The Happiest and Saddest day of His Majesty’s Life

“Jesus knowing that His hour was come, that He should pass out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world. He loved them unto the end” (John 13:1).

As every good Catholic knows Holy Thursday is special because it is the day the First Mass was offered. It is special because it is when the Apostles were ordained, thereby giving the priesthood of Christ to us poor lowly men, making it possible for us to re-present His Majesty’s Sacrifice down through time! A perfect spotless Sacrifice. An infinite Sacrifice.

There is an old sign that is present in most sacristies: “O Priest of God, say this Mass as if it were Your First Mass, Your Last Mass, Your Only Mass.” In a way this sign indicates the timelessness of what happened on Holy Thursday, that is, the Last Supper was the First Supper too. It was the First and Last Mass of His Majesty in His mortal, passible flesh. Only one was needed. And what is perfect can only be re-presented.

As every pious priest knows, His Majesty is always present at the Mass, as the primary celebrant, with the ordained priest as the co-celebrant, making the re-presentation possible at each particular time and place. Listen to Fr. Houghton speak about this, referring to his impressions after his priestly ordination:

I had another strong impression from my first Mass and which has never ceased to grow. It was perfectly obvious that Jesus was the celebrant and I was merely a concelebrant. He, not I, was the active partner. When the present fashion of concelebration of the Mass by a plethora of priests became the norm I failed to understand it. Their participation could only dim the basic fact that I was concelebrating with Jesus. [1]

Again this Last Supper is the only Mass He offered before being glorified. His First Mass was, in a sense, His Last Mass. Maybe this has something to do with why the Church has traditionally only allowed one Mass to be offered on Holy Thursday in each location. Sadly, this singular Mass for Holy Thursday is also the reason many use to make the modern form of concelebration something required. Recall, however, the all-important virtue of humility can be simply defined as “knowing your place and taking your place.” It is in keeping with humility to know there is really only ONE MASS and His Majesty, Jesus Christ the High Priest, is the Celebrant. We should not confuse the matter nor cause others to be confused. (Think of St. Joan answering the question about Christ and His Church: “About Jesus Christ and the Church, I simply know they’re just one thing, and we shouldn’t complicate the matter.”[2])

Perhaps we might look over the Life of His Majesty, asking, “When was He most happy?” Was it being conceived in His Mother’s womb? Think of their amazing union and the perfect love between Mother and Son starting from that moment. What is first in any order is the cause of all that follows, teaches St. Thomas [3]. Surely their love was nearly infinite from the start, an endless source of joy for them both. Was it being held by her as so many images show? Was it being recognized by the Shepherds and Kings (as representing the beginning of Christendom), seeing them turn whole heartedly to God? Being baptized by St. John in the Jordan, making all the waters of the world available for the Sacrament that cleanses mankind? Was it defeating the devil with great ease in the desert? Turning water into wine as the request of His Blessed Mother at Cana? Casting out demons? Healing the sick? Mount Tabor? Raising Lazarus from the dead? It seems to me the answer is Holy Thursday! He was most happy on that day, the day of the Last Supper—the First and Last Mass. He let this be known: “And when the hour was come, He sat down, and the twelve apostles with Him. And He said to them: With desire I have desired to eat this pasch with you, before I suffer” (Luke 22:14-15). With this overwhelming desire being fulfilled, His Majesty had the greatest happiness. No wonder He gave us at this time the most sublime prayer of sacerdotal unity found in the seventeenth chapter of St. John’s Gospel.

On the other hand, we might also ask when was His majesty most sad? They are often related, are they not? (Think of the joys and sorrows of Our Lady and St. Joseph… they are often the flip side of each other.) Great happiness and great sadness. When we are most happy and its source is taken away from us, we become the most sad. And so, not surprisingly, He was the most sad of His entire life on this day: “And taking with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, He began to grow sorrowful and to be sad. Then He saith to them: My soul is sorrowful even unto death” (Matt 26: 37-38).

Why so sad? Because of all the betrayals His Majesty experienced… not just on that day but foreseen down through time, most especially in the abuses He would receive in this Most Blessed of the Sacraments. In instituting the Eucharist He resigned Himself to suffer until the end of time the irreverence of His own, as well as the insults and outrages of His enemies. Is this not indicated in the Lesson for the Holy Mass of Maundy Thursday?

For as often as you shall eat this bread, and drink the chalice, you shall shew the death of the Lord, until he come. Therefore whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord. But let a man prove himself: and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of the chalice. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord. (1Cor. 11:26-29)

So many have failed to discern His Presence and its purpose, treating the Sacred Liturgy as something to make their own—to make conform to them and their needs and our times—instead of something we all must conform to in order properly worship God, to become another Christ, and to redeem “the time, because the days are evil” (Eph. 5:16).

