Thursday May 11
We are in the Cenacle, moments after Jesus invited his apostles to also wash each other's feet. The phrase is known and is repeated in the Gospels: a slave is not greater than his master (Mt 10:24). The imitation is extremely up to Christ's martyrdom which seems close because he knows the treachery of Judas, evoked by Ps 41:10. But Christ will rise beyond death because he is the I am, the God of the burning bush. The text closes with a word of reassurance to the disciples, which Matthew also includes (10:40): he who welcomes you, welcomes me.We are in the Cenacle, moments after Jesus invited his apostles to also wash each other's feet. The phrase is known and is repeated in the Gospels: a slave is not greater than his master (Mt 10:24). The imitation is extremely up to Christ's martyrdom which seems close because he knows the treachery of Judas, evoked by Ps 41:10. But Christ will rise beyond death because he is the I am, the God of the burning bush. The text closes with a word of reassurance to the disciples, which Matthew also includes (10:40): he who welcomes you, welcomes me.
Alternative
“I never saw, heard, nor read that the clergy were beloved in any nation where Christianity was the religion of the country. Nothing can render them popular but some degree of persecution,” wrote Jonathan Swift, the acerbic author of Gulliver’s Travels. 18th-century Europe attempted nothing short of the total annihilation of religion. Swift was himself a clergyman, and may be thought to speak from experience; but his temperament was more that of the persecutor. He persecuted the foolish, and parodied their follies. His tombstone mentions his “savage indignation”, (saeva indignation). These words would be highly suitable to the headstones of many writers of that age. In particular there was an Italian, Giannone, whose works are a sustained howl of fury at the power of the Church and clergy.
In Christian art and in Christian life why hasn’t more been made, through the ages, of that scene in the Gospel: Jesus washing the disciples’ feet? The Church was too often distracted with other concerns: power, precedence, law and order. Had it always remained faithful to the spirit of the Gospel: Giannone might have been a Vincent de Paul. And Swift—well, there should never be a world without a Swift!
Alternative
The feet are the lowliest part of the body in a literal sense, and the farthest away from the head! They are willing to go where hands would disdain to go; and when we touch something with the foot we haven’t really established any personal contact with it. Yes, the feet are the most disowned part of the body. Yet they are our most fundamental and on-going contact with reality! And they are not the insensitive clods that they may appear to be: they are so highly sensitive that a foot-massage affects the whole body. Jesus washed the disciples’ feet. In that dusty country it was a normal courtesy paid to a visiting Rabbi, for example. But it was not something that a Rabbi would do for his disciples! “If I do it... so should you for one another,” Jesus said. It stands symbolically for every lowly service we can perform for one another. The persons at the receiving end of such services may seem insensitive and ungrateful... but, as with feet, there can be sensitivity where we least expect it.