The Holy Week Retreat - The Last Supper - Station 12

Experience the ultimate Holy Week Retreat!

Join Fr. Jonathan Meyer (and Catholics across America!) on an epic journey through the Stations of the Eucharist. This incredible retreat will guide you through fourteen stations from Genesis to Revelation that will reshape the way you see the rest of your life. Get ready to break open the Scriptures, immerse yourself in the story of salvation history, and consider the sacrifice of Jesus Christ like never before. 

This year’s Holy Week Retreat is simple to follow. Each day, you’ll receive two reflections that will help you meditate on two of the fourteen stations. You can watch them both together, or space them out as morning and evening reflections. We’ll cover all fourteen stations by Holy Saturday so you can have the best Easter of your life!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:27

The twelfth station of the Eucharist, the Last Supper. O Sacrament was holy, O sacrament divine, all praise and all thanksgiving be every moment thine. Every one of us is familiar with the Last Supper. But isn't it true that sometimes when things become familiar, we don't actually realize what's happening? Many of us have heard the Last Supper since we were infants, before we could even comprehend it. Being held in our mother's arms or sitting in a pew next to our grandparents. This is my body given up for you. This is my blood poured out for you. We hear it again and again and again. It's not by chance that when I had the opportunity to lay out the stations of the Eucharist, that I chose the Last Supper to be the 12th station. Because in the stations of the cross given to us by St. Francis of Assisi, the 12th station is the crucifixion and death of our Lord. And you see, what so many of us don't comprehend is what is so crucial to our understanding of what the Eucharist is. The Eucharist is not just communion. Yes, Jesus said, take this all of you and eat of it. Take this all of you and drink of it. Yes. The Mass is communion. Take and eat, take and drink. And yes, the Mass is presence. This is my body. This is the chalice of my blood, the blood of the new and eternal covenant. So yes, the Mass is communion, the Mass is presence, but the Mass is also sacrifice. And this is the part that I think we haven't completely grasped, unpacked, and been proclaiming as we should. Jesus says, This is my body which will be given up for you, which will be given up for you. And that at the end of the supper, or after the meal, depending on the translation, then he took the cup and said, Take this, all of you, and drink of it. This is the chalice of my blood, the blood of the new and eternal covenant, which will be poured out for you. What does he mean by this is my body, which will be offered? What does he mean by this is my chalice, which will be poured out? And why is it that the chalice is not consecrated until after the meal? Notice what Jesus does not say. He doesn't take bread, he doesn't take wine at the exact same time and say, This is my body and blood given up for you. That would have just been a presence, but that's not what he did. He didn't just give us his presence, he gave us access, he gave us the ability to be present at Calvary itself. And this is why there are two consecrations. This is my body given up for you. Incense is swung, bells are rung, we adore. When the supper was ended, separately, Jesus took the chalice, he took the cup and he said, This is the blood of my new and everlasting covenant, which will be shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. You see, when Jesus instituted, when he gave us the Last Supper in the upper room, when he gave us his body and his blood in the upper room, he did it with two consecrations. Because when you separate body from blood, you have a sacrifice. When Abel sacrificed the lamb, he shed his blood. When Abraham sacrificed the adult male lamb with a crown of thorn on his head, he separated the body and the blood. In the Passover lamb, clearly the blood was put on the doorposts and the lintels. A sacrifice takes place when body and blood are separated. And this is why the Last Supper, the last thing that Jesus did prior to entering into his passion, was give us access to his passion. You see, God so loved the world that so much that he gave his only begotten son the night before he died. He gave us his body and his blood so that we could enter into the one redeeming sacrifice. You see, there is only one way that we are saved, and that is the death of Jesus. And yet the night before he died, he gave us this memorial, he gave us this perpetual memorial, he gave us this gift, which is a participation in the one sacrifice. Yes, one on Calvary 2,000 years ago was bloody, but the Mass is the unbloody sacrifice, which is the one same true, enduring way that God pours his love into you and me. And thus at every Mass, I am just as present as John the Beloved Disciple, as Mary Magdalene, as the Blessed Virgin Mary, to the Savior of the world, the Lamb of God who offers his life as the perfect sacrifice, as the replacement sacrifice. And thus he says, take and eat, take and drink. And we are present. We are present at the greatest act of love that God gave to the world, which was his very self. Jesus' love for us on Calvary is given to us at every Mass. And we hear those words. This is my body given up for you. Who are people in your life that have lived that? Who are people that have looked at you and poured themselves into you? Laid down their lives in service to you. Was it your mother? Your father? A grandparent? A coach? A teacher? A spouse? Is it your child who's taking care of you in your old age? Who in your life has poured themselves into you and said, This is my body given up for you? Because you see, this 12th station of the Eucharist, which is also, if we understand this properly, which also is Calvary. Because the Mass is Calvary, and Calvary is the Mass, teaches us how to love. So who has loved you like Christ? Take the time to acknowledge that today. That God has blessed us with individuals, have surrounded us with individuals who have loved us. And let's allow that love to transform us. Be thankful, be grateful. Calvary is as close to you as the next Mass. Let's get there, let's run there. And allow that great gift and mystery of the Eucharist to transform us. Amen.