April 2, 2026
Holy Thursday-Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper
Lectionary: 39
Reading I:Exodus 12:1-8, 11-14
The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt,
“This month shall stand at the head of your calendar;
you shall reckon it the first month of the year.
Tell the whole community of Israel:
On the tenth of this month every one of your families
must procure for itself a lamb, one apiece for each household.
If a family is too small for a whole lamb,
it shall join the nearest household in procuring one
and shall share in the lamb
in proportion to the number of persons who partake of it.
The lamb must be a year-old male and without blemish.
You may take it from either the sheep or the goats.
You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month,
and then, with the whole assembly of Israel present,
it shall be slaughtered during the evening twilight.
They shall take some of its blood
and apply it to the two doorposts and the lintel
of every house in which they partake of the lamb.
That same night they shall eat its roasted flesh
with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.
“This is how you are to eat it:
with your loins girt, sandals on your feet and your staff in hand,
you shall eat like those who are in flight.
It is the Passover of the LORD.
For on this same night I will go through Egypt,
striking down every firstborn of the land, both man and beast,
and executing judgment on all the gods of Egypt—I, the LORD!
But the blood will mark the houses where you are.
Seeing the blood, I will pass over you;
thus, when I strike the land of Egypt,
no destructive blow will come upon you.
“This day shall be a memorial feast for you,
which all your generations shall celebrate
with pilgrimage to the LORD, as a perpetual institution.”
Responsorial Psalm:Psalm 116:12-13, 15-16bc, 17-18.
R. (cf. 1 Cor 10:16) Our blessing-cup is a communion with the Blood of Christ.
How shall I make a return to the LORD
for all the good he has done for me?
The cup of salvation I will take up,
and I will call upon the name of the LORD.
R. Our blessing-cup is a communion with the Blood of Christ.
Precious in the eyes of the LORD
is the death of his faithful ones.
I am your servant, the son of your handmaid;
you have loosed my bonds.
R. Our blessing-cup is a communion with the Blood of Christ.
To you will I offer sacrifice of thanksgiving,
and I will call upon the name of the LORD.
My vows to the LORD I will pay
in the presence of all his people.
R. Our blessing-cup is a communion with the Blood of Christ.
Reading II: 1 Corinthians 11:23-26
Brothers and sisters:
I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you,
that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over,
took bread, and, after he had given thanks,
broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you.
Do this in remembrance of me.”
In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying,
“This cup is the new covenant in my blood.
Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup,
you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.
Verse Before the Gospel: John 13:34
I give you a new commandment, says the Lord:
love one another as I have loved you.
Gospel: John 13:1-15
Before the feast of Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come
to pass from this world to the Father.
He loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end.
The devil had already induced Judas, son of Simon the Iscariot, to hand him over.
So, during supper,
fully aware that the Father had put everything into his power
and that he had come from God and was returning to God,
he rose from supper and took off his outer garments.
He took a towel and tied it around his waist.
Then he poured water into a basin
and began to wash the disciples’ feet
and dry them with the towel around his waist.
He came to Simon Peter, who said to him,
“Master, are you going to wash my feet?”
Jesus answered and said to him,
“What I am doing, you do not understand now,
but you will understand later.”
Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.”
Jesus answered him,
“Unless I wash you, you will have no inheritance with me.”
Simon Peter said to him,
“Master, then not only my feet, but my hands and head as well.”
Jesus said to him,
“Whoever has bathed has no need except to have his feet washed,
for he is clean all over;
so you are clean, but not all.”
For he knew who would betray him;
for this reason, he said, “Not all of you are clean.”
So when he had washed their feet
and put his garments back on and reclined at table again,
he said to them, “Do you realize what I have done for you?
You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘master,’ and rightly so, for indeed I am.
If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet,
you ought to wash one another’s feet.
