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from Briefing 30 ( 2000) no 4, 12 April, pp 27 -
31
On 30 March 2000, the Holy See published the annual Holy Thursday
letter of Pope John Paul II to priests. His reflections on the Eucharist events
of the Last Supper are inspired by his visit to the Holy Land; the letter was
addressed from the Upper Room in Jerusalem.
My
dear brother priests!
1.
Jesus, ‘having loved his own who were in the world, loved them to the
end’ (Jn 13 :1). Here in Jerusalem, in the place where according to
tradition Jesus and the twelve were present for the Passover meal and the
institution of the Eucharist, I am deeply moved as I read once again the words
with which the Evangelist John introduces the account of the Last Supper.
I
give praise to the Lord for enabling me, in this Jubilee year of the
incarnation of his Son, to trace the earthly footsteps of Christ, following the
paths which he took from his birth in Bethlehem to his death on Golgotha.
Yesterday I spent time in Bethlehem, in the cave of the Nativity. In the days
to come I will visit various places associated with the life and ministry of
the Saviour, from the house of the Annunciation to the Mount of the Beatitudes
and the Garden of Olives. Finally on Sunday I will be at Golgotha and the Holy
Sepulchre.
Today, this visit to the Upper Room gives me an opportunity to survey the
entire mystery of the redemption. It was here that Christ gave us the immense
gift of the Eucharist. Here too our priesthood was born.
A
letter from the Upper Room
2.
From this Upper Room I would like to address this letter to you, as I have done
for more than twenty years, on Holy Thursday, the day of the Eucharist and
‘our’ day par excellence.
I am
indeed writing to you from the Upper Room, thinking back to all that took place
within these walls on that evening charged with mystery. Spiritually, I see
Jesus and the Apostles seated at table with him. I think of Peter especially:
it is as if I can see him, with the other disciples, watching in amazement the
Lord’s actions, listening with deep emotion to his words and, for all the
burden of his frailty, opening himself to the mystery proclaimed here and soon
to be accomplished. These are the hours of the great battle between the love
which gives itself without reserve and the mysterium iniquitatis which
is imprisoned in hostility. The betrayal of Judas appears emblematic of
humanity’s sin. ‘It was night’, observes the Evangelist John
(13:30): the hour of darkness, an hour of separation and of infinite sadness.
Yet in the emotion-filled words of Christ the light of dawn already shines
forth: ‘I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will
take your joy from you’ (Jn 16:22).
3. We
must never cease meditating anew on the mystery of that night. We should often
return in spirit to this Upper Room, where we priests especially can feel in a
sense ‘at home’. With regard to the Upper Room, it could be said of
us what the Psalmist says of the peoples with regard to Jerusalem: ‘In the
register of peoples, the Lord will write: These were born here’ (Ps 86:6).
In
this holy room I naturally find myself imagining you in all the various parts
of the world, with your myriad faces, some younger, some more advanced in
years, in all the different emotional states which you are experiencing: for
many, thank God, joy and enthusiasm, for others perhaps suffering or weariness
or discouragement. In all of you I honour the image of Christ which you
received at your consecration, the ‘character’ which marks each of
you indelibly. It is a sign of the special love which every priest has come to
know and upon which he can always rely, either to move ahead joyfully or to
make a fresh start with renewed enthusiasm, in the hope of ever greater
fidelity.
Born of love
4.
‘Having loved his own who were in the world, Jesus loved them to the
end’. In contrast to the synoptic Gospels, the Gospel of John does not
relate the institution of the Eucharist, of which Jesus had already spoken at
length in Capernaum (cf. Jn 6:26-65); instead it dwells upon the washing of the
feet. Even more than an example of humility offered for our imitation. this
action of Jesus, so disconcerting to Peter, is a revelation of the radicalness
of God’s condescension towards us. In Christ, God has ‘stripped
himself’, and has taken on ‘the form of a slave’ even to the
utter abasement of the cross (cf. Phil 2:7), so that humanity might have access
to the depths of God’s very life. The great speeches which in John’s
Gospel follow the washing of the feet and are in some way commentaries upon it,
serve as an introduction to the mystery of trinitarian communion to which we
are called by the Father who makes us sharers in Christ by the gift of the
Spirit.
This
communion must be lived in compliance with the new commandment: ‘Love one
another as I have loved you’ (Jn 13:34). It is not by chance that the
priestly prayer is the culmination of this ‘mystagogy’, since it
shows us Christ in his oneness with the Father, ready to return to him through
the sacrifice of himself, and wanting only that the disciples come to share his
unity with the Father: ‘As you, Father, are in me and I in you, may they
too be one in us’ (Jn 17:21).
