Given up for YOU

Written by Kelly Dunlop on Holy Thursday (Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper)

On an exceptionally warm Friday afternoon in December, I crossed the street from the historic hotel where I had gathered to get ready with my girlfriends to the Newman Center to marry my best friend. The church was beautifully decorated with poinsettias and greenery from the Christmas celebrations just days before as I linked arms with both my mom and dad to walk down the aisle. When the doors to the chapel opened, I was moved to tears to see this space that I loved and had worshiped in for many years filled with our friends and family from across the globe, each who we held precious memories with and shaped our experiences in diverse ways.  Despite the hundreds of times I had previously walked down that exact same aisle I would not be able to ever do so again without some recollection of this moment- one of my most favorite from our wedding day.

Celebrating Holy Thursday at St. Mary’s for me taps into a similar experience. Regular 10 o’clockers, it is rare I get to celebrate mass with a majority of the students, grad students and residents I serve and work with in other capacities of parish life. Holy Thursday feels like a fantastic family reunion as I get a moment to catch up with a few of our alum who have traveled in to celebrate the Triduum with St. Mary’s. Some of our snowbirds have just landed back in Michigan after months away in various warmer climates. Many of the youth we have watched grow up are home from college to celebrate Easter with their families. Rather than 6 different liturgies as is our Sunday practice, we are gathered as one community.

I imagine Jesus experiencing some of these same feelings as he gathered his dearest ones around him in gratitude and love for this precious meal. “This is my body, given up for YOU.” Period. Without conditions. Not when you are pious, perfect, compassionate, generous. Not you who are religious, Christian or Catholic. Just YOU- as you are. And if that weren’t enough, following the institution of the remarkable gift of himself Jesus drops to his knees to wash the feet of his disciples. He sets a model for all of us of what self-gift really means.

In December, my husband Paul and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary and if there is one thing we have learned thus far it is a life promised is not the same as a life practiced. When the wedding day and honeymoon are over, one has to choose daily (sometimes multiple times within the day) to love. It is much easier to say I do to “in good times and bad; in sickness and health” on your wedding day than in the messier parts of life. As a Eucharistic people, we are sent out to serve, to love, to struggle with. As each of us walk down the aisle this weekend to receive Jesus, may our “Amen” resound as our commitment to love and serve in good times and bad.

Questions for Reflection:
Within hours of his beautiful and intimate gathering with friends, Jesus is in agony, terror, pain, physical distress and eventually dies. Can you and I love so deeply as to enter into those places with another? To care without curing? To love without judgment? To allow parts of ourselves to be broken?

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Kelly Dunlop
Kelly was delighted to join the campus ministry staff at St. Mary’s in 2011. Before coming to St. Mary’s, Kelly was the associate director for social justice at the Newman Parish at her alumnus the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill where she studied psychology (’02) and social work (’05). While her heart still bleeds Carolina Blue, she and her family (husband Paul and children Conor and Erin) have truly come to find a home in Ann Arbor.
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