Amazingly this great happiness and great sadness both revolve around betrayal! In a word, His Majesty had “to betray,” that is, hand Himself over first (for the proper worship of God and His glory) before others could hand Him over for their own evil designs. “[T]hat in all things He may hold the primacy,” says St. Paul (Col. 1:18). To put it another way, it requires the priesthood in order to hand over an offering on an altar that will be pleasing to the deity being worshipped. Christ offered the best thing available, that is, Himself irrevocably and that offering allowed Judas to get up and carry out his own style of betrayal—the betrayal of sin and malice. There is a good handing over and a bad handing over.

This is also why Judas needed to remain at the Last Supper until he was ordained and had received Holy Communion. “And when supper was done - the devil having now put into the heart of Judas, the son of Simon the Iscariot, to betray Him” (John 13:2). Perhaps we can put it this way: It takes an anointed one to betray, that is, to hand over The Anointed One. Heretofore many tried to arrest and kill Our Lord, all to no avail. Only with Judas was this possible. Nay, only with His Majesty first offering of Himself … betraying Himself, could it then be said to Judas by His Majesty, permission is now granted… “what you are about to do, do quickly” (cf. John 13:27).

Because of this first in the order of evil, malicious betrayals, nearly all problems in the world are traceable to a bishop or a priest. Without doubt nearly every single heresy and revolution has some Judas at its head. What is first in any order is the cause of all that follows. No wonder His Majesty called Judas “the son of perdition” and Dante places him in the very bottom of hell. Good bishops can change the world! Bad bishops will destroy it!

A central point for us today: at the offertory, the priest must hand over something to be sacrificed. His Majesty offered Himself unto death, thus the separation of His Body and Blood in the separate consecrations of bread and wine at the first Holy Mass. (This, by the way, is also why His death is calculated from this point to fulfill prophecy of the 3 days and 3 nights in belly of the earth. St. Ephrem: “From that moment wherein He broke His Body for His Disciples, and gave His Body to the Apostles, three days are computed, wherein He was accounted with the dead,” and Aphraates: “From the time when He gave His Body in food and His Blood in drink, three days and three nights elapse.”[4]) Recall how the Jewish priesthood was all about handing something else over to be sacrificed, namely sheep, goats, oxen, doves, and so on. Ancient religions throughout the history of the world, save only a few, have always sought to offer a priestly sacrifice. But some went too far as to sacrifice other humans. Think of the Aztecs. It is an ancient practice to sacrifice children. It is still around. This makes me wonder about the so-called re-establishment of the Temple in Jerusalem. We know well God will not accept any sacrifices from this Temple. That means it will not be for God but for man and the prince of this world. If, or when, it is rebuilt, will the devil be satisfied with mere animal sacrifices?

Annas and Caiphas sacrificed His Majesty to save the nation, instead of offering the sacrifices specified by the Law of Moses according to their office.

But one of them, named Caiphas, being the high priest that year, said to them: You know nothing. Neither do you consider that it is expedient for you that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not. (John 11:49-50)

In doing so, however, they brought the priesthood of the Jews to an end, symbolized by the tearing of both the high priest’s garment over the death sentence of the Christ and the veil in the Temple from top to bottom upon His death. His Majesty warned them they would only see Him at the very end. NO MORE PRIESTHOOD for them or for the Hebrew people! “Nevertheless I say to you, hereafter you shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of the power of God, and coming in the clouds of heaven” (Matt. 26:54). To this day they do not know who are of the priestly tribe or of the line of Aaron, nor will they ever learn it. It has been suppressed by heaven itself. It has been surpassed as the Tantum Ergo says so well: “Lo! oe'r ancient forms departing, Newer rites of grace prevail…” God was asking them to leave their earthly father’s house but they rejected the offer! They did not accept or take their place.

In any case, as we mentioned, it seems the priestly offering of Himself to God the Father brought His Majesty the greatest happiness. And it seems others rejecting this offer, using it for their own ends, failing to join in with Him, brought Him the greatest sadness! He thirsted infinitely on the Cross, so to speak, having had all His Blood drained from His Body (loss of blood brings great thirst), but, as the Fathers and Doctors of the Church show, His thirst was not just physical but rather much more for souls. With so many rejecting the Blood that was poured out for them even to the last drop, He thirsted all the more! They (and we in our turn) give Him vinegar instead of giving Him our souls and those of others. Again we see why His Majesty was so very sad… even unto death. Warning: If we do not humbly join in making an offering of this same Blood in the manner given to us with the holy priesthood of Christ, this same Blood will come upon us too as it has the Jewish people. We too will lose the priesthood and access to the Church, which, sad to say, is happening now.

In closing this reflection let us briefly reflect on His Majesty’s Majestic Sacrifice… His total priestly offering of Himself… with some help from St. John Eudes:

O my God, all living things ought most willingly to sacrifice their very existence to pay homage to Thy supreme and eternal being, and to bear witness by this sacrifice that Thou alone art worthy to live, and that no other being or life has any right to show itself, but should be annihilated in Thy presence as the stars of heaven are extinguished in the light of the sun.

