The disciples of Jesus are to change the world by getting down on their knees and washing the feet of God's poor.

 

HOLY THURSDAY 2021

 

With this solemn liturgy of the Lord’s Supper, we enter the heart and soul of the entire liturgical year.  We celebrate the paschal mystery – the dying and rising of Christ Jesus.  As the disciples of Jesus, we gather during the Triduum to celebrate the mystery of the ways we encounter the Lord.

In this Holy Thursday liturgy, we encounter the Lord in two significant ways.

In today’s Gospel account, Jesus wraps a towel around his waist, takes a pitcher of water and, on the night before he dies, begins washing the feet of his disciples.  The disciples are stunned.  The washing of feet was usually done by a slave.   It was Jesus who was washing their feet.  Jesus is teaching them that this new life is gained not in presiding over multitudes from royal thrones; it is gained, however, in walking with the humble and in humbly serving this world’s walkers.  When he tells his disciples to do as he has done in washing their feet, he is commissioning them to walk as he has walked and to heal as he has healed.

The message of Holy Thursday is that his disciples are to change the world by getting down on their knees and washing the feet of God’s poor.

This is the authentic mark of the follower of Jesus Christ:  that he and she wash the feet of the beggar, the leper, the miserable sinner rejected by everyone else.  In the words of Tinamarie Stoltz, the lesson to be drawn from Jesus’ washing of the feet, I do not decide which lives have value and dignity, God does.

Jesus the teacher demonstrated his life-giving message:  foot washing.  He did not ask his friends to die for one another, but to live for one another.  Holy Thursday is a celebration of life, and life together as a people of God.

 

Notice how we encounter the Lord in this liturgy of the Lord’s Supper.  Shockingly, the voice of God speaks to us through Jesus with a towel around his waist asking us to find the towel with our name on it: “As I have done for you, so you also must do.”

Service rooted in love is the example Jesus gives to his disciples.  It is a radical form of service because it is based on a radical form of love.

Where is your towel with your name on it? 

The second way we encounter is in the mystery of the Eucharist.  It was at the Last Supper on the night before he died, that Jesus said over the Bread and Wine:  This is my Body; take and eat.  This is my blood: take and drink.  Do this in memory of me.

When we gather for Sunday Eucharist Sunday after Sunday after Sunday, we are doing what Jesus asked us to do when He said:  Do this in memory.

In this sacred Eucharistic meal, under the form of bread and wine, Jesus is present to us.  We are nourished with the bread of life and the cup of Eucharist.

We encounter the Lord in a most privileged sacramental in the Sacrament of the Eucharist that was instituted at the Last Supper on the night before he died to insure us that Jesus will  be present to us all days until the end of time.

A profound truth of our Holy Thursday liturgy is that these two ways of encountering the Lord are essentially linked together for us as Catholic Christians.  What does this mean?   We will never perceive the Reality beneath the bread and wine unless we first understand the point of the basin and feet; we will never see Christ in the Eucharist we kneel to adore, if we do not first see Christ in those before whom we kneel to serve.

To say it again, we will never see Christ in the Eucharist we kneel to adore if we do not first see Christ in those before whom we kneel to serve.  Where is the towel with your name on it?  That towel is surely found in how you are to love and serve in your family, that towel is around your waist calling you to wash the feet of the person you don’t along with, that towel is to be found for you in one of the ministries of our parish life?

Additionally, in our discipleship of Christ Jesus, may we hold onto a another most important truth.  We are to allow the Lord to wash our feet.

In the Gospel account we find that Peter was uncomfortable with having Jesus wash his feet.  Peter, who was somewhat of an activist, would have preferred to see himself doing the washing, washing the feet of Jesus, and even of the other disciples.  Sometimes it is harder to remain passive and allow someone else to bathe us than it is to bathe someone else. 

Peter’s image of God was more of a king rather than a humble servant.  He was imprisoned by his image of who God is.  Jesus was giving Peter a different image of God and saying the only way to stay close to Jesus was to let him wash you.

The Lord washes our feet in the Sacraments of the Eucharist and of Reconciliation.   Sacramentally we are bathed in the mystery of God’s love for us.

In the mystery of the Church, we also stand in need of the love and the service of one another.  We are not meant to be alone.  We are to experience the mystery of God’s love in the love of others.  We need to allow ourselves to be loved and so experience the love of God.

  As Jesus said to Peter, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.  First, the Lord washes us clean so that we belong to the Lord.  Only then are we qualified and empowered to wash the feet of our sisters and brothers. When this truth dawned on Peter, he overcame his reluctance and cried out “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head.”  For this to happen all that the Lord needs from us is simply to be there, to present ourselves to him and to let him wash us.

The other side of the coin, which is equally important, is that after our feet have been washed by the Lord, we must go and wash the feet of others.  After Jesus washed his disciples’ feet, he said to them: “Do you know what I have done for you?  You call me Teacher and Lord – and rightly so, for that is what I am.  So, if I, your Lord and Master, wash your feet, you are to wash the feet of one another.  I have given you an example, what I have done, you are to do likewise.

On this holy night, we pledge once again to use our hands and feet for the work of forgiveness, for the work of loving each other.  We pledge to wash each other’s feet, to hand over our lives for each other for the sake of the world.  As we gather to celebrate the Eucharist on this Holy Night, we do this in the memory of the One who gave His life for us.