20th March 2008

Christ is our salvation, our life and resurrection. It is through his cross we are saved and made free. With confidence in his loving mercy we turn to him and ask mercy and pardon.
Lord, we call on your name.
Lord, have mercy
You are good to us.
Christ, have mercy.
You loosen our bonds.
Lord, have mercy
Feet are funny things, aren’t they? Every time I see people either in bare feet, or unsocked-sandaled feet, I can’t help saying the Cockney rimming slang to myself – “feet, plates of meat”!
They are most peculiar parts of our anatomy. We are mostly embarrassed about our feet – they are very personal items, they are terribly ticklish and they get most strange itches which are difficult to assuage. They get dirty; they smell; they ache and hurt. However they take all our weight most of the time – they are what keeps us grounded.
And no matter how hard you try, they are awkward to get at, to wash to care for. When you have to look after or wash someone’s feet, there is nothing for it but to get down there, to stoop, to bend, to kneel.
One of the hardest tasks I found as a parish priests was trying to find twelve people to volunteer for the mandatum, the washing of the feet on Holy Thursday. No wonder it was the work of the lowest and youngest servant to wash feet.
Jesus is Lord and Master indeed, and yet he does what no Lord and Master should be expected to do, he gets down to wash his friend’s feet. However, what is even more difficult for us, he tells us that it is something that we must learn to copy.
This is the Last Supper – the ultimate moment of Jesus’ life, almost the last minute; there is only pain and suffering and death left – so whatever Jesus does at this moment must be important, it must be of paramount importance, there is no time left to waste. He stoops and washes his friends’ feet. He also takes bread and wine and gives it to them and says this is my body, this is my blood – do this in memory of me.
In a very graphic and dramatic way he is trying to show the apostles, and us, that there is an intimate connection between serving others and being nourished at the Eucharistic banquet, between dying to self and rising to new life, about stooping to do what no Lord and Master would do and returning to the Father, coming closer to God.
Tonight, we celebrate Jesus giving us his very own body and blood for our nourishment, as we do so we are also reminded that freedom from slavery is given to us only when we surrender ourselves to God and others, stooping to wash their feet, becoming in some way a slave, a servant.
This is the night when we realised fully that Jesus loved us to the end – he gave us his all – the tremendous gift of his body and blood, the self-surrendering gift of his own life. In the face of suffering – Jesus loved us. In the face of death – Jesus loved us. In the face of mockery – Jesus loved us. And this same Jesus now turns to us and says – I have given you an example so that you may copy what I have done.
How can I repay the Lord for his goodness to me, we asked in the psalm this evening? Well, unless we are blind and unheeding, we have just witnessed what we have to do. If our Lord and Master had to stoop and bend, to surrender and die, to give his all for us, then, as his followers we must learn to do the same.
A thanksgiving sacrifice I make; I will call on the Lord’s name…O precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his faithful.