5.
From the small group of disciples who heard these words the whole Church was
formed, growing through time and space as ‘a people gathered together by
the unity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit’ (Saint Cyprian, De Orat.
Dom., 23). The profound unity of this new people does not mean that there
are not different and complementary tasks in its life. Those whose task it is
to renew in persona Christi what Jesus did at the Last Supper when he
instituted the Eucharistic sacrifice, ‘the source and summit of the entire
Christian life’ (Lumen Gentium, 11 ), are thus linked in a special
way to those first Apostles. The sacramental character which distinguishes them
by virtue of their reception of Holy Orders ensures that their presence and
ministry are unique, indispensable and irreplaceable.
Almost two thousand years have passed since that moment. How many priests have
repeated what Jesus did! Often they were exemplary disciples, saints, martyrs.
How can we forget, in this Jubilee year, the many priests who have witnessed to
Christ by their lives, even to the shedding of blood? Such martyrdom has
accompanied the entire history of the Church; it has also marked the century
just passed, a century characterised by different dictatorial regimes hostile
to the Church. From the Upper Room, I wish to thank the Lord for the courage of
these priests. Let us look to them and learn to follow them in the footsteps of
the Good Shepherd who ‘lays down his life for his sheep’(Jn 10:11).
A
treasure in earthen vessels
6. It
is true that in the history of the priesthood, no less than in the history of
the whole People of God, the dark presence of sin is also found. Many times,
the human frailty of priests has made it hard to see in them the face of
Christ. Here in the Upper Room why should this amaze us? Not only did the
betrayal of Judas reach its climax here, but Peter himself had to reckon with
his weakness as he heard the bitter prediction of his denial. In choosing men
like the twelve, Christ was certainly under no illusions: it was upon this
human weakness that he set the sacramental seal of his presence. And Paul shows
us why: ‘We bear this treasure in earthen vessels, so that it might be
clear that this extraordinary power comes from God and not from us’ (2 Cor
4:7).
For
all the frailties of their priests, then, the People of God have not ceased to
put their faith in the power of Christ at work through their ministry. How can
we fail in this regard to recall the splendid witness of Saint Francis of
Assisi? Humility led him not to seek the priesthood, but in his testament he
expressed his faith in the mvsterv of Christ present in priests, declaring that
he would turn to them even if they had persecuted him, taking no account of
their sin. ‘And I do this’, he explained, ‘because the only
thing I see of the flesh of the most high Son of God in this world is his most
holy body and blood which they alone consecrate and they alone administer to
others’ (Font) Francescane, n. 1 13).
7.
From this place where Christ spoke the words instituting the Eucharist, I
invite you, dear priests, to rediscover the ‘gift’ and the
‘mystery’ which we have received. To go to the heart of it, we must
reflect upon the priesthood of Christ. Certainly, the entire People of God
participates in this priesthood by baptism. But the Second Vatican Council
reminds us that, in addition to the participation proper to all the baptised,
there exists another specific, ministerial participation which, although
intimately linked to the first, nonetheless differs from it in essence (cf.
Lumen Gentium, 10).
In
the context of the Jubilee of the incarnation, we can approach the priesthood
of Christ from a particular perspective. The Jubilee invites us to contemplate
the intimate link between Christ’s priesthood and the mystery of his
person. The priesthood of Christ is not ‘incidental’, a task which he
might or might not have assumed: rather, it is integral to his identity as the
Son incarnate, as God-made-man. From now on, the relationship between mankind
and God passes wholly through Christ: ‘No one comes to the Father, except
through me’ (Jn 14:ó). This is why Christ is a priest endowed with
an eternal and universal priesthood, of which the priesthood of the first
covenant was a prefigurement and a preparation (cf. Heb 9:9). He has exercised
it fully from the moment he took his seat as high priest ‘at the right
hand of the throne of the majesty in heaven’ (Heb 8:1). From that time
forth, the very nature of human priesthood changed: now there is but one
priesthood, that of Christ, which can be shared and exercised in different
ways.
Sacerdos et hostia
8. At
the same time, the meaning of sacrifice, the priestly act par excellence,
was brought to perfection. On Golgotha, Christ made his own life an
offering of eternal value, a ‘redemptive’ offering which has reopened
for ever the path of communion with God which had been blocked by sin.
