Augustine Sokolovski
Holy Thursday is a profound and unique celebration. There is nothing like it and it is impossible to find anything similar. It is a holiday, but it is very full of sorrow. It is precisely from this biblical supernatural blessed sorrow that the sacraments of the Church are born. This is the Eucharist, this is the priesthood, this is the unction. Each of these sacraments is enlivened by the Lord's Last Supper.
In the Eucharist, which the Church celebrates, and will celebrate until the Second Coming of Christ, as Paul says, the Last Supper is reproduced through the remembrance of the Lord's Passover.
In the priesthood, the priest, or bishop, who leads the church community in worship, represents Christ in the culminating moments of the sacred action. In the image of the Lord's actions and words at the Last Supper, the priest stands before God and, at the same time, through the invocation of the Holy Spirit and the verbatim repetition of what the Son of God said, becomes the mediator of the real presence of God with people, here and now, in history.
Real presence is a very important theological, philosophical and simply human category. Through real presence the Church and all human history are being constructed. From now on the history of the world is the preparation of the Christ`s Throne.
The Unction, the connection of which with the Last Supper is obvious, reveals the healing power of God through the washing of the feet of human sinfulness and the merciful participation of the suffering and sick person in the merciful reality of Jesus' hospitality.
By the time of the Passover meal with the disciples, it was obvious to the Lord Jesus that His suffering and death were near and absolutely irreversible. For the Apostles, this was hidden. They continued to trust in the almighty right hand of God. At the Last Supper, Jesus took bread and wine in His hands and proclaimed them His Body and Blood. Thus, it was indicated that his suffering was absolutely voluntary.
The omnipotence of God acquired completely unexpected and paradoxical contours. The omnipotence of God in Christ Jesus is the ability to save a lost person despite everything. The greatest evil in history, the betrayal and death of the Messiah, was turned into an introduction of the circle of Disciples to the forgiving almighty hospitality of Jesus.
"Make me a participant in Your Last Supper, Son of God, for I will not reveal Your secrets to the enemies, I will not give You the kiss of Judas, but I will confess You like the thief on the cross in the Gospel: "Remember me, Lord, in Your Kingdom." In every divine liturgy, the Church, as the Society of Believers, remembers the Last Supper of Christ with His disciples. This remembrance is a sign of gratitude and a deeply clear request.
The Church asks that, just as she remembers Jesus in the celebration of the Last Supper, but to an incomparably greater degree, God himself in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit may remember every believer in the soon-to-come Kingdom, which is to complete History. "The Son of God and the Holy Spirit are the Hands of God," wrote Irenaeus of Lyons. By the power and real presence of the Last Supper in the very heart of the Church, no one will be able to take the faithful from these loving palms.