HOLY THURSDAY (Ex 12:1-8, 11-14; 1 Cor 11:23-26; Jn 13:1-15)

On Holy Thursday, we celebrate three anniversaries: 1) the anniversary of the first Holy Mass; 2) the anniversary of the institution of the ministerial priesthood in order to perpetuate the Holy Mass; 3) the anniversary of the promulgation of Jesus’ new commandment of love: “Love one another as I have loved you” (Jn 13:34). Today we remember how Jesus transformed the Jewish Passover into the New Testament Passover. The Jewish pass-over was instituted by the Lord God, Who commanded all Israelites to celebrate the Feast yearly as their thanksgiving to Him for His miraculous liberation of their ancestors from Egyptian slavery, their exodus from Egypt, and their final arrival in the Promised Land. Jesus had foretold them what he would do; they would not understand then, but they would understand later. What Jesus did on Holy Thursday has many overtones of what the Jewish people did during the Paschal celebration. It was Jesus’ paschal celebration for that year.

Every Holy Thursday, we have this reading from John’s gospel of Jesus washing the feet, which happened during his last supper. Where John describes the washing of the disciples' feet, the Synoptic gospels describe the institution of the Eucharist. John makes no mention of the establishment of the Eucharist because his theology of the Eucharist is detailed in the “bread of life” discourse following the multiplication of the loaves and fish at Passover, in Chapter 6 of his Gospel. Jesus, the Son of God, began his Passover celebration by washing the feet of his disciples (a service assigned to household servants), as a lesson in humble service, demonstrating that he “came to the world not to be served but to serve.” (Mk 10:45).

What are the significance of foot washing?

In John’s account of the Last Supper, this is just the first gesture showing the importance in Jesus’ mind of his commandment to love. It was a perfect image of what this Christ-like love is all about. It is loving others, even people like Judas, who was going to betray him for the value of a slave’s price.

When we refuse to wash the feet of others or, like Peter, refuse to be washed, we mean we do not like to serve others and love others as Christ did. For Christ, love is not feelings; it is active and costly, paid for by life. That's what the washing of the feet teaches us.

In laying down his outer garments to wash the feet of his disciples, Jesus was anticipating the laying down of his life in love for his disciples and all humanity.

Another thing we can learn from Jesus washing His disciples’ feet is that we all need daily cleansing through forgiveness to have fellowship with the Lord. So, at every Mass, we do a cleansing at the beginning of the Mass by saying the Confiteor.

By the washing of the feet of his disciples before a Passover meal, Our Lord is teaching a lesson he expects his disciples to imitate, which is why he is so hard on Peter when he balks at having his feet washed by Our Lord. Our Lord’s response is interesting: “Unless I wash you, you will have no inheritance with me.” Our Lord is teaching them to serve one another by this command. He also added I have given you a model to follow. If Peter had refused, would he ever have done it either? Perhaps an inheritance would have been lost, the inheritance of loving one another, in this case, through service, just as Our Lord did. Inheritance can also mean salvation which he was going to give us through his sacrificial death, the greatest cleansing, and service to humanity.

In instituting the Eucharist, Jesus asks us to perpetually commemorate his sacrifice: “Do this in memory of me.” It was just like the Old Covenant with Moses to remember their Passover every year. But this one is to be done as often as we can, as Paul mentions.

 Jesus asked them to do what he did in remembrance of him. Therefore, we are not doing a separate sacrifice when we do the Mass every day. In every celebration of the Eucharist, we offer in an unbloody manner what he once offered on the Cross: himself. The sacrifice we offer is not different from the original Sacrifice of Jesus, but the same one, because the offerer and the offering are the same. There is only one Sacrifice of Christ. To stress the concept of this unity of the celebration in the early church, when the Popes said Mass in Rome, the neighboring parishes received a consecrated piece of the host from the celebration of the Pope, which they used in the Masses around Rome. That unity of each Mass with other Masses is still preserved when we use the consecrated species from the previous celebration preserved in the Tabernacle. And the unity with the following day’s mass is also maintained when we reserve the remaining hosts for the next day’s Mass. Thus, we keep the unity of the Mass with the one of yesterday and of the one tomorrow, except for Good Friday, as there is no Mass celebrated in honor of the First Mass of Christ.

This sacrifice is made sacramentally present at every Mass—not for the sake of God, who has no need of it, but for our sake. Because it has a benefit for us. Aside from offering thanks to God for the great salvation, we are given a share in the life of Christ by Holy Communion.

Why do we need to repeatedly celebrate it? The repeated celebration should go deeper and deeper into us and become part of our life, reminding me every day that my eternal life gets its effect from this one celebration. Eating physical food one day is not enough for us to grow, we need to eat everyday to satisfy the hunger and get nutrition and grow. The same here.

Since he knows that we're slow learners, he is going to repeat the lesson even more graphically by the suffering and death of his passion, which he says to do in his remembrance.

It is not enough to attend just once to dive deep into that mystery. Because our capacity is limited to draw enough grace for our lives from attending just one celebration, that is why the Church tells us to attend Mass at least on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligations in keeping with Jesus’ command: do this in memory of me.

 When someone asked the great artist Leonardo da Vinci why everybody is on one side of the table in his painting of the Last Supper? The other side is empty. His answer was simple. “So that there may be plenty of room for us to join them.” Well, we can join them like Judas, who betrayed the Lord in spite of getting his feet washed and given adequate warning to step back from his resolve to betray him. Or we can be like Peter, who said Jesus that even if everyone abandoned him, he would not do that, and was willing to die for him, still shivered before a slave girl and disowned his master. If we are joining the table, we should join like the unnamed disciple whom Jesus loved and stayed on with the Lord till the foot of the cross. He was the only male follower present under the cross. But it will require love and faith in us. Are we willing to join them and get our feet washed today?