I have given you a model to follow,
so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”
Reflection:
This very night, we commemorate the Last Supper, when our Lord instituted the Eucharist with the words: “Do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19), evoking both command and loving request because it is exactly that—command and loving request. The Eucharist is the very summit and pinnacle of Christian life because it is through this Sacrament by which Jesus, the only begotten Son of the Father, calls us into deep and intimate relations with Him with the words “eat-this is my body” and “drink-this is my blood.” It is also a fulfillment of God’s promise to save mankind from everlasting death, a promise which goes all the way back to Genesis 3:15 and guaranteed by a New and Everlasting Covenant sealed with the blood of His Messiah and a sacrificial Lamb. There is no greater love than the God-man laying His life for his friends (see John 15:13).
Jesus died on the Cross because of His love for us. The event of the Last Supper is perpetuated precisely to bring those who’d come after in time into the event which saved us from death (Greek: “anamnesis”) because on this night, Jesus gave us His life by giving up His body and blood, in the form of bread and wine, to nurture and sustain us as members of His body.
We came from Him, who is Life, but chose to walk away from Him by our sins and live in darkness. He came to us like one of us, to be one with us, so that He may give us His life through His death: “If we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him” (Romans 6:8).
This night also proves the origins and the longevity of our faith. Christianity started from Jesus who was sent to us by the Father out of God’s great love for us because He wishes nothing but the salvation of mankind and for us to have communion with Him forever. Jesus established the New and Everlasting Covenant, noting that He came not to abolish the law but to fulfill it (see Matt 5:17).
New Passover: Liberation from Slavery of Sin & Death.
As a faithful Jew, Jesus goes to Jerusalem for the last time on Palm Sunday to celebrate the Jewish Passover, as commanded by the Book of Exodus. However, He celebrates the Jewish Passover by instituting the new Passover, His own Passover by offering Himself as the Lamb of the feast – the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. God provided the ram after the aborted holocaust of Isaac (Gen 22:13) on Mount Moriah because it was actually a foreshadowing that someday, a worthy sacrifice to God may be made and that can only be done by Jesus, whose blood seals the New and Everlasting Covenant between God and man – a guarantee of God’s faithfulness in fulfilling His promised salvation for mankind through the death of Jesus.
Jesus is the Bread from Heaven, the unleavened bread and wine of the Seder – the Passover rite – now transubstantiated into His body and blood for us to eat and drink and have life eternal (see John 6:54).
If the Passover in Exodus is liberation from slavery and freedom for the Hebrews from Egyptian bondage, the Passover at the Last Supper of Jesus is liberation from death and freedom for mankind from the bondage of sin and death.
New Priesthood: Washing The Apostles’ Feet to Perpetuate & Delegate His Priesthood.
For centuries, the Gospel for Holy Thursday has always been taken from St. John and it is about our Lord washing the feet of the Apostles. This episode in the Last Supper is recorded only by St. John and is not found in the synoptic Gospels.
Since St. John the Evangelist was the last to write his version of the Gospel and whose feet was washed by our Lord at the Last Supper, he must have deemed this episode to be very significant, one truly endowed with a life-changing purpose because the priesthood of the Levites was going to be replaced and supplanted by the New Testament & ministerial priesthood instituted by no less than the Eternal High Priest himself, and those who were present at the Seder with Jesus will be the first batch of priests – the Apostles. In fact, the Apostles were first the bishops of the Church.
If the Levites who were being readied for consecration to the priesthood were washed before their ‘ordination’ (see Lev 8:6; Ex 40:12, 31-32), our Lord, in a similar but perfect way, washed His Apostles’ feet (only) because they have already been bathed and made clean during their 3-year abiding with Jesus:
“…Jesus answered him (Simon-Peter), “If I do not wash you, you have no part in me.” Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” Jesus said to him, “He who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but he is clean all over; and you are clean, but not every one of you.” For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, “You are not all clean.” (John 13:8-11)
For a Jewish man to wash another man’s feet was a gesture of hospitality, humility and low stature. This task was usually relegated to servants of the house as part of their duty to make guests feel welcomed and comfortable inside the host’s abode. Jesus washes the feet of His disciples to set an example of humility and service, making them aware that their consecration to the priesthood is all about service to others: “You call me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.” (John 13:13-15)
Lastly, the marching order to the Apostles, which is to perpetuate Jesus’ priesthood, is clear when our Lord said: “Do this in memory of me” because only priests can consecrate bread and wine into the body and blood of our Lord. Today, only duly ordained priests in the tradition and line of the Apostles may consecrate bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus in the Eucharist. It is the priesthood of Jesus that He imparts and delegates to His Apostles, and He washes them clean for them to actually share and inherit this sacred duty. This is why we say that at the Last Supper, Jesus instituted the Sacraments of Holy Orders and the Eucharist. Absent the priesthood, the Eucharist may not be offered.
