Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Fides Service) - In the Afternoon of Holy Thursday 5 April, in the Basilica of St John Lateran, the Pope presided the mass of the Lord's Supper during which he washed of the feet of twelve young men members of lay associations in the diocese of Rome. A special collection was taken to enable the Pope to support a Catholic Dispensary in Baidoa in Somalia. At the end of the Mass the Pope carried the Blessed Sacrament in procession to the Chapel of Repose for all night adoration.
The Holy Father concluded his long articulated homily as follows" Thus, the Cross was at the centre of the new Passover of Jesus. From it came the new gift brought by him, and so it lives on for ever in the Blessed Eucharist in which, down the ages, we can celebrate the new Passover with the Apostles. From Christ's Cross comes the gift. "No one takes [my life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accord". He now offers it to us. The paschal haggada, the commemoration of God's saving action, has become a memorial of the Cross and Resurrection of Christ - a memorial that does not simply recall the past but attracts us within the presence of Christ's love. Thus, the berakah, Israel's prayer of blessing and thanksgiving, has become our Eucharistic celebration in which the Lord blesses our gifts - the bread and wine - to give himself in them.
Let us pray to the Lord that he will help us to understand this marvellous mystery ever more profoundly, to love it more and more, and in it, to love the Lord himself ever more. Let us pray that he will increasingly draw us to himself with Holy Communion. Let us pray that he will help us not to keep our life for ourselves but to give it to him and thus to work with him so that people may find life: the true life which can only come from the One who himself is the Way, the Truth and the Life. Amen. ”.(P.R.) (Agenzia Fides 5/4/2007 - righe 21, parole 331)
