Assemble for the Meal

The texts of the Roman Catholic Lectionary today bring us to the start of Triduum 2011, the feast of the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus. The Book of Exodus recalls the meal prior to the deliverance of the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt. The author declares “It is the passover of the Lord” (Exodus 12:11). Deliverance from slavery continues to be the Good News of the Assembly of Christians to experience an intimate relationship with Jesus through the resonance of the indwelling Spirit with the Presence of Christ. Prior to the assembly for the Solemn Celebration of the Lord’s Supper, this evening, many Christians gather as Diocesan Church with the Bishop as the priests rededicate themselves to their vocation and the oils used in the liturgies are blessed and distributed. The Chrism Mass can be both Catholic and catholic. The liturgical “bells and smells” are presented to those gathered who include many coming into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church at Easter Vigil, the Triduum conclusion. The assembly in the Cathedral Church is also ‘catholic’ presenting a holy assembly that is old, young, well dressed, poorly clothed, male, female, reverent, distracted, from many ethnic backgrounds, organized and dishevelled. The visible tensions within such an assembly and the gathering itself draw us to the praise of the psalmist in the texts for today. “I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving and call on the name of the LORD. I will pay my vows to the LORD in the presence of all his people” (Psalm 22:17). Paul reminds the Corinthians and Christians today of the action of Jesus, on the evening which began His passion, to give us a continuous gift of His Presence to be for us means to become what we are, “the Body of Christ”. The Gospel of John puts the action of those who live in Christ as people who wash feet and bring the Body “in contact” with us who are in need of cleansing and deliverance from slavery as destructive in our lives as was escaped in the Passover from Egypt.