New Commandment: Love One Another (John 13:34)
At the Last Supper, Jesus gave us a new commandment, which appears to be simply worded: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35)
This new commandment actually bears a ton of significance in our faith and the institution of the Holy Orders because of this ‘connecting’ verse from the Book of Hebrews: “For when there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well.” (Heb 7:12)
In other words, Jesus can justifiably seal and conclude the New Covenant, thereby supplanting the old because, by His very own act and power, He also ordained the new batch of priests who were going to implement the terms of the New Covenant. A new law, which is the New Covenant, requires a new priesthood and the Apostles were the first of the lot. This, among others, proves the ‘Apostolic tradition’ of our faith and Church because this was enshrined with these Easter night words from our Lord: “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” (John 20:21-23). At the Last Supper, Jesus institutes the Eucharist and the New Testament priesthood. On Easter night, Jesus aspirates the Apostles with the Holy Spirit into a newness of life and gave them the power to forgive sins.
Aside from the new commandment of loving one another, we can also infer that loving one another is all about service and giving of self to another just like what our Lord Jesus did. The Eucharist is about service because it is our Lord’s body and blood given up for the forgiveness of sins and when we partake of it, we’ll have eternal life. The priesthood is also about service because those who are ordained into it leave their families for a bigger family in the faith.
Important Note: Our Lord deliberately gave a new law—to love one another, because he was changing the priesthood from the Levites to the New Covenant. The Book of Hebrews lays this out when it says: “For when there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well” (Hebrews 7:12). Before the priesthood of the New Testament, it was the priesthood of the Levites and the change was the requirement for Israel to make sacrifices daily for atonement of sins.
Additional Notes
Tonight, if possible, please go out into the open and look at the moon, which hopefully is clearly visible due to the absence of clouds. Remember, that is the same moon that our Lord Jesus was looking at when He was at the Garden at Gethsemane where He prayed and wept. Bring yourself into that moment when our Lord was alone praying and finding the courage and strength to go through the suffering that He knew was to befall upon Him. Pray and thank Him for what He has done for us. Remember, He even perspired blood in a rare medical phenomenon called ‘haematidrosis’ or ‘hematohidrosis’ because He was so sad about so many things, among them were the following:
[1] The sins of the world. Jesus, the Word of God, through whom all creation came to be, took away the sins of the world from Adam and Eve’s original sin, to the murder of Abel by his brother Cain, to the infidelity of Israel to the Covenant, to our sins and up to the last sin which will be committed before His second coming, by going through a most agonizing torture and horrific death on the Cross. Truly, the weight of the sins of the world was upon him.
[2] Betrayal. He knows that He is going to be abandoned by His very own Apostles as they scatter in cowardice, from the betrayal of Judas, one of the Apostles who got enticed with 30 pieces of silver. Remember that our sins are also a betrayal of our commitment to the Covenant. Wherever we sin, we mock Jesus’ saving death on the Cross.
In the same way that our Lord Jesus the Christ wept at the death of Lazarus, He also wept at the Garden because we stupidly chose death instead of life. On this Holy Thursday night, the least we can do is to prayerfully keep vigil for an hour and not fall asleep like the Apostles:
And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping; and he said to Peter, “So, could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, thy will be done.” And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. So, leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words. Then he came to the disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? Behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. (Matt 26:40-45)
Lord, help us and give us the strength to pray to you for at least an hour with you tonight. Guide us to pray for the right things and the things that glorify you. Give us the power to resist temptation and stand by your Word. Lastly, thank you for loving us and dying for us. Amen.
– Gospel Reflection by Kuya Rommel Cecilio of SLRP Bible Apostolate Ministry