THE BODY OF CHRIST
Thoughts for Holy Thursday

Robin Koning sj

On this night, Jesus took bread, blessed it and broke it. And so, on this night, we traditionally celebrate three aspects of our faith, all within the context of Christ washing the feet of his disciples. We celebrate the Eucharist, the bread of Christ’s body broken for us; we celebrate ourselves as Christ’s living body present in the world; and we celebrate the priesthood.

This last celebration, of the priesthood, does not depend on the understanding that Christ ordained the apostles at the Last Supper, in the sense in which we know ordination today. Rather, it is about priesthood as that role within the Church which serves the first two meanings of this night—the priest as the one who breaks the bread of Christ’s body for us and the priest as the one who builds up the faith community as Christ’s living body.

But, in these times, when we think of the priesthood, we are not apt to think of these two interconnected roles which make priesthood such a rich gift to the church. We may be more likely to link our thinking about priesthood to another aspect of this night—the fact that it was the night on which Jesus was betrayed.

In the light of prominent news stories, what may come to mind is not the image of the priest as servant of the Eucharist, or of the priest as servant of the community, or humbly ministering in service at the feet of the people, but rather the priest as Judas, as betrayer, as one who betrays the body of Christ by betraying its vulnerable members—its children and teenagers.

The Pope himself has noted this awful juxtaposition in his annual letter to priests for Holy Thursday: ‘At this time, as priests, we are personally and profoundly afflicted by the sins of some of our brothers who have betrayed the grace of Ordination in succumbing even to the most grievous forms of the mystery of sin or evil at work in the world’.

What leads to such betrayal on the part of trusted leaders of our Church? What leads to any of our betrayals, any of the ways in which each of us, though created in God’s image, betray the body of Christ, betray those dearest to us, betray the most vulnerable in our homes or in the womb or on our streets or in our world?

Let us look to this day’s readings for an answer, for there Jesus breaks bread with and washes the feet of two of his closest followers, each of whom will, in his own way, betray him.

With Judas, betrayal has become a pattern. It begins in a small matter, to do with money. Remember how he challenged the woman anointing Jesus’ feet? ‘Why was the perfume not sold … and the money given to the poor?’ This was a classic projection, for the gospel goes on, ‘He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief: he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it’.

Judas betrayed the trust of his fellow disciples and Jesus in this relatively small matter, not living truthfully his role as treasurer. In this way, he set himself up to betray in a much graver matter, leading Jesus to his arrest and death on this night. By not living in the truth day to day, by not being faithful in small things, Judas moulded himself into an unfaithful person, an untrustworthy friend, a betrayer. His daily patterns of sin exposed him to bigger evils, as John captures when he says, ‘The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas, son of Simon Iscariot, to betray him’. Judas lived in the dark, hiding his sinful patterns, not bringing them into the light for healing. He was a man of the dark. When he eventually left the supper to betray Jesus, John writes, ‘It was night.’

Peter’s betrayal also begins well before this night. Not that he is one to hide in the dark, as Judas did—Peter is hardly one to keep his thoughts or feelings secret. Still, he has his own darkness, which leads to his own betrayal of Jesus. Peter’s fatal flaw, his downfall, his stumbling block, is that he does not know his own weakness.
He is the man of grand gestures. Jesus comes to wash his feet, and Peter protests, ‘You will never wash my feet.’ And then, when Jesus explains what it is about, Peter makes an equally grand gesture at the other extreme: ‘Not my feet only, but also my hands and my head!’

Soon after this, there is another grand gesture, ‘Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you’. And Jesus’ knowing reply: ‘Will you lay down your life for me? Very truly, I tell you, before the cock crows, you will have denied me three times.’ Peter does not know his limitations, is out of touch with his own weakness and frailty. He presumes he can handle being close to Jesus in his trial, and so he goes into the high priest’s courtyard.

But, despite his desires, he cannot handle it. When the pressure is on, and he is challenged by people who could harm him, he lies, stating publicly that he is not a disciple of Jesus. His inability to face the truth about himself, his denial of his own self, of the reality of his own frailty and vulnerability, leads to his denial of Jesus.
Betrayal, then, goes back to the very roots of the Church we celebrate as Christ’s body on this night. It infects each of us in our own choices of darkness and of denial of frailty. How are we to be healed?

Having spoken of priests and their betrayals, the Pope presents a call to us all: . ‘As the Church shows her concern for the victims and strives to respond in truth and justice to each of these painful situations, all of us—conscious of human weakness, but trusting in the healing power of divine grace—are called to embrace the mystery of the cross and to commit ourselves more fully to the search for holiness’.

Holiness is what Peter and Judas did not have. Judas may have been aware of his human weakness, but he did not trust in divine grace, and so ended up committing suicide. His biggest problem was not that he stole money, but that he did not admit it, did not open up to the forgiveness and healing which could have broken the pattern early on.

Peter also was not holy by this definition, for he was not conscious of his human weakness. Had he been aware of the deep frailty beneath his external bravado and hype, he could have stood with the Beloved Disciple at the foot of the cross. His problem was not that he wasn’t strong enough to stand by Jesus, but he was not weak enough to admit his frailty, not weak enough to draw his strength from Jesus.

And so we find two betrayals at the very beginnings of the Church, on the very night when Christ forms his Church as a Eucharistic community, receiving in the Eucharist that which it is to become, the Body of Christ. This is the Church, the Body of Christ, that we celebrate tonight—the real Church, glorious yet sinful, deeply honest yet in denial, proclaiming the truth in season and out of season and caught up in lies, trustworthy yet betraying, offering herself completely in her martyrs of faith and of justice, yet making victims of others.

If we want one or the other extreme, we must look elsewhere. An utterly perfect Church, the new Jerusalem, awaits us only in heaven (Revelation 21:2). An utterly depraved Church, the whore of Babylon (Revelation 17:5), is the fiction of our enemies, ancient and new. The incarnate body of Christ is this real Church, the Church which welcomes you and me as members, which enables us to face the reality of our weakness, to face it so that we need not act it out, by the grace of Christ.

We cannot look elsewhere because it is to the Church that Jesus looked; he trusted us to be his body more than we trust ourselves and one another. Jesus knew full well, in his every wound, the betrayal of Peter and Judas and many in his Church, and yet this is the Church he loved. As Ephesians writes, ‘Christ loved the church and sacrificed himself for her’ (5:25). This is the Church he continues to love: ‘For no one ever hates his own body, but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it, just as Christ does for the church’ (5:29).

So, on this night we are conscious of our human weakness; we betray each other, we betray our Saviour, as the cross reminds us. But we are reminded of the more powerful side of the cross, of our hope: that where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more (Romans 5:15-17). We are just jars made of the clay from which we were created; yet, as Christ’s body, we hold a treasure (2 Corinthians 4:7). That treasure is Christ himself.

It is this Christ we celebrate tonight—the gift of his body to us, sealed by the giving of his body on the cross tomorrow. This most precious gift transforms us, so that what we cannot be by our own power—the body of Christ—God can make of us, doing ‘infinitely more than we can ask or imagine; to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen’ (Ephesians 3:20-21).

Email us sbout this article

THE BODY OF CHRIST Thoughts for Holy Thursday

Robin Koning sj

THE BODY OF CHRIST
Thoughts for Holy Thursday