What the Lord had to endure at the Last Supper

By Msgr. Charles Pope, Archdiocese of Washington, DC

One of the consistent themes of the Four Gospels is the theme of the “inept response.” Most often it applies to the 12 apostles who, when taught some important point by the Lord, demonstrate, almost right away, that they don’t get it all.

No one place in the gospels is more thick with the inept response than at the Last Supper. It was nothing short of a disaster. The ineptitude is almost comical if it weren’t so sad. If ever the Lord needed his disciples attention and understanding, it was now. But to a man, they let him down. There is squabbling, misunderstanding, argumentativeness and betrayal, all in one evening.

Indeed it was so awful that one could hardly have faulted the Lord for saying, “That’s it Father, I’ve had it with them, I’m coming straight home!” Praise God he chose to die for the likes of us.

And lest we be too critical of the twelve, we are often like them in many ways. Indeed, they are us and we are them. And the Lord loved them and us to the end.

On Holy Thursday, let’s examine the sequence of the Last Supper which pretty well illustrates why the Lord had to die for us. We will see how earnest the Lord is about this Last Supper, how he enters it with an intense love for his disciples and a desire that they (we) carefully heed what he is trying to teach them. We shall see however that they (we) show forth a disastrous inattentiveness and a terrible lack of concern for the Lord.

Here then are the movements of the Last Supper. Watch how things begin with the loving and careful attentiveness of the Lord and end with a selfish, inept and unloving response from the apostles (us?) Here is the sequence.

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