Holy Thursday Reflection 2008

Scripture Reading:
John 13: 1-15

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Two sets of symbols stand front and center as we celebrate Holy Thursday: the basin and towel and the bread and the cup. These symbols are inextricably bound up together, as we listen to the moving Gospel account of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples and commemorate the institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper.

The scene in the Gospel commences with the evangelist telling us that Jesus knew that his hour had come. This is the hour – the moment of conflict when Jesus will leave the realm of everyday events and complete the mission given him by the Father. I distinctly remember visiting the “Cenacle” (the upper room) in Jerusalem when I studied there for a semester. It is the site that commemorates the Last Supper. It is a rather simple, unadorned place with stone walls. I remember looking around at those walls and wondering whether Jesus felt imprisoned on that night. I imagined that he may have felt that the walls were closing in upon him. I wondered if he had the haunting feelings of a prisoner waiting on death row or languishing in solitary confinement.

But the evangelist tells us that this was his hour. Even though it was a dark and foreboding hour, it was his hour. He was about to lose his freedom, to be arrested, bound, tried and put to death. He showed us, however, that at this hour he was supremely free. He was the one who knew who he was and whose he was. At that hour, Jesus was free enough to take up the basin and the towel, stoop down and wash the feet of his disciples. He even washed the feet of the one who would betray him and the one who would deny him. In this simple, earthy action of washing their feet, Jesus manifested his own path to freedom. His road to freedom was one of humble, self-giving love to the end. In that faithful service, Jesus trusted that the God he had revealed would be faithful to him. He trusted that the Father would release him from whatever held him bound – even the chains of death. By offering this act of footwashing as a model for us, the Lord tells us that this is our path to freedom, too. In the effort to respond to God’s grace in our lives by serving others, we discover an inner freedom that nothing can take away.

Easter Monday of this year will mark the 28th anniversary of the death of Archbishop Oscar Romero, of El Salvador. Deeply shaken by the murder of one of his own priests in the midst of a civil war, Archbishop Romero was moved to see life anew through the eyes of the poor. The poor people he served were suffering from the rule of a repressive regime and caught in the crossfire of this bloody civil war. Romero began to see things differently, and this new vision radically altered his life. He sought the way of reconciliation and justice among his people, even though this way became an increasingly difficult and dangerous path for him to follow. He became a voice for the voiceless. He knew the risks he was taking, speaking of them quite openly in the days and weeks before his assassination. He must have realized that the walls were closing in upon him. And on March 24, 1980, in the midst of celebrating the Eucharist, he was shot and killed.

Romero once wrote these words about peace: “Peace is not the product of terror or fear. It is not the silence of cemeteries or the result of violent oppression. Peace is generosity.” I believe that we could say something similar about freedom. Freedom is not the product of terror or fear. It is not gained by frightening away into submission those people or voices that are different from our own --that may seem threatening to us. The freedom which Jesus modeled is discovered through generous, humble service to others. We discover it in and through all the ways in which we are invited to wash the feet of others. Such service is possible because we have experienced the boundless love of God in our lives, a love that is faithful and forgiving, the love of a God who never abandons us.

The basin and the towel lead directly to the bread and the cup. “This is my body given for you; this is my blood poured out for you.” At the center of the Eucharist is the memory of Jesus interpreting his life and death as the gift of himself for us and to us. It was a gift that would endure and sustain us. These words articulate the meaning of a sacrament. They also express a way of life. The basin and the towel go hand in hand with the bread and the cup. Every time we celebrate the Eucharist we commit ourselves to a life marked by generous service to others.

Each one of us falls short in this commitment. Each of us struggles with our own forms of selfishness and pride, with the inclination to be self-serving in our endeavors. And so we depend on the mercy and strength of Christ. But Christ continues to call us back to a freedom that we discover through generous service.

As we celebrate Holy Thursday let us keep these two sets of symbols before us: the basin and the towel, the bread and the cup. May we who receive the marvelous gift of the Eucharist pray for the grace to emulate the One who stooped down to wash the feet of his disciples.

Fr. Robin Ryan, cp