Holy Thursday 2007
We bring our own life stories to any table when we sit and dine with others. And tonight we bring our stories, our joys and sorrows, our lights and darknesses, to this particular table of the Eucharistic Supper. This night we sit and dine with Jesus and his disciples. This night, this meal is different from every other night, every other meal.

Around the table of this Eucharistic Supper are meanings complex and challenging. The power of Jesus as Priest and Prophetic Liberator overwhelms us. The power of Jesus as the King, the royal dinner host, breaks down our reluctance. By the washing of the feet he challenges us to love our brothers and sisters. By the offering of his body and blood for us, food for our long journey, he challenges us to a new relationship with him.

We, for our part, present little evidence to him that we are up to these challenges. But our dinner host, the Lord Jesus, counts on the repetition, the remembrance, the reincarnation among us of the complaints of the Israelites in their time slavery, of the weeping of the exiles in Babylon who remembered their home in Jerusalem, of the longing of sinners for redemption from sin.

Brothers and sisters, this annual celebration of the Last Supper must enkindle in us the complaints of those in slavery, the weeping of those in exile, and the lamentations of those who fear the God who can mark our sins. By remembering these stories we can begin to recite around this table a true narration of our own stories. Our stories will reach the ear of God and God will take compassion on us just as God has taken compassion on the slaves, exiles and sinners of our long history.