Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
iStock

April 18/Holy Thursday

I will lift up the cup of salvation, and will call on the name of the Lord. ~ Ps 116:13

On the eve of Christ’s painful, shameful death upon the cross, we are invited, paradoxically, to lift up the cup of salvation. Given the events that will unfold this night—the Last Supper with the disciples’ uncertainty swirling around the room, the protracted agony of Jesus in Gethsemane’s garden, his betrayal and all the chaos that ensued—the cup of bitterness or lament might be more appropriate.

Indeed, throughout much of the Hebrew Bible, the prophets and the psalms, salvation was the last thing that the image of the cup brought to mind. Instead, the cup was filled with the wrath of God and the piercing pain of divine judgement. Ezekiel speaks of “the cup of horror and desolation,” Isaiah makes similar allusions, and Jeremiah sums it up trenchantly: “For thus the Lord, the God of Israel, said to me: ‘Take from my hand this cup of the wine of wrath.’” Indeed, for Jesus himself—a child of the Hebrew scriptures, let us remember—the cup was the cup of suffering. As he admonished a protesting Peter, “Am I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me?” It is the miracle of the Resurrection that this very cup—the cup of submission, of suffering, of death itself—becomes the vessel not of our punishment or of God’s wrath, but of our salvation. The chalices from which we will take the precious blood of God tonight—simple or ornate—are the very cups that deliver us from our sin through the self-giving sacrifice of Christ on the cross that we celebrate in the Eucharist. How blessed we are to have cups that run over with the abundant love and abiding mercy of God.

O God the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, on this holy night, I give you thanks for the sacrifice that leads to my salvation.

For today’s readings, click here.

To hear the Taize chant “Eat This Bread, Drink This Cup,” click here.

More: Lent / Prayer
Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.

The latest from america

Hendersonville residents pull in for supplies outside Immaculata school. Photo by Kevin Clarke.
Chief Correspondent Kevin Clarke joined a team from Catholic Charities USA assessing needs in North Carolina after Hurricane Helene.
Kevin ClarkeOctober 11, 2024
The Jesuit’s pilgrimage involves confronting one’s limits, only to discover that God never abandons us even in our sheer exhaustion, despondency and despair. The same is true of the synod process.
Ricardo da Silva, S.J.October 11, 2024
The church's teaching on servile work as it developed over the centuries is another indicator of how the church constantly sought ways not only to extend its evangelization but to challenge itself to recognize fully the others for whom Christ died.
James F. Keenan, S.J.October 11, 2024
The luminous mysteries show Jesus’ light in the world. Jesus is fully human and fully divine, and the mysteries we contemplate seem to give full recognition to each, through stories of Jesus living out his public ministry.
Jill RiceOctober 11, 2024