Exodus 12: 1-8, 11-14; 1 Corinthians 11: 23-26; John 13: 1-15
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Delivered at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Mustang, Oklahoma
Jesus loves his disciples till the very end. After spending several years with them, he knows them very well. He knows their faults and quirks and failings, and he knows their good qualities as well. Jesus’ heart overflows in gratitude to the Father for the gift of his disciples who have been with him through thick and thin, from the Sea of Galilee to the Temple in Jerusalem, from wedding feasts to simple meals under the stars. He reaches out to touch them one final time with tenderness and love. By washing their feet, Jesus reminds them there is no part of them which he is not willing to cleanse by his saving love.
He wants them to remember him by this loving act of humble, self-giving service. He wants them to do the same for each other and for others in memory of him.
Jesus loves the ones His Father loves. He loves the ones the Father has given to him as companions on a great adventure of scattering the seed of the Kingdom of God. As he washes the feet of each one of them, he gives thanks to the Father for them. Gratitude energizes his service, not only at this meal in the Upper Room, but at all times. Jesus knows his life is not his own—his life is a gift from the Father. His life is given to him to be given away in love of others, by washing feet, even touching those whom other shy away from.
His life of humble service culminates on the cross, where he gives away completely the gift given to him, gives his life back to the Father in a total act of thanksgiving.
As we come to this table to share in this sacred meal with Christ Jesus, we come overflowing with gratitude. We come to be joined more fully to the Crucified and Risen Lord, to give thanks to the Father with him for all the people who have washed our feet. There are those people in our lives who have generously served us: who have loved us in good times and bad, stuck by our side through the storms of life, who have both accepted us and challenged us to grow. People who have washed our feet, who have known and even touched with tenderness our warts, our weakness, and by doing so have called out the best in us.They have washed our feet over and over again.
Their love remains present to us, even if these special people in our lives are no longer physically by our side. As we think of them, as we remember the many ways they gave of themselves in love to us and for us, gratitude wells up in us. Through the lens of the Eucharist, we see their lives as revelations to us of God’s humble, life-giving love in Christ Jesus.
With Christ Jesus we give thanks to the Father for the gift of these ones who have loved us with the sacrificial love of Christ, who made us feel like our lives have value, who honored our God-given dignity.
All those who have washed our feet in our lives point us to Christ and his cross, reveal to us something of his humble, self-giving love. So gratitude grows in us not only for them, but even more so for Him, for Christ the Lord, and the great gift He is to us and to the world. Through him, in him, with him—all these loving servants found their energy to serve.
We receive the Lord here as a gift in order to better receive him in our daily life. We receive the Lord in this sacred meal so He might crack open our hearts to welcome Him coming to us in our daily lives. Receiving his broken body and his life poured out as blood, we are meant to be more receptive to Him as he comes to us in his broken body laid out on the altar of the world.
The Lenten practice of the Rice Bowl helps us to receive Christ coming to us in the humblest of people. Through Catholic Relief Services weekly Rice Bowl meditations, the poor throughout the world have been revealed to us as persons just like us, with hopes and dreams like our own. As we have received them into our lives, our world has expanded to include the Christ coming to us through them, to realize we are all connected in Christ. As we have sacrificed a little of our own comfort and financial resources, we have received the Son of God who became poor that we might become rich in God’s mercy.
Pope Francis constantly challenges us to be a “Church of the poor, for the poor.” He does so because those who are poor teach us how to love in a generous way. Not that we will be the ones saving the poor, but they will be saving us from the death sentence of self-centeredness. We rise up to new life in loving them and serving the Christ living in them.
By following Christ’s command to love others as he has loved us, we see beyond the color of skin and the differences in culture. He strengthen us by the gift of his own life that we might lay down our lives in love of others, even those who speak a different language or who see the world differently than we do. In doing so, we receive the Lord as he comes to us shining in thousands of different faces and places.
Joined to Christ Jesus and to his saving passion and death in the Eucharist, we slowly grasp the truth that our life is not our own—it is a gift. Our existence is pure grace, totally dependent on the Father’s love. Joined to the Son, the humble servant of the Father, we learn that humility, as C.S. Lewis points out, “is not thinking less of ourselves, but thinking of ourselves less.” Which means we think of others more, we take on the mind and heart of Christ.
Joined intimately to the one who washes feet, and whose own feet are marked by the life-giving wounds of self-giving love, we go out into the world energized to lay down our lives in love of others.
So we strip ourselves of pride and fear and selfishness, and take up the towel of service. The living water of divine life in us then surges forth to refresh and renew others. We have much good work to do, for the feet of the world await us…..
Fr. Joseph A. Jacobi
