The Israelites ate their Passover at night and then set out, leaving Egypt for the promised land. And we too begin our Triduum too at nightfall. We begin it by remembering how on that night, Jesus, the Lamb himself, took bread and a cup, and made a meal for his disciples, and then went out to pass from this world to the Father and open heaven for us.

Has there ever been an evening like this evening? Has there ever been a Supper like this Last Supper? At the end of this Mass the Blessed Sacrament is taken through the church to the altar of repose, and we sing the Pange lingua, the hymn of St Thomas Aquinas. And we hear the line, In supremae nocte coenae, “On the night of that Last Supper”. But the word supremae means more than “last” or “final”. Think of our words, super, supreme. This isn’t just a last Supper. It’s the supreme Supper, the ultimate Supper, the mountain peak of Suppers, the unsurpassable Supper. And we are at it! Jesus knows very well that the end of his life has arrived. He knows what would happen the following day. And, to put it mildly, he rises to the occasion. It’s the supreme moment of his public life. In the context of the Jewish Passover, with all its stirring memories, with all its hopes of freedom, with his friends gathered round him, with the forces of evil bracing themselves outside for their last assault upon him, he institutes the Eucharist. He takes bread, gives thanks, breaks it and says…what we know he says. He takes the cup and shares it – and says what we know he says. And in this simple cluster of things and words and gestures, he creates, makes, shapes and crafts this unsurpassable thing, his masterpiece, his Eucharist. “There is nothing new under the sun”, said the sad old Jew who wrote the book of Ecclesiastes. But there is now. “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity”, he said. But not now. In supremae nocte coenae, Jesus fulfilled the Passover Psalm we sang earlier. He raised the cup of salvation and called on the name of his Father. He, the Faithful One, made his death precious in the eyes of his Lord. He offered a thanksgiving sacrifice. He fulfilled his vows, his mission, before his people. We can say: with these things and words and gestures, he gathered up creation and history; he gathered up the divinity he had from his Father and the humanity, the body and blood, received from his mother, all his life, the hidden years, the public years, the preaching and the miracles, his Baptism and Transfiguration, his friends and followers; he evoked his coming death, resurrection, ascension and Pentecost, even the Coming still to come,  and – poor words! – transferred, translated all this, relocated it, condensed, packed, loaded it into the Sacrament of the Eucharist. He turned his whole self into what the world was made for: Eucharist, thanksgiving, return as gift to the Father, carrying us within himself. He did all this in supremae nocte coenae, the night of the unsurpassable supper, one night around Passover in Jerusalem – of all things the night he was betrayed.

And he gave and gives it all to us. It wasn’t left to decay in a long-gone Upper Room or filed on a memory-stick. The Room grew wider than the world. He gave it to the apostles – handed it over, says the Liturgy – for them to do in memory of him. He instituted the priesthood for this very end. He gave the Gift through them, those commissioned, to the whole body of believers, to us his Church, to eat in faith and love. “For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”

All this comes from the heart of the Trinity – unsurpassable love.

It is so large. I always imagine the figure of Christ that night expanding, his shadow thrown in multiple directions by multiple oil lamps, covering the walls of that room, a living mural, enclosing, protecting, reassuring, embracing the scared disciples gathered there like fluttering birds.

And why? Why, in supremae noctis coenae, did he do this?

So that the places and times we inhabit, different from those of those first disciples, won’t disadvantage us. So that being here, in Aberdeen in 2025, won’t exclude us. So that, however dark the nights of our lives, however threatening what surrounds us, whatever betrayals affect us, we too can eat and drink at the unsurpassable Supper.

And why? Why? So that everything the Eucharist is may pass on, pass over, to us. It has no other goal.

The Eucharist is his Body given for us, given that we may become his Body.

The Eucharist is his Blood poured out for us, so that we may give our lives for one another.

The Eucharist is his Passover, shared with us so that we may pass with him from this world to the Father, our lives open not closed, not dead-ended but a pilgrimage of hope.

The Eucharist is the memorial of him and given on to us, so that our lives are not just vanity, mere breath, empty or, as the Psalmist says, like morning flowers that wither in the evening, eminently forgettable; so we can be remembered in him, not lost.

The Eucharist is his Presence, so we may become the same in our turn and time.

The Eucharist is real, “substantial”, and given to us so that our poor, fragile existence may be real with his reality, be substantial with his love.

The Eucharist is what its name affirms, “thanksgiving”, and it is passed to us, so that we may not be soured and embittered by life, but grateful, giving back in joy.

So, brothers and sisters, in supremae nocte coenae, let’s be awed and ‘wowed’ by the Love of this unsurpassable Supper, so awed, so humbled, that we, people and priests, can’t but rise from it, like him, to wash each other’s feet, to love one another as he has loved us.

Amen.

St Mary’s Cathedral, Aberdeen, 17 April 2025