Homily – April 6th, 2023 – Holy Thursday – Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper
Ex 12:1-8, 11-14; Ps 116:12-13, 15-16bc, 17-18; 1 Cor 11:23-26; Jn 13:1-15
Jesus ‘loved His own, who are in the world, and loved them to the end’. And this ‘to the end’, from the Greek ‘eis télos’, implies 2 things at the same time: a love that goes on ‘until the end of time’, and also a love to the full extent (the fullest measure). In other words, it is a love that breaks the boundaries of space and time.
The God who loved us first, loves us to the end. His love both comes before and follows after us; it reaches out from always and goes on forever, and it also fills all the spaces, all the gaps in our lives, it makes up for all the love that runs short, and it makes up for all the lacks of love that have hurt us throughout our lives.
Writing to the Ephesians, St. Paul highlights the 4 dimensions of the Love of Christ in order to express the infinity of His love: ‘I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses all knowledge. May you be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God’.
And today we see this infinite love materialized in one gesture, which is actually the most eloquent expression of Jesus’ love, filling up all time and all spaces, in the last moment of intimacy, communion and friendship He had with His 12 disciples together. It is precisely the washing of the feet.
John is the only evangelist who highlights this event of the washing of the feet and reveals its deep Eucharistic meaning. He doesn’t include a description of the ritual of bread and wine, like the other evangelists. For John, this is the Eucharist: the descent, the lowering of God to join us, wherever we may be.
A Jewish slave could never have his feet washed by a Jewish master. So, Jesus undertakes a profoundly humiliating work according to the culture of His time. He emptied Himself, journeying all the way down to the feet of His disciples.
We have all hit rock bottom, we have all fallen very low because of our sins; but the truth is that, out of Love, God has fallen even lower, so that all our falling might turn out to be a falling back into Him.
The Psalmist says that we are so wrapped up in God’s Love that there is no place we can think of going where God is not already there. If we climb to the heights, He is there, if we drop into the depths, He is there, if we fly to the farthest shores, His Hand will be with us. We need to go back to the most essential experience, which is the heart of hearts of our faith: learning to welcome the ‘Gospel’ of God’s love for us and be transfigured by it.
Then, the Gospel says that Jesus laid down His garments, which is a sign of His whole life laid down for us, bowing at the feet of the apostles, bowing at our feet.
When Jesus takes off His outer garments, He is actually anticipating the Cross: He is giving away His life. Then, after washing the disciples’ feet, that is, after passing through the Cross, ‘He puts His garments back on, and reclined at table again.’
And because He has returned, our table, our Easter supper, is no longer a farewell dinner, but one where the Risen One is present. And when He reclines at table again, He asks: ‘Do you realize what I have done for you?’ It is the same as saying: ‘Do you realize what kind of love I love you with?’
I’m coming down to get you where you are, ‘my Adam, my lost sheep, my prodigal son’! I will run down to you and bring you back up! / What we are celebrating right here and right now, in the Eucharist, is God who has come down to the very edge of our brokenness and helplessness to have us sit at the table of His Resurrection. Now we are guests and partakers of the Eternal Glory of God.
And, at first, Peter refuses to have his feet washed because that gesture was unworthy of the Master! But Jesus says: ‘Unless I wash you, you will have no part with me.’ If we don’t allow God to descend into our ‘hells’, into the underworld of our sinfulness and filth, to the ‘dirt of Satan’ stuck to the feet of our existence, we won’t be able to experience ‘the Heaven’ of His Merciful Love. Let Him wash your feet!
Very often we don’t have a deeper experience of who God is and how He loves us because we are locked into a ‘transactional idea’ of God, who allegedly gives us things if we give Him things, who will supposedly love us if we do something to earn it.
This is not the God of Jesus Christ. The Father doesn’t love us because we are worthy, but He makes us worthy because He loves us. If you don’t accept His humility, you will never get to see the true face of God.
It is very meaningful that in the painting ‘The Washing of the Feet’, by the German artist Sieger Köder, Jesus is shown bowing all the way down, totally absorbed in His act of service. And it is interesting that, in the painting, we cannot see Jesus’ face directly, we can only see it in the reflection of the dirty water, where Peter’s feet are.
We often seek God in what is lofty, sublime, and certainly we can find traces of God there, because God is supremely Beautiful and Eternal, but most of the time, God is down there, at our feet, washing them, forgiving us, ministering Mercy into our lives.
Some ancient monks of the desert used to say to their disciples: scratch, scratch the surface of your sins, and there, inside your sin, within your misery, you will find a Merciful Face, the Face of God looking at you! And Jesus says: ‘As I have done for you, you should also do.’
How great it is to see the face of God through our brothers and sisters when they forgive us and teach us to do better. And how WE can also be a reflection of God’s face for them if we forgive and love more!
The English poet William Blake once wrote: ‘We are put on earth that we may learn to bear the beams of love.’ In other words, we have received the gift of life in order to transform it into love. That’s what we abundantly receive from God, so, that’s what we are capable of giving.
Fr. Cristiano Pinheiro C. Bede
Shalom Catholic Community
New York, April 6th, 2023 – Maundy Thursday