The
letter to the Hebrews casts light upon this mystery by placing on,the lips of
Christ the words of Psalm 40: ‘You desired neither sacrifice nor offering,
but instead you prepared a body for me.... Here I am, ... I come to do your
will, O God’ (Heb 10:5-7; cf. Ps 40:7-9). According to the author of the
letter, these prophetic words were spoken by Christ when he first came into the
world. They express his mystery and his mission. They begin to be accomplished
from the very moment of the Incarnation and reach their completion in the
sacrifice of Golgotha. From that time forward, every priestly offering is but a
re-presenting to the Father of the one offering of Christ, made once for all.
Sacerdos et hostia! Priest and victim! This sacrificial aspect is a
profound mark of the Eucharist; it is also an essential dimension of the
priesthood of Christ and, therefore, of our own priesthood. In the light of
this, let us read once again the words we speak every day, words which echoed
for the first time here in the Upper Room: ‘Take this, all of you, and eat
it: this is my body which will be given up for you.... Take this, all of you,
and drink from it: this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and
everlasting covenant which will be shed for you and for all, so that sins may
be forgiven’.
These
are the words we find in the Evangelists and in Paul, with largely converging
redactional forms. They were spoken in this room in the late evening of Holy
Thursday. By giving the Apostles his body to eat and his blood to drink, Jesus
declared the deepest truth about what he would do shortly thereafter on
Golgotha. For in the bread of the Eucharist is present the very body born of
Mary and offered on the cross:
‘Ave verum Corpus natum de Maria Virgine,
Vere passum, immolatum in
cruce pro homine.
9.
How can we not return ever anew to this mystery, which contains the entire life
of the Church? For two thousand years, this sacrament has given nourishment to
countless believers. It has been the source of great river of grace. How many
saints have found in it not only the pledge, but as it were the foretaste of
heaven!
Let
us allow ourselves to be carried along by the contemplative impulse, rich in
poetry and theology, which inspired Saint Thomas Aquinas to sing of the mystery
in the words of the hymn Pange Lingua. Today, in this Upper Room, these
words come to me as an echo of the voice of so many Christian communities
throughout the world, of so many priests, consecrated persons and lay faithful,
who each day pause in adoration of the Eucharistic mystery:
‘Verbum caro, panem verum verbo carnem efficit,
fitque sanguis
Christi merum, et, si sensus deficit,
adfirmandum cor sincerum sofa fides
sufficit.’
Do
this in memory of me
10.
The mystery of the Eucharist, which proclaims and celebrates the death and
resurrection of Christ until he comes again, is the heart of the Church’s
life. For us it also has a very special meaning, for it stands at the centre of
our ministry. Our ministry is not of course limited to celebrating the
Eucharist: it is a service which includes the proclamation of the Word, the
sanctification of the faithful through the sacraments, and the leadership of
God’s people in communion and service. But the Eucharist is the point from
which everything else comes forth and to which it all returns. Our priesthood
was born in the Upper Room together with the Eucharist.
‘Do this in memory of me’ (Lk 22:19): although addressed to the whole
Church, the words of Christ are entrusted as a particular task to those who
carry on the ministry of the first Apostles. It is to them that Jesus hands on
the action which he has just performed changing bread into his body and wine
into his blood - the action in which he appears as priest and victim. It is the
will of Christ that henceforth his action should also become sacramentally the
action of the Church through the hands of priests. In saying ‘Do
this’, he refers not only to the action, but also to the one who is called
to act; in other words, he institutes the ministerial priesthood, which thus
becomes one of the essential elements of the Church.
11 .
This action is to be done ‘in his memory’: these words are important.
The Eucharistic action celebrated by priests will make present in every
Christian generation, in every corner of the earth, the work accomplished by
Christ. Wherever the Eucharist is celebrated, the bloody sacrifice of Calvary
will be made present in an unbloody manner; there Christ himself, the redeemer
of the world, will be present.
‘Do this in memory of me’. Hearing these words once again within the
walls of the Upper Room, it is natural to try to imagine what Christ felt.
These were the dramatic hours which preceded the Passion. The Evangelist John
evokes the intensity of the Master’s words as he prepares the Apostles for
his departure. What sadness was in their eyes: ‘Because I have said these
things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts’ (Jn 16:ó). But Jesus
reassures them: ‘I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you’
(Jn 14:18). Although the paschal mystery will take him from their sight, he
will be more present than ever in their life, ‘always, to the close of the
age’ (Mt 28:20).
A
memorial which makes present
12.
