Daily Gospel Reflection
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April 18, 2019
Before the feast of Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come
to pass from this world to the Father.
He loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end.
The devil had already induced Judas, son of Simon the Iscariot, to hand him over.
So, during supper,
fully aware that the Father had put everything into his power
and that he had come from God and was returning to God,
he rose from supper and took off his outer garments.
He took a towel and tied it around his waist.
Then he poured water into a basin
and began to wash the disciples’ feet
and dry them with the towel around his waist.
He came to Simon Peter, who said to him,
“Master, are you going to wash my feet?”
Jesus answered and said to him,
“What I am doing, you do not understand now,
but you will understand later.”
Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.”
Jesus answered him,
“Unless I wash you, you will have no inheritance with me.”
Simon Peter said to him,
“Master, then not only my feet, but my hands and head as well.”
Jesus said to him,
“Whoever has bathed has no need except to have his feet washed,
for he is clean all over;
so you are clean, but not all.”
For he knew who would betray him;
for this reason, he said, “Not all of you are clean.”
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.”
As I prepared for my recent pilgrimage to the Holy Land, I looked forward to visiting the Garden of Gethsemane in particular. That decade of the Rosary—the Agony in the Garden—has always been special to me. Whenever I pray it, I try to put myself in Jesus’ place and ask that he take away or give me and those I love the grace to handle the burdens in my life. When we visited Gethsemane, I could feel Jesus’ agony.
It was in this garden that Judas betrayed Jesus. And, later that evening, Peter denied Jesus three times.
In the Gospel tonight, we hear that Christ washes the feet of both Judas and Peter—men who he knew would betray and deny him.
“I have given you a model to follow,” says Christ, “so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”
Through this act of washing his disciples’ feet, Jesus teaches us how to love as he loves. He becomes a model of forgiveness we can follow.
God’s infinite ability to forgive gives me great comfort and peace. Forgiveness is a gift that we ask of God in the Lord’s Prayer. As we pray for this gift, we also acknowledge our responsibility to forgive others as our loving Father forgives us.
There are times in my life where I’ve found it difficult to forgive those who have denied me something that I desperately wanted. As time passed, I’ve learned that forgiveness can take away the “agony in the garden.”
Jesus, thank you for your forgiveness; show us how to seek God’s forgiveness and to forgive others. Help our Church emerge stronger after dealing with the crises it faces today. Help us to be a light of forgiveness to others in this often-difficult world we live in.
Prayer
Almighty and ever-living God, on the night before his death Jesus gathered with his disciples to share a Paschal meal. As he tenderly washed his disciples’ feet while they were at table, Christ set for them and for his followers ever after an example of service and humility. In our gratitude for the new life Christ has won for us, grant that we may never shirk the Eucharistic table and the life of service it implies. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Saint of the Day
With the beginning of Holy Thursday Mass, Lent ends and the most sacred time of the liturgical year begins—the Triduum, the celebration of Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection. The Triduum is one liturgical act that begins with the opening procession of Holy Thursday Mass and continues uninterrupted until the closing procession of the Easter Vigil. The services on Good Friday, for example, have no official opening or closing because they are simply a continuation of the one prayer of the Triduum. During these three days, we will live and breathe the Paschal Mystery.
With Mass on Holy Thursday, in particular, the Church remembers the Last Supper at which Jesus offered us his body and blood in gifts of bread and wine. This Mass recalls the love by which Christ gave himself to us on the cross, and invites us to embrace and enact this love in service to one another.
Of the four Gospels, three depict the Last Supper as a meal at which Jesus broke bread and poured wine while blessing them, and gave them to his disciples, saying, “Do this in memory of me.” The Gospel of John, by contrast, presents a very different vision of the Last Supper—it is here that Jesus washes the feet of his disciples, and tells them, “I have given you a model to follow so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”
Both accounts of the Last Supper tell us the same thing: in this meal and in this act of service, Jesus gave us one example of self-giving love that we are to follow. This example shows the inherent connection between the Eucharist we celebrate and the way we serve one another. Both are participation in self-emptying divine love.
Holy Thursday is sometimes called “Maundy Thursday.” The title comes from the Latin word, mandatum, which means “commandment,” and refers to Jesus’ instructions to follow his example of love.
The Last Supper is depicted in South Dining Hall as a replication of Leonardo Da Vinci’s famous painting. The foot-washing scene depicted above is a painting that hangs outside of the chapel in St. Ed’s Hall. The reliquary chapel holds a piece of the table at which Jesus and his disciples gathered for the Last Supper.
On this Holy Thursday, let us empty ourselves in loving service to others, as Jesus taught us!