Thy death is so worthy of honor and homage, Thy life is most worthy to be adored. With excessive love Thou didst will to die, not only to satisfy the justice of Thy Father and to honor His sovereignty, but also to sacrifice Thy human and temporal life for the glory of the divine and eternal life with Thy Father and Holy Spirit. By this sacrifice Thou didst bear witness before heaven and earth, that there is none but the divine life alone that is worthy of existence, and all other created life, however noble and excellent, should be extinguished in the sight and in the presence of this supreme and uncreated life.[5]

This is what the Mass enabled Him to do and us to follow as well—total oblation… total holocaust.

As the highest honor of the human race in general and the highest of the Hebrews in particular, Our Lady made this offering! St. John Eudes: “And so in honor of the very great love and in union with the deep submission with which the Blessed Virgin, Thy Mother, accepted death even though she was not obliged to die, by reason of any sin, original or actual.”[6] It was her supreme act of homage or worship.

The Jewish leaders were being asked to humble themselves and follow Our Lady, of whom King David says: “Hearken, O daughter, and see, and incline thy ear: and forget thy people and thy father’s house” (Ps. 44:11). It was time to let the old go and offer themselves completely. What would be the result? “Instead of thy fathers, sons are born to thee: thou shalt make them princes over all the earth. They shall remember thy name throughout all generations. Therefore shall people praise thee for ever; yea, for ever and ever” (Ps. 44:17-18).

They said no. They have been and will continue to be perpetually despised because they followed the lead of Judas, “the son of perdition.” Let us be truly humble and do what Our Lady did: offer ourselves completely in the Mass… as most pleasing sacrifice to God. Thus St. John Eudes:

I, too, accept death in homage to Thy sovereignty, abandoning myself entirely into Thy hands, that Thou mayest dispose of me in time and in eternity, according to Thy holy will, for Thy greater glory. … in honor of Thy death, in homage to Thy life, in union with the infinite love with which Thou didst thus will to die, for such great and divine intentions, and also in honor of the burning love with which Thy Blessed Mother and all Thy saints, especially Thy holy martyrs, embraced death with a very ready will for the same intentions, I accept and embrace death with my whole heart, in whatever form it may please Thee to send it to me, that is, in the place, time, manner, and under all the circumstances it shall please Thee to decree.[7]

We do this best by dying with Him completely at the Holy Mass, making each Mass, as it were, our first Mass and our last Mass.

I humbly propose, therefore, the Mass as it has always been offered is the humble thing to do… to see His Majesty Himself as the Celebrant symbolized most clearly and unequivocally by the one priest at the altar, whereas the modern practice of concelebration confuses the matter, making the Sacred conform to us rather than we conform to it. Surely this failure is one of the contributing causes of our losing so many priests at this time.[8]

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Notes:

[1] Houghton, Fr. Bryan, autobiography Unwanted Priest, Angelico Press, p. 40. cf. https://www.canon902.org/articles/fr-bryan-hougtons-take-on-concelebration

[2] Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 795.

[3] St. Thomas Aquinas, ST, III, 5, 1 in corp. and ad 3.

[4] De La Taille, Fr. Maurice, S.J., The Mystery of the Faith, p. 62.

[5] Eudes, St. John, Exercise of Preparation for Death, First Day.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Perhaps an analogy will help here. Having just read the book Beyond the Call: The Legacy of the Sisters of St. Joseph of St. Augustine, Florida by Sister Thomas Joseph McGoldrick, SSJ, I think I can provide one using the history of these, once upon a time, worthy religious sisters. Sr. Thomas Joseph recounts the events surrounding the communities efforts to adjust to the Second Vatican Council: “Following Vatican II, there was a definite decrease in the opening of new foundations for most congregations. Many religious were leaving religious life to seek perfection in the world. After all, the council made it clear that each and every person is called to holiness. The avenues for lay ministries in the church broadened, and the laity flocked to be of service to the church and make progress in personal holiness. […] The SSJ congregation of Florida saw seventy-five members return to lay life in pursuit of holiness through a means other than religious life. […] Religious dress, the habit of the Sisters, was scrutinized, resulting in the realization that it was looked upon as a status symbol, which in some instances distanced religious from the people of God. It needed to be modified in order for the Sisters not to be set aside as better than others and to enable religious to better relate to the people of the twenty-first century. […] Clearly, following Vatican II, attrition in the congregation took its toll between 1968 and 1971. Membership was reduced by one hundred active members, leading to the need to reorganize and to refound once again.“ (pp. 412-413, 420-421, ). Sr. Thomas Joseph also explains how they closed nearly all their schools and served in various parishes. The analogy should be obvious. The sisters conformed to the wrong things resulting in decimation and now near extinction of their congregation.