Pope Benedict XVI opens the Easter Triduum with the celebration of the Mass commemorating the Last Supper.

VATICAN CITY (AsiaNews) - The Eucharistic mystery, a gift of love born from Jesus' "transformation" of the bread into "communion with himself," meant to be "the start of the transformation of the world – into a world of resurrection, a world of God. Yes, it is about transformation – of the new man and the new world that find their origin in the bread that is consecrated, transformed, transubstantiated." The institution of the Eucharist is the center of the ritual commemorating the Last Supper, celebrated this afternoon by Benedict XVI in the basilica of St. John Lateran, the cathedral of Rome, the bishop of which is the pope.

During the celebration, which opens the Easter Triduum, Benedict XVI also washed the feet of 12 priests, according to tradition.

This morning, the pope remembered the victims of the earthquake in Abruzzo, dedicating in part to them the oils that he blessed during the Chrism Mass. Benedict XVI has also appointed cardinal secretary of state Tarcisio Bertone to preside over the funeral for the earthquake victims on April 10. In consideration of this exceptional event, the congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments has granted an indult for the celebration of the funeral Mass, despite the fact that the ceremony "In Passione Domini" is the only one permitted on Good Friday, according to liturgical norms. As a sign of the pope's personal closeness to those who suffer on account of the earthquake, his personal secretary Msgr. Georg Gänswein will also participate at the funeral.
Here is the text of Benedict XVI's homily:

Qui, pridie quam pro nostra omniumque salute pateretur, hoc est hodie, accepit panem: these words we shall pray today in the Canon of the Mass. 'Hoc est hodie' – the Liturgy of Holy Thursday places the word 'today' into the text of the prayer, thereby emphasizing the particular dignity of this day. It was 'today' that He did this: he gave himself to us for ever in the Sacrament of his Body and Blood. This 'today' is first and foremost the memorial of that first Paschal event. Yet it is something more.

With the Canon, we enter into this 'today'. Our today comes into contact with his today. He does this now. With the word 'today', the Church’s Liturgy wants us to give great inner attention to the mystery of this day, to the words in which it is expressed. We therefore seek to listen in a new way to the institution narrative, in the form in which the Church has formulated it, on the basis of Scripture and in contemplation of the Lord himself.
The first thing to strike us is that the institution narrative is not an independent phrase, but it starts with a relative pronoun: qui pridie. This 'qui' connects the entire narrative to the preceding section of the prayer, 'let it become for us the body and blood of Jesus Christ, your only Son, our Lord.' In this way, the institution narrative is linked to the preceding prayer, to the entire Canon, and it too becomes a prayer. By no means is it merely an interpolated narrative, nor is it a case of an authoritative self-standing text that actually interrupts the prayer. It is a prayer. And only in the course of the prayer is the priestly act of consecration accomplished, which becomes transformation, transubstantiation of our gifts of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ.

As she prays at this central moment, the Church is fully in tune with the event that took place in the Upper Room, when Jesus’ action is described in the words: 'gratias agens benedixit – he gave you thanks and praise'. In this expression, the Roman liturgy has made two words out of the one Hebrew word berakha, which is rendered in Greek with the two terms eucharistía and eulogía. The Lord gives thanks. When we thank, we acknowledge that a certain thing is a gift that has come from another. The Lord gives thanks, and in so doing gives back to God the bread, 'fruit of the earth and work of human hands', so as to receive it anew from him. Thanksgiving becomes blessing. The offering that we have placed in God’s hands returns from him blessed and transformed. The Roman liturgy rightly interprets our praying at this sacred moment by means of the words: 'through him, we ask you to accept and bless these gifts we offer you in sacrifice'. All this lies hidden within the word 'eucharistia'.

There is another aspect of the institution narrative cited in the Roman Canon on which we should reflect this evening. The praying Church gazes upon the hands and eyes of the Lord. It is as if she wants to observe him, to perceive the form of his praying and acting in that remarkable hour, she wants to encounter the figure of Jesus even, as it were, through the senses. 'He took bread in his sacred hands …' Let us look at those hands with which he healed men and women; the hands with which he blessed babies; the hands that he laid upon men; the hands that were nailed to the Cross ...