Story adapted from Jack Shea's The Spirit Master

Sarah had to have it. Not just for herself. Her children, neighbors, and friends "oohed and aahed" over it, and everyone urged her to find out how to make it before it was too late. Her mother was getting up in years and it would be a shame if it went with her. So she waited for the right moment and spoke with studied casualness.

"Ma, mind if I watch you make the soda bread and take a few notes?"

"Why should I?" said her mother and slurped her tea loudly.

I'll never break her of that habit, thought Sarah.

The next afternoon Ma gathered on the countertop all the ingredients necessary for her family-and-neighborhood famous soda bread: flour, sugar, raisins, butter, and a host of ancient spice bottles that were hidden in the back of the cabinet. Then with a deep intake of breath like a conductor the second before a symphony, she began.

Sarah took copious notes. Each pinch and dab and sprinkle was scribbled on her yellow pad. Later on, looking over her jottings, she was puzzled by the entry "HDE." Then she remembered. That was shorthand for "hit dough with elbow." For the truth was that abbreviations were needed. When Sarah's mother began to make the bread, she seemed to go into a trance. She moved gracefully around the kitchen and her hands were as swift and precise as a concert pianist's. Sarah had all she could do to keep up.

The next day, Sarah taped her notes to the cabinet door and began meticulously to follow the instructions. When she came to the part about elbowing the dough, she looked around to make sure she was alone. She felt a little silly, but then delivered the dough a mighty blow. No pro basketball player ever threw a better elbow.

That night at dinner she presented the bread with all the anxiety of a bride's first meal. Her family praised the soda bread extravagantly but unanimously agreed that it was not as good as Grandma's. That made Sarah more determined than ever, and sent her back for a second note-taking session. The next afternoon, her mother began her ritual of baking. Everything was as Sarah had marked it down. She could not see where she had gone wrong.

"Ma, I did everything just as you did, but it didn't turn out the same."

"You forgot the yeast," her mother said.

"You don't use yeast in soda bread," said Sarah.

"You use yeast in everything," instructed her mother.

"I didn't see you use it."

"When I was kneading the dough, I saw all the faces of all the people who would eat it. That yeast entered the dough and made it bread." "What are you?" said Sarah, laughing. "Some kind of bread mystic?" Her mother smiled. But she did not deny it.

I think to myself, as we celebrate this Holy Thursday liturgy, how Jesus must have felt as he was sharing his bread with his disciples. I think about a man who is about to die for our salvation, and in one of the last great acts of his life, Jesus decides to share a meal with his friends. He takes the bread, breaks it, and as he passes it to his friends, he thinks about the millions, billions, trillions of people that will partake of this supper in years to come. Jesus looks at all the faces of those who come to share in the meal and he finds great hope in such a feast.

And in this last act, he tells his disciples to offer this same meal to the people that they meet: "Do this in remembrance of me." And so, on this night before he died, our Lord and Savior sends us the challenge to do for others as Christ has done for us. Jesus sees the faces of all the people who are in need of being saved, all the faces of all the people who have gathered and will gather around the altar to celebrate this continuous sacrifice that we have celebrated for the last 2000 years. And when we share this meal in memory of the Lord, we see the face of our Lord within this changed bread to reveal the new yeast that allows this Passover bread to rise and grow in our hearts.

As we once again to commemorate the meal that took place on the night before our Lord died, I began to reflect on Pope John Paul II's last message to the priests throughout the world that he wrote from his room at the Gemelli Hospital in Rome a few years ago. He calls his own current suffering a reminder of the greater suffering that Christ endured for us. And in this letter, our Holy Father reminds us of the wonderful faces that are reflected from that Precious Body of Christ that rests on our altar and in our hearts. Our Holy Father writes,

"Accipite et manducate. Accipite et bibite". Christ's self-giving, which has its origin in the Trinitarian life of the God who is Love, reaches its culmination in the sacrifice of the Cross, sacramentally anticipated in the Last Supper. It is impossible to repeat the words of consecration without feeling oneself caught up in this spiritual movement. In a certain sense, when he says the words: "take and eat", the priest must learn to apply them also to himself, and to speak them with truth and generosity. If he is able to offer himself as a gift, placing himself at the disposal of the community and at the service of anyone in need, his life takes on its true meaning.

This is exactly what Jesus expected of his apostles, as the Evangelist John emphasizes in his account of the washing of the feet. It is also what the People of God expect of a priest. If we think about it more fully, the priest's promise of obedience, which he made on the day of Ordination and is asked to renew at the Chrism Mass, is illuminated by this relationship with the Eucharist. Obeying out of love, sacrificing even a certain legitimate freedom when the authoritative discernment of the Bishop so requires, the priest lives out in his own flesh that "take and eat" with which Christ, in the Last Supper, gave himself to the Church.

As a priest, the Holy Father reminds me of the joy and obligation of service that comes as a result of this humble gift the Lord has afforded me through these consecrated hands. Through washing the feet of the members of our community, I allow the Lord to wash these feet through me. In the consecration of this Eucharist, the Lord allows me to become a vessel through which his love and presence descends upon and changes this bread and wine through the power of the Holy Spirit. Through my ordination, I am honored and humbled to allow Christ to serve the myriads of people that approach this one life and, as a result, the people are fed.

As a priesthood of believers, this same challenge of service falls upon each and every one of us. At the time of our own baptism, our parents promised that we would believe and live the Catholic faith so that we become Christ-like for others, that we literally would become Christians. On Easter Sunday, we will reaffirm those baptismal vows and remind ourselves that Christ is present in each and every one of us. We remind ourselves as Christ washed us, as Christ fed us, as Christ died for us and as Christ rose for us, so we, too, have the honor of serving as vessels of Christ in this world in the way we allow Christ to work within us and to feed the people we encounter every moment of our lives, from our kids to our spouses to the people that we meet.

At the end of this Mass, we will process with this presence of Christ through the Church, passing by each and every person in this room who becomes affected by this presence in their lives. Let us not only recognize this presence within us, but let us follow the example of service that Christ offers us by feeding others, by dying for others, by leading others to the empty tomb and by allowing others to join us in professing our vows of baptism together. For when we do, it is Christ's presence that makes the bread rise. It is Christ's presence that enters the dough and makes it bread. Let us allow Christ to be present in our lives, as we live our lives in memory and presence of him.

This is our prayer.