Thursday, April 8, 2004
Holy Thursday

1st Reading: Ex 12:1-8, 11-14
2nd Reading: 1 Cor 11:23-26
Gospel: Jn 13:1-15

It was before the feast of the Passover. Jesus realized that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father, and as he had loved those who were his own in the world, he would love them with perfect love.

They were at supper and the devil had already put into the mind of Judas, son of Simon Iscariot, to betray. Jesus knew that the Father had entrusted all things to him, and as he had come from God, he was going to God. So he got up from table, removed his garment and taking a towel, wrapped it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel he was wearing.

When he came to Simon Peter, Simon said to him, "Why, Lord, you want to wash my feet!" Jesus said, "What I am doing you cannot understand now, but afterwards you will understand it." Peter replied, "You shall never wash my feet."

Jesus answered him, "If I do not wash you, you can have no part with me." Then Simon Peter said, "Lord, wash not only my feet, but also my hands and my head!"

Jesus replied, "Whoever has taken a bath does not need to wash (except the feet), for he is clean all over. You are clean, though not all of you." Jesus knew who was to betray him; because of this he said, "Not all of you are clean."

When Jesus had finished washing their feet, he put on his garment again, went back to the table and said to them, "Do you understand what I have done to you? You call me Master and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I, then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you also must wash one another's feet. I have just given you an example that as I have done, you also may do."

Commentary

WHAT we call Holy Week was once concentrated into a single night, preceded by a few days of fasting and followed by a long period of joy-Pentecost. In the early centuries there were no other feasts (Christmas did not begin to be celebrated till the 4th century); everything was concentrated into a point. It must have carried tremendous significance. "O holy Pasch," wrote St. Gregory Nazianzen, "I speak to you as to a living being." At the heart of it was the Eucharist, celebrated at the end of the vigil, at cockcrow. It signified the moment in which Jesus rose from the tomb, the moment of passage from sadness to joy. It was a vivid reliving of his death and resurrection. "Yesterday I was buried with him, today I am risen with him" (St. Gregory Nazianzen).

In the 4th century, in the new climate of freedom, pilgrims in Jerusalem began to spread out the events of the Paschal Mystery, celebrating them in the places and at the times mentioned in the gospels: the Last Supper in the Cenacle on Holy Thursday, the adoration of the Cross on Golgotha on Good Friday, the Vigil in the Church of the Resurrection. Soon this practice spread throughout the Church.

To make sense to us, the Mass (any day of the year) has to be seen as part of this one concentrated event. It will help if we think of Holy Week as one single extended day in which we get time to attend to every detail of the mystery.

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