We're now 24 short hours away from our first Holy Thursday liturgy. Tomorrow, we'll have Morning Prayer in the Church at 9:00am. In the evening, we'll celebrate the Mass of the Lord's Supper at 7:30pm followed by Adoration in the Mercy Chapel until midnight.

That period of Adoration is always such a special time. During that time, we recall Christ's suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane in anticipation of His Passion. The time has come. The parables have been proclaimed. The visits to the temple are over. Jesus has celebrated His final meal with His disciples, giving them His Body and Blood as the new Passover. They eat and drink, but before the final cup (click for an awesome talk on it!), they leave the house and go out into the night. Nobody ever left the house during Passover. To do so was to tempt the Angel of Death, who took the lives of the firstborn in Egypt. As they go out singing into the night, Jesus goes to face death itself, the ancient serpent, once and for all time.

Jesus leads them down from the city, through the shadowy Kidron Valley (“Though I walk through a dark valley, I fear no harm” – Psalm 23:4), and up into the Garden of Gethsemane. Here, Jesus falls on His knees to pray, and in doing so begins His great Passion. He prays so intensely that He sweats blood, begging the Father to remove this weight from His shoulders (Mt 26:36-46; Mk 14:32-42; Lk 22:39-46).

At this moment in the garden, Jesus takes on all the sin that ever was and ever will be, and we see the intensity of Jesus’ struggle. As the second person of the Triune God, He can see and feel the full reality of the sin and death that He is taking on His very self. Christ feels the weight and suffering caused by every rejection of God and the significant pain and guilt left by each sin. Being fully man, He cries out to the Father to make it stop, to take this suffering from His shoulders. Being fully God, He humbly submits His will to the Fathers. The pain is so intense that angels are sent to minister to Him in His time of need.

Before the disciples fully wake, the guards, led by Judas Iscariot, arrive to take Jesus into custody. Jesus knows they’re coming. From where He stood on the Mount of Olives, He could see a lit candle from a mile away. Jesus watched the soldiers approach and never flinched or hid. In fact, He went out to greet them (Jn 18:4). On their arrival, He asked them who they were looking for. Jesus is challenging them to state their evil intent, to which they reply, “Jesus of Nazareth” (Jn 18:5). At this moment, they don’t recognize Him. Their hearts, darkened by sin, cannot recognize Jesus. So Judas, the betrayer, kisses Jesus to signify who they should arrest. The lover of all betrayed with a kiss. Immediately, they arrest Him, and the Passion of Jesus continues into the night.

Over the next few days, Jesus will walk the lonely road to Calvary to prove His unending love. He will contend death and come out triumphant. Every step of the way looks like defeat, but He is moving closer and closer to victory. As we walk alongside Jesus through the Easter Triduum, we must ask ourselves some questions.

Will we stay awake with Jesus?

Will we help Christ carry His cross, or will we run?

Will we be the ones to betray Him with a kiss?

Let us pray for strength to not undergo the test. Let us look upon the Paschal Mystery of Jesus with love and adoration, knowing that it is by His stripes we are healed, and with His death comes victory.

To read more about the liturgy of the Mass of the Lord's Supper in the context of the Triduum, please visit our Holy Week page on our parish website: