What I am doing, you do not understand now, but you will understand later. We hear these words of Jesus from John’s gospel at the evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper, referring to Jesus washing the disciples’ feet. Peter and the others have little or no comprehension of the sign Jesus has done, such that Jesus has to explain quite plainly: I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.
But these words about understanding and misunderstanding—what I am doing, you do not understand now, but you will understand later—apply equally well to what Paul writes about in our second reading from First Corinthians, how the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread, and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you.” There was no way that the disciples could have understood—not fully, at least—the significance of Jesus’s words and actions over the bread and the wine. It was only later, on Easter Sunday, that they could begin to understand Jesus’s command, Do this in remembrance of me. Do this, the ritual celebration of the Eucharist, yes. And also: offer your lives as I have done, in accordance with what you celebrate.
As we begin the sacred Paschal Triduum today, let us ponder this mystery that the Lord has left us: the memorial of his blessed Passion, his Resurrection from the dead, and his glorious Ascension into heaven. And let us beg for the grace to live in accord with this mystery we celebrate.