All Of Life Is A Gift (Holy Thursday Homily)

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n July 2024, during the closing Mass of the Tenth National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA, presider and homilist Cardinal Antonio Tagle asked the Holy Father what he would like to say as his message to the delegates. Pope Francis said, “Conversion to the Eucharist...Conversion to the Eucharist.” The Cardinal used the theme of gifts to deepen what “Conversion to the Eucharist” means. He said, “We should note that Jesus’ description of His being sent by the Father is always connected to the gift of His flesh for others, being sent and being a gift... The presence of Jesus in the Eucharist is a gift and the fulfillment of His mission.” The Cardinal asks this question: “Do we look at ourselves, at persons, at objects, at our work, at society, at the events of daily life, and at creation within the horizon of gift? Or is this horizon disappearing? If our horizon is only that of achievement, success, and profit, there is no room to see and receive gratuitous gifts.” The weakening in the appreciation of gifts leads to restlessness. We chase validation. We seek applause. We grow tired. And slowly, we become absorbed in ourselves. Pessimism creeps in. We see only problems. We miss the beauty and gifts in people and events. And those who can’t see gifts within themselves or in others will struggle to share gifts.

During Lent, we always have the parable of the two sons because they mirror to us how we approach the gift of the Father. The elder brother never left his father’s house—yet his heart was blind to the gifts in the people around him. He toiled like a slave, believing he had to earn his father’s love, including his very identity as a son. So when his younger brother returned, the elder brother’s resentment boiled over. He demanded a reckoning, not just of work, but of his self-worth. He finds himself lost in his own home, where he feels he is not welcome anymore, not loved anymore, nor recognized. We sometimes find ourselves in a place like that of the elder son, who lived like a servant, not a son. He was blind to the gift of having a father, a brother, and himself. Because of that, he started rejecting himself. Henry Nouwen says, “Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the ‘Beloved.’ Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence.”

It’s a miserable path to take, especially when we just can’t seem to find our way out of it, no matter what we do. If in the past days, you felt that this is no longer the life you want. You start to question God, “Why me?” or say to God, “This is not the life for me.” When the going gets tough, we turn to the younger son who remembered that all of his life was a gift. When he realized that all was a gift, he was found. It became his point of conversion. It is a kind of Eucharistic conversion. When he felt hungry and remembered the food that he had eaten at home, he realized there was more to it than physical nourishment. It is Eucharistic food, meaning it is flavored with his father’s love. When he realized how gifted and blessed he was, he returned home. All that mattered to him was to be beside his father’s greatest gift, which he is hungry for, that is, the person of the father himself. It did not matter if he would still be treated as a son or a brother.

Second: When all of life is a gift, all life is a thanksgiving. The Greek word “Eucharistia” means “thanksgiving.” If life is a pure gift, unearned and freely given by God, then the most natural and fitting response is to say ‘thank you’—not just in words, but in the way we live, give, and relate to others. When we are aware that all of life is a gift, we naturally become Eucharistic people, thankful people, and other-oriented people. Today is called Maundy Thursday. It commemorates the time when Jesus spent precious moments with his disciples. It is called Commandment Thursday when Jesus said “I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.” It is a Solemnity—the most solemn day of the entire Christian calendar. Why? God is a present, which is another word for gift—present with us, present today, and present whenever we gather for the solemn mass. This is the moment of the ‘big bang’ or the ‘ground zero’ that commemorates not just our rescue but our redemption from the path of self-destruction. This is the day of our salvation—our deliverance from the darkness and coldness of hell. The gospel mentions the presence of the Devil in the cenacle or upper room. I believe that Jesus’ descent into hell is prefigured in the upper room. He redeems by bending down as if to reach out to all who are ‘frozen’ in sin. I like to use the word frozen rather than buried. Frozen means temporary or in limbo. In his Inferno, Dante Alighieri imagined hell as nine concentric circles of torment located within the Earth. The deepest part is not a place of fire but a frozen lake—ice-cold, silent, and motionless. It’s chilling (literally and figuratively), and Virgil’s calm presence contrasts with the torment around them. For Dante, the ultimate punishment was the absence of love and movement—the soul frozen in isolation and despair. God redeems us from being frozen. God warms up to us. He does this in the Eucharist, reaching out to thaw the coldness of the human heart. Just as warmth revives what is frozen or lifeless, so too does the Eucharist bring life, love, and intimacy where sin has caused distance, numbness, or spiritual chill.

The opposite of gratitude is ingratitude. St Ignatius of Loyola expresses this powerful teaching on ingratitude as the root of sin in a letter he wrote to Fr Simão Rodrigues: “Ingratitude is the most abominable of sins and the cause, beginning, and origin of all sins and misfortunes. For it is a forgetting of the graces, benefits, and blessings received. As such, it is the cause, beginning, and origin of all evils and sins.” What does this mean? For Ignatius, ingratitude isn’t just a failure to say “thank you.” It’s a spiritual blindness or coldness where we fail to recognize God as the source of all good. Our Church teaches that it is a sin if we fail to attend a Sunday mass without a valid reason. Why? Because it is a form of ingratitude.

For my third and final point, if all of life is a thanksgiving, then all of life is service and praise. “Freely you have received; freely give” (Mt 10:8). Jesus, even when he is betrayed, does not get tired of offering to us the gift of himself. Why? Because he lived his life as a pure gift from the Father. “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing” (Jn 5:19). “My teaching is not my own. It comes from the one who sent me” (Jn 7:16). This is Jesus’s deep secret. We have this beautiful picture of Jesus smiling while hanging on the cross. Every gift is powerful, it can transform a problem into a blessing, a gift. Beg for the grace to see everything as a gift, and you will see things undergoing Eucharistic conversion.

God’s gift of himself through the Eucharist—taken, blessed, broken, and shared. Today, we are reminded of that day when it began. At the Easter Vigil, when the Exultet is sung, we hear the words: “O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a Redeemer!” Adam’s fault is a happy fault because it is the occasion for the institution of the Eucharist. How can a fault be transformed into joy? Only when seen from the angle of the gift. It is written that God loves a cheerful giver. And who is the most cheerful of all givers? He is none other than our Lord. If you want to experience what Jesus experienced, who is smiling even while hanging on the cross. His secret is seeing everything as a gift. He did not say to himself, “This is not the life I want!” He just said, “Thank you, Father, for everything.” Richard Rohr holds that Jesus has accomplished more by acceptance or by his Passion than by his actions. Let me end by reading St Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. “The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Cor 9:6-7). Amen. Fr JM Manzano SJ