found inexplicably empty. St. John records very precisely that going into the tomb of Jesus they found “the burial cloths there, and the cloth that had covered his head, not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place.”
This fact, alone, however does not reveal the complete news of Easter. In fact, not only was the tomb found empty, but Jesus appeared alive, with a transfigured body, immune from the suffering and pain. Mary of Magdala saw him and spoke to him. The apostles also saw him, spoke to him, ate with him, touched his transfigured body and from that moment, they became witnesses of our Easter faith.
Not only this. The Risen Christ appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus and the fierce persecutor became a disciple faithful to the point of martyrdom. The Risen Christ spoke to St. Francis of Assisi in the tiny church of San Damiano and the frivolous youth became a great charismatic disciple of peace, goodness and humility. The Risen Lord would return to speak to Francis years later, and impressed on his body the stigmata, the wounds of his passion, as an authentic sign of that encounter. Closer to our time, the same occurred in St. Pio of Pietrelcina (Padre Pio) as he prayed before the crucifix. He would bear the stigmata for fifty years until his death in 1968. The Risen Christ spoke to Mother Teresa of Calcutta—an encounter that set in motion the great apostolate of the Missionaries of Charity.
What does all this mean? It means that because of Our Lord’s Resurrection, our human life does not end with death, but that we are destined for another life. It means that history is not definitively in the hands of the bullies and liars of this world. The Risen Lord will return and will judge the living and the dead.
This is the great comfort and assurance of our Christian faith. What is important in the eyes of God is that we enter into this new life through our goodness, our charity, purity of heart, being victorious over our egoism, conquering our vices with virtue. God offers us the grace to realize this.
The great gift is baptism itself. This was the moment we began this new life. Our challenge is to be faithful to our baptismal promises. This life is then nourished through the Eucharist. It is renewed through Penance and Reconciliation.
On the glory of this Easter Day, let us with gratitude and love profess our baptismal promises to keep vigorous and enthusiastic our “yes” to the gift of the Risen Christ so that our Christian life be renewed and flourish.