Today is the first Liturgy that comprises the Triduum of Holy Week, the three liturgies of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Saturday Easter Vigil. These three days are seen as one continuous liturgy by the Church.
Our Holy Thursday liturgy is so multi-faceted. We normally have the foot washing by the priest today, but in this time of the COVID-19 pandemic, that part of the liturgy is not possible this year. This is the day that Jesus celebrated the Passover meal with his disciples. Today, we celebrate the institution of the Eucharist as Jesus’ body and blood. This is the day that we bring the new Chrism oil into the church that was blessed by the Bishop earlier in the week at the Chrism Mass. Today, at our Holy Thursday liturgy, as we begin the Easter Triduum, the holy Church calls us to contemplate Jesus’ passion, his dying and rising for our sins, and God's plan of redemption for the world.
But today’s Gospel reading does not talk about the Passover meal Jesus had with his apostles. It does not talk about the Eucharist, the Body and Blood of Christ. Today’s Gospel reading speaks about Jesus, the Lord and Master of the disciples, getting on his knees and washing their feet. Jesus does this out of a spirit of love and service, a spirit that Jesus calls his disciples to follow in their lives as his followers. This is the true spirit of our Eucharist celebration. This is the true spirit of what it means to live out the Eucharist in our lives. Without this spirit, we would be missing the entirety of the Gospel message. Jesus tells all of us today in the Gospel: “I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”
In the spirit of today's Gospel in following in Jesus’ steps, offering ourselves in service is not sufficient in itself in becoming a servant. Indeed, we can offer to be of service condescendingly, out of arrogance and haughtiness, lording it over others. We can try to make those we serve feel indebted to us, to manifest our power over them. But that attitude misses the point. That is not what Jesus did, as he became the last of the last and the poorest of the poor. Humbling himself to wash his disciples’ feet, an act normally reserved for the lowest servant of the household, preceded Jesus’ death on the cross, the most humiliating and degrading way a criminal could be put to death. To be servants, we start with our everyday reality and our everyday mundane tasks, doing so discretely with humility and with joy in our hearts, without seeking anything in return.
Moreover, there is a grace in the spirit of Holy Thursday, knowing that God embraces us in the midst of our weaknesses and imperfections. God meets us in our frailty with love, without judgement or exclusion. As Jesus calls us to follow in him in the spirit of servanthood, let us realize that this spirit of love and service as brothers and sisters is to be one of the fundamental characteristics of Christian discipleship. It is also a fundamental characteristic of living out the spirit of the Eucharist. We do this in memory of Jesus.
No comments:
Post a Comment