On the day before He suffered, Jesus fulfils one thing and inaugurates another. He fulfils the Old Testament with its old meal, the Passover, its old law and its old priesthood. He inaugurates the New Testament with its new meal, the Eucharist, the new law of loving service as He loved and served us and the new priesthood. But there will be another, final and eternal Day. And on that Day, He will fulfil the New Testament, meal, law and priesthood by inaugurating the eternal banquet of the new heavens and the new earth. As the Passover was the foretaste of the Eucharist, so the Eucharist is the foretaste of that banquet of which Isaiah and the Apocalypse speak: “On this mountain, the Lord of hosts will prepare a banquet in the sight of all the peoples.” He will take away the mourning veil of death covering all nations and reveal the Resurrection in all who have hoped for Him and rejoiced at His return.

So, at the Last Supper, Jesus knowingly and lovingly sets humanity on the final phase of our trajectory to the end and fulfilment of history, to the full revelation of the Kingdom for which the Good Thief longed as he died on his cross. Jesus knows that everything has been put into his hands and that, having come from God, He now faces the final act of returning to God, not alone, but with redeemed humanity and the redeemed cosmos. By instituting the Eucharist he fulfils beyond all expectations the Passover of the Jews. By it, He interprets for those who love Him the meaning of His suffering and death, as also the meaning of his ascension and of Pentecost. By the Eucharist he places at the heart of all history and all geography His Real and abiding Presence which will drive all history and draw all geography into His return in glory at the Parousia. In the Eucharist, all is present: all time in its threefold form of past, present and future; all space, in its threefold dimensions; and eternity itself. The Eucharist is not just the Real Presence, but the presence of all that is real, since anything real is rooted in Christ.

The Eucharist, both as the action of the Mass and as the sacrament we adore, contains the entire spiritual wealth of the Church, because it contains the Risen Christ and, in him, the Father and the Spirit. And one day the veil of the sacrament will be removed and, in an explosion of glory, every eye will see the Son of Man, of Mary and of God in deity revealed. And we will gaze upon Him, feeding on Him as we gaze; we will drink Him in, for He is the new wine of unending joy. In its humility, the Eucharist can seem nothing to us, just as the carpenter of Nazareth seemed a nobody when He walked this earth. But in His humility, He is actually everything to us. He treasures our fragility with unspeakable tenderness, he gently caresses our weakness and through the Eucharist imparts to us His own strength. He adapts himself to our halting and uncertain steps so as to direct us in His own paths of life and glory. In the Eucharist, heaven has come to our bodies so as to raise our earth to His divinity.

He gives us priests to serve and administer this table of unmerited love. They are priests of the New Testament, of the New and definitive Sacrifice of the Cross. Their call is to forget and empty themselves in love, to be as if possessed by Christ and conformed to His priorities, lifestyle and mission. They are to make visible today the God who kneels in service at the feet of his creatures. They stand as wounded helpers and ministers of Christ’s healing of humanity and of the cosmos itself. They live from the Eucharist, for the Eucharist, with the Eucharist as the centre of gravity of their entire life and ministry. They do not own it, but serve it, so they must also defend it, lest the Bread of Life, unworthily celebrated or received, turn to the spiritual detriment of themselves or of others.

But they are also priests of the new commandment of loving as Christ has loved us. If it is true that this new law is enjoined on every Christian, it is to shine forth from the depths of the heart of a priest with particular strength. For if the Eucharist is the food of this love then the priest, who feeds it to others, must feast richly upon it himself in the knowledge that, like Jesus, into his hands, too, the Father has put everything to draw it homewards to God.

Worthily, consciously and actively participated in, the Eucharist is the source of all genuine renewal and revival in the Church and, indeed, in the world. If we are really open in faith and love to Christ in the Eucharist, He will heal, strengthen and transform our personal lives, our married and family lives, our parish and diocesan lives and so much more.

On the Feast of Corpus Christi last year, the mustard seed of the Eucharistic Revival of our parish was planted in all parishioners open to it. It has been growing very gradually under the Lord’s own watchful care and timing. So, I invite every parishioner present this evening, and those watching by livestream, to ask the Lord Jesus on this Holy Thursday night, to strengthen and deepen the roots of our hearts and souls in His Holy Eucharist. I am offering this Mass for the intention of the Eucharistic Revival of our parish through the intercession of Blessed Carlo Acutis. By his prayers, may we travel swiftly along the highway to heaven!

Humble, Servant and Eucharistic Lord, may we each realize deeply and consciously the immensity of the gift You have given us in the Eucharist. Help us to allow the graces of this wonderful Sacrament to stir us deeply to give ourselves in generous love to You and to one another. Make us consider and understand with immense joy how the Eucharist can help each of us in our own personal situations, in our spiritual growth and in dealing with the sufferings and temptations of every day. Catch us up into the great sweep of your divine love as it passes through our own time and place towards the vision of your glory beyond death. Renew us and revive us to look ahead without fear as we obey your command to “take and eat”, to “take and drink.” May the deep warmth and longing for You which was present around the table at the Last Supper always be present among us in this parish whenever we gather to remember and enact what you instituted out of love for us on the night you were betrayed. May we become Your own Agape, self-sacrificing love, for you and for one another.