Commentary on Matthew 26:26-29

(linked to the 5^th Section of the Post-Lourdes Study Topic)

It is good to consider the Last Supper and the Institution of the Eucharist during Lent.  It does, after all, mark the beginning of the “Triduum”, the three days at the end of Lent when we celebrate the Passion, death and Resurrection of Jesus.  It also reminds us that going to Mass more frequently, perhaps even daily if possible, is an excellent Lenten practice.  But more than anything else, it can teach us the meaning of love.

Consider for a moment how many of the words in this reading are words connected with sacrifice: “take”, “body”, “broken”, “blood”, “poured out”.  What Jesus does at the Last Supper is to offer Himself in sacrifice for us – for “the many” – and it is the same sacrifice that He makes the next day in bloody form on the Cross.  To understand how this is an example of love we must think about the nature of God Himself. 

St. John tells us that “God is love” (I John 4:16), but what does this mean?  It means that God’s very nature is love.  He did not just begin to love when He created the world (and us); instead He is loving in eternity.  But whom can He love in eternity when only He is in eternity?  (Yes, I know it’s heavy, but stick with it).  In eternity, God loves Himself.  The Father pours out the fullness of Himself, holding nothing back.  The essence of love is to be life-giving, and so in pouring Himself out in love the Father eternally begets the Son, the perfect image of the Father.  And being the perfect image of the Father, the Son also loves: He pours out the life that He has received from the Father and He gives it back to the Father as a perfect expression of thanks and love.  That life and love, which the Son receives from the Father and returns to the Father, is the Holy Spirit.  So to say that “God is love” is to say that God is a family of three Persons.  He is not like a family, He is THE family, and our human families are only real families in so far as we give ourselves in love – sacrifice ourselves – for others.

Love demands that we give ourselves totally, holding nothing back.  Jesus shows us the perfect example of sacrificial love at the Last Supper by giving Himself completely to and for His friends, and to and for us.  Perhaps by meditating on the example of Jesus’ Self-giving this Lent we can learn a bit more what it really means to be a couple, a family, a Team.