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“If you cannot find Christ in the beggar at the church door,” said St. John Chrysostom, “you will not find him in the chalice.” On this Holy Thursday evening, we celebrate Christ’s miraculous, abiding and real presence in eucharistic bread and wine. And we celebrate also Christ’s very real presence in our neighbour.
Before his death, Jesus invited his closest friends (and at least one enemy) to share a meal with him. It wasn’t just any meal: it was the Passover. All present would have remembered the night, long ago, when the Angel of Death passed them over. They would have known that God’s answer to the cry of the slave, then and evermore, is “Freedom!” They would have recalled that being liberated from slavery, they must never again enslave or oppress. They would have relished in being the beloved people of God – divinely chosen. It was in this context that Jesus shared bread and wine and commanded them to “Do this in remembrance of me.”
At the same meal Christ gave another command. Do THIS in memory of me. And he bent down and washed the feet of his companions. At the celebration of freedom from servitude, Christ freely became a servant. Our faith in Christ’s eucharistic presence is, thus, forever bound to our service of Christ in our neighbour.