Christ’s presence will be expressed in many ways. But of these his
Eucharistic presence will certainly be supreme: no mere remembrance, but a
‘memorial’ which makes present what it commemorates; not a symbolic
evocation of the past, but the living presence of the Lord in the midst of his
own. The enduring guarantee of this will be the Holy Spirit, constantly poured
out in the Eucharistic celebration so that the bread and wine may become the
body and blood of Christ. He is the same Spirit who on the evening of Easter,
in this Upper Room, was ‘breathed’ upon the Apostles (cf. Jn 20:22),
and who found them here still, gathered with Mary, on the day of Pentecost. It
was then that he came upon them as a strong wind and fire (cf. Acts 2:1-4), and
impelled them to go to the ends of the earth to proclaim the Word and gather
together the People of God in the ‘breaking of the bread’ (cf. Acts
2:42).
13.
Two thousand years after the birth of Christ, in this Jubilee year, we
especially need to remember and ponder the truth of what we might call his
‘Eucharistic birth’. The Upper Room is the place of this
‘birth’. Here began a new presence of Christ for the world, a
presence which constantly occurs wherever the Eucharist is celebrated and a
priest lends his voice to Christ, repeating the sacred words of institution.
This
Eucharistic presence has accompanied the two thousand years of the
Church’s history, and it will do so until the end of time. For us it is
both a joy and a source of responsibility to be so closely linked to this
mystery. Today we want to become more deeply aware of this presence, our hearts
filled with wonder and gratitude, and in this spirit to enter the Easter
triduum of the passion, death and resurrection of Christ.
What the Upper Room hands on to us
14.
My dear brother priests, who on Holy Thursday gather in the cathedrals around
your pastors, just as the presbyters of the Church in Rome gather around the
successor of Peter, please accept these reflections, my meditation in the
evocative setting of the Upper Room! It would be hard to find a place better
able to stir thoughts of both the Eucharistic mystery and the mystery of our
priesthood.
Let
us remain faithful to what the Upper Room ‘hands on’ to us, to the
great gift of Holy Thursday. May we always celebrate the Holy Eucharist with
fervour. May we dwell long and often in adoration before Christ in the
Eucharist. May we sit at the ‘school’ of the Eucharist. Through the
centuries, countless priests have found in the Eucharist the consolation
promised by Jesus on the evening of the Last Supper, the secret to overcoming
their solitude, the strength to bear their sufferings, the nourishment to make
a new beginning after every discouragement, and the inner energy to bolster
their decision to remain faithful. The witness which we give to the People of
God in celebrating the Eucharist depends in large part upon our own personal
relationship with the Eucharist.
15.
Let us rediscover our priesthood in the light of the Eucharist! Let us help our
communities to rediscover this treasure in the daily celebration of Holy Mass,
and especially in the more solemn Sunday assembly. Through your apostolic
labours, may love for Christ present in the Eucharist grow stronger. This is a
particularly important goal in this Jubilee year. I think of the International
Eucharistic Congress to be held in Rome from 18 to 25 June, which has as its
theme ‘Jesus Christ, the one Saviour of the World, Bread for our
Life’. It will be a highlight of the Great Jubilee, which is meant to be
‘an intensely Eucharistic year’ (Tertio Millennio Adveniente,
55). The Congress will emphasise the profound link between the mystery of
the incarnation of the Word and the Eucharist, the sacrament of Christ’s
real presence.
From
the Upper Room, I embrace you in the Eucharist. May the image of Christ
surrounded by his own at the Last Supper fill each of us with a vibrant sense
of brotherhood and communion. Great painters have employed their finest gifts
in depicting the face of Christ among his Apostles in the scene of the Last
Supper: how can we forget Leonardo’s masterpiece? But only the saints, by
the intensity of their love, can enter the depths of this mystery, leaning
their head, as it were, like John, on the Lord’s breast (cf. Jn 13:25).
Here in fact we come to the height of love: ‘having loved his own who were
in the world, he loved them to the end’.
16. I
would like to conclude these thoughts, which I affectionately entrust to your
meditation, with the words of an ancient prayer:
‘We thank you, our Father,
for the life and the knowledge
which
you have revealed to us
through Jesus, your servant.
Glory to you
through the ages!
As the bread we have broken
was scattered far and wide
upon the hills,
but when harvested becomes one,
so may the Church be
gathered
into your kingdom
from the farthest reaches of the
earth....
‘Lord almighty, you created the universe
for the glory of your name;
you gave men food and drink
to strengthen them,
that they might
give you thanks;
but to us you have given
spiritual food and drink,
and eternal life through your Son....
Glory to you through the ages!
’
(Didache 9:3-4; 10:3-4).
From
the Upper Room, dear brother priests, I embrace all of you in spirit and I
cordially impart my blessing.
From
Jerusalem, 23 March 2000.
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