The Last Supper : The Eucharist and Washing of the Feet

Image by mike52ad via Flickr

The Eucharist is a prayer of helplessness, a prayer for God to give us a unity we cannot give to ourselves.

It is not incidental that Jesus instituted it in the hour of his most intense loneliness, when he realized that all the words he had spoken hadn't been enough and that he had no more words to give.

When he felt most helpless, he gave us the prayer of helplessness, the Eucharist.
Our generation, like every generation before it, senses its helplessness and intuits its need for a messiah from beyond.
We cannot heal ourselves and we cannot find the key to overcome our wounds and divisions all on our own.
So we must turn our helplessness into a Eucharistic prayer, that asks God to come and do for us what we cannot do for ourselves, namely, create community, and we must go to the Eucharist for this same reason.
(Extract from Ronald Rolheiser : Column Archive: the Healing Embrace of The Eucharist.)
Washing of The Feet 

 

Nearly The End of Lent : Still On The Road

It all began at Ash Wednesday  some 40 days ago.

At that first moment in my Lenten journey, I was reminded that, like Jesus, I too am on a journey with a definite ending, and that awareness has shaped me in positive ways.

Human death itself is just not that interesting.

It’s where every story ends, if you tell it long enough.

“What people do on the way to death—”, Jesus reminds me, “that’s what matters.”

The paradox is this: Yes, we are called to be at work for the Kingdom of God, and, like Jesus, we must be about our Father’s business. But we ought to pause in this short earthly life to listen to what God is telling us, because being in that silence can teach us everything.

The invitation to a holy Lent was our invitation to slow down, to look around, to invite God to move in our lives and in our world.

In the Roman Catholic Church, Lent officially ends at sundown on Holy Thursday (Maundy Thursday), with the beginning of the mass of the Lord's Supper.

So we are near the last part on the road to Palm Sunday then along the  road to the cross of Good Friday towards the Resurrection,and yes, still listening.