Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper
By Beth DeCristofaro
“This day shall be a memorial feast for you, which all
your generations shall celebrate with pilgrimage to the LORD, as a perpetual
institution.” (Exodus 12:14)
So when he had washed their feet and put his garments
back on and reclined at table again, he said to them, “Do you realize what I
have done for you? You call me ‘teacher’
and ‘master,’ and rightly so, for indeed I am.
If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you
ought to wash one another’s feet. I have
given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also
do.” (John 13: 12-15)
Piety
Father in
Heaven: change our selfishness into
self-giving. Help us to embrace the
world you have given us, that we may transform the darkness of its pain into
the life and joy of Easter.
Study
In his Palm Sunday
homily Pope Francis told us that humility is God’s way, saying “God humbles
himself to walk with his people, to put up with their infidelity.” He also
reminds us that God’s way is the Christian way even though it is a “way which
constantly amazes and disturbs us: we
will never get used to a humble God!”[i] In Exodus we witness God again and again
saving the Chosen People. Based on their
vacillating fidelity and disbelief it appears that God even gives them more
than they should ever deserve. God turns
human perception upside down again and again.
God is humility, love and gift not earned reward.
Holy Thursday, the
beautiful Mass of the Last Supper is another stunning example of God humbling himself
in an unsettling yet iconic way. Peter
is uncomfortable. I’ve heard parishioners
say that they would not want to be chosen for foot washing because it is too
embarrassing. People complain about Pope
Francis who has humbled himself to wash the feet of delinquents, women,
prisoners, unbelievers.
Is it our
embarrassment, our judgmental observations, our scrupulosity, our fear of
“others” or perhaps our inability to accept all-encompassing love that makes us
not understand and appreciate that Jesus means what he says: I have
given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also
do.”
Action
In what way do you
resist the gentle touch of Jesus’ hands upon your all too human feet, heart,
head, deeds, choices, thoughts? In what
ways do you resist lovingly touching the smelly, unclean, troubled, unstable,
disrespectful, fearful lives of those around you as God does every day? Open yourself to the humility of Jesus.
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