The Cause of the Canonisation of John Henry Cardinal Newman

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A Meditation for Holy Thursday: the Son of Man came eating and drinking

Categorised as Featured and published Thursday, April 9th, 2009
A Meditation for Palm Sunday: Faithfulness to Christ
A Meditation for Good Friday: Christ bore the weight of our sins

Arnreit (Upper Austria), stained glass window of the Last Supper, Alfred Stifter, 1970

In this passage from the start of the 1843 sermon ‘Our Lord’s Last Supper and His First’, Newman looks at the Last Supper from a new and original perspective. The occasion was of profound significance, for it was now that Christ ‘closed His earthly ministry … parted with His disciples … entered upon His trial’. Why did he choose to do this at a meal, a festive occasion? According to Newman, Christ’s choice of a feast for this central moment in his work of salvation reveals and affirms something very human:

“And He said unto them, With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer.” [Luke 22: 15] There is something very observable and very touching in the earnestness displayed in these words of our Lord, and in the acts which preceded them. He had showed beforehand that great desire, of which He here speaks. That He had thought much of His last passover which He was to eat with His disciples, is plain from the solemnity with which He marked out the place to them, and the display of supernatural knowledge with which He accompanied His directions. “He sendeth forth two of His disciples,” “Peter and John,” “and saith unto them, Go ye into the city, and there shall meet you a man bearing a pitcher of water: follow him. And wheresoever he shall go in, say ye to the good-man of the house,” “The Master saith, My time is at hand;” “My time is at hand, I will keep the passover at thy house with My disciples.” “And he shall show you a large upper room furnished; there make ready.” And then, “when the hour was come, He sat down, and the twelve Apostles with Him. And He said unto them, With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer. For I say unto you, I will not any more eat thereof, until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” [Matt. 26: 17-19; Mark 14: 12-16; Luke 22: 7-18]

You may say, indeed, that most important occurrences took place at that feast; and that these He had in view when He gave the command to prepare for it, and when He expressed His satisfaction in celebrating it. Then He washed His disciples’ feet, and gave the precept of humility; then He laid down the great note of the Church, brotherly love, impressing it on them most persuasively by His own example; and then He instituted His own heavenly Sacrament, which was to remain on earth, together with that humility and love, unto the end. It is true; but still it is true also, that He chose a festive occasion as the season for these solemn and gracious acts. He closed His earthly ministry, He parted with His disciples, He entered upon His trial, at a feast. The Son of Man had come, in His own words, eating and drinking; and He preserved this peculiarity of His mission unto the end.

There must be something natural, I mean something in accordance with deep principles in our nature, in this action of our Lord’s, considering how widely similar observances have prevailed, how congenial they are to us, and that He who thus acted had taken upon Him human nature in its perfection. God has given us “wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make him a cheerful countenance, and bread to strengthen man’s heart.” [Psalm 104: 15] And these good gifts of His, by which our life is strengthened, send the soul forth out of itself in search of sympathy and fellowship; they end not in themselves, nor can be enjoyed in solitude; they create, and convey, and blend with social feelings; they are means and tokens of mutual good-will and kindness; or, to speak more religiously, they are of a sacramental nature. They are intended, by being partaken in common, to open our hearts towards each other in love; and this being the case, we may judge how fearful is the abuse of God’s gifts in riot or sensuality, for it is in some sort a profanation of a Divine ordinance, a sacrilege. When then our Lord parted from His disciples in a feast, He took the most tender, affectionate, loving leave of them which could be taken.

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(Photo: Wolfgang Sauber; see conditions of distribution)