The ceremony we are celebrating today, on Holy Thursday, puts us in contact with 3500 years of salvation history. With this Mass, we are obeying the command Jesus gave at the Last Supper, as recalled in today's Second Reading: "Do this in remembrance of me." At that Last Supper, two thousand years ago, Jesus was giving a new meaning to a ceremonial meal that the Jews had celebrated ever since the time of Moses, in 1500 BC – the Passover.
The Passover celebration was a holy day that God himself had established, as tonight's First Reading recalled. God had commanded the ancient Israelites to celebrate Passover so that they would never forget all that God had done for them: freeing them from slavery in Egypt and leading them to the Promised Land. The Passover was a remembrance of that, but it was a sacred remembrance, so it also renewed the Chosen People's special relationship with their God.
In a similar way, Jesus commanded his Church to continue ordaining priests and celebrating the Eucharist. The Eucharist is a remembrance of his work of redemption, by which he saved us from sin and opened the way for us to enter into eternal life. As a sacred remembrance, it also makes present Christ's everlasting sacrifice. Our liturgy is not just a photograph of a past event; it draws aside the curtain of time and space so that that past event is actually made present among us today.
Why is God so intent on reminding us of all that he has done for us? For two reasons.
First, we need to be reminded of God's immense love that sacrificed his own Son in order to redeem us, because the challenges of life tend to give us tunnel vision.
Let's face it; life is tough. The current Coronavirus pandemic has underscored this fact. We have many joys and delights, but they don't eliminate our crosses. We live in a fallen world, a world full of injustice, hardship, and loss. It hurts sometimes; sometimes it hurts a lot.
We ourselves are fallen human beings. We lose our tempers, give into temptations, get involved in things we shouldn't – when we do these things, we add to our own misery, and to the misery of those around us.
In the midst of all these difficulties and tough situations, it is hard to remember the bigger picture – that God never gives up on us and that he can turn our Good Fridays into Easter Sundays. That's one reason why we need reminders, like the reminder of tonight's beautiful liturgy.
There is also another reason why we need regular and constant reminders: we are not good listeners.
God sends us reminders of his goodness and wisdom all the time: the beauties of nature, the beauty of art and music, the joy of friendship and being cared for by others, the delight of a job well done…. Everything around us that is good is, in a little way, a mirror of God's generous love and mercy. We are surrounded by these reminders.
However we don't listen to them very well. Just think about how easily we become distracted whenever we try to pray. Hearing God's word in our heart gives us comfort and courage, but it also usually invites us to change, to live a more Christ-like life.
That is not always easy. So we prefer to keep the radio on, to keep our headphones in our ears, to keep chatting away on the cell phone. Even when we want to listen, the noise that we have surrounded ourselves with us makes it hard. God has to fight through all this noise to make his voice heard. The more reminders he gives us, the better chance he has of getting our attention. This liturgy tonight is one of the most beautiful and attention-getting reminders he has given us.
God is glad that we have gathered, even if it is virtually via YouTube, for this celebration, that we have come together, even if it electronically, to "do this in remembrance" of him. He knows that we need to be reminded of how much he cares about us, of the fact that he has not given up on us and never will give up on us.
Let's live this celebration, then, full of gratitude, full of attention, letting God speak to us, listening for whatever word he wants to give us. And in the next few days, these holiest days of the year, let's keep on listening. That may mean making some extra time for prayer; the “Stay at Home” order has given most of us a lot more down time, which we can spend deepening our relationship with God. It will mean carving out time from our busy schedules to participate in the Good Friday service and the Easter Vigil. In a more typical year I might suggest it may mean turning off the electronics for the next 24-hours, but then you would not be able to participate in the live-streaming of the Good Friday service at 3 PM, and the Easter Vigil at 7 PM. Maybe this year we could just give up binging on Netflix for the next couple of days.
As Pope Benedict said during his visit to New York in 2008, we do not need to be "afraid of silence." God is never outdone in generosity. If we give him our attention in a special way during these holy days, he will give us the reminders we need, a personalized message for each of us, sent directly from his Sacred Heart right into the middle of our needy hearts.