A Concord Pastor Comments: The Last Supper and the Olympics


The Sacrament of the Last Supper by Dali

I much prefer Dali's Last Supper to DaVinci's. And I much more prefer any celebration, any experience, of the Lord's Supper to a mere representation of it on a canvas, regardless of how beautiful a painting it might be.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that my whole life has revolved around the meal Jesus shared with his friends on the night before he died: for this I was ordained and by this I have been sustained.

I have spent my life leading people to the altar t0 break open the bread of God's wisdom in the scriptures and then, nourished by it, proceed to make a sacrifice of praise, offering gifts of bread and wine, recalling and receiving in communion the mystery of Christ's gift of his body and blood - for us and for our salvation.

It's through the celebration of the Eucharist that most of you reading this post have come to know me. And it's the prayer that flows from our altar-table that keeps us in communion with one another now, no matter how many the miles that separate us.

So, it was painful for me, as I know it was for millions, to see how carelessly, crassly and rudely the Olympics imaged the sacrament of the world's peace with God at the opening ceremonies.

By way of reparation, I invite you this morning to pray over these stunningly insightful and beautiful words of Pope Francis.*

"I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer." (Luke 22:15)

These words of Jesus, with which the account of the Last Supper opens, are the crevice through which we are given the surprising possibility of intuiting the depth of the love of the persons of the Most Holy Trinity for us.

Peter and John were sent to make preparations to eat that Passover, but in actual fact, all of creation, all of history — which at last was on the verge of revealing itself as the history of salvation — was a huge preparation for that Supper.

Peter and the others are present at that table, unaware and yet necessary. Necessary because every gift, to be gift, must have someone disposed to receive it. In this case, the disproportion between the immensity of the gift and the smallness of the one who receives it is infinite, and it cannot fail to surprise us. Nonetheless, through the mercy of the Lord, the gift is entrusted to the Apostles so that it might be carried to every man and woman.

No one had earned a place at that Supper. All had been invited. Or better said: all had been drawn there by the burning desire that Jesus had to eat that Passover with them. He knows that he is the Lamb of that Passover meal; he knows that he is the Passover.

This is the absolute newness, the absolute originality, of that Supper, the only truly new thing in history, which renders that Supper unique and for this reason ‘the Last Supper,’ unrepeatable.

Nonetheless, his infinite desire to reestablish that communion with us that was and remains his original design, will not be satisfied until every man and woman, from every tribe, tongue, people and nation (Rev 5:9), shall have eaten his Body and drunk his Blood. And for this reason that same Supper will be made present in the celebration of the Eucharist until he returns again.
(emphasis added)

* I Have Earnestly Desired
(Desiderio Desideravi, nos. 2-4,
an apostolic letter from Pope Francis 6/29/2022)