THURSDAY of 4th WEEK of EASTER “You call me Master and Lord, and rightly ; so I am. If I then, the Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you must wash each others’ feet. I have given you an example so that you may copy what I have done to you.”
After having washed his disciples’ feet, Jesus comments twice upon what he has done. First of all with Peter : ’What I have done, you will understand later.’ Then talking to them all :’ Have you understood what I have done?’ Jesus came, he clothed our humanity anew. God is with us, and wants to act through us. Taking upon him our human nature, Jesus went descended even further! He will wash Judas’ feet, those of the one who will deliver him.He will give him a chance to come back to him. By freely bowing down in front of Peter and the other apostles, Jesus expresses in advance his humiliation which will be of an extreme nature in his Passion and death on the Cross. This negation of himself prefigures the total gift of his life : it is the reason for which we let Jesus act and let ourselves be purified by him, in order to have a part in his Kingdom. Peter will only understand later, when Jesus’ hour will be over and when the Holy Spirit Paraclete will guide his disciples towards the whole truth. Jesus is our Peace, he offers humanity every possibility of his Love so that in following him we may go right to the end of his Love. So we learn from Jesus that love is in proportion to our humility. Everything that Jesus wants to do in us , he does with us.
“In all truth I tell you, no servant is greater than his Master, no messenger is greater than the one who sent him.Now that you know this, blessed are you if you behave accordingly. I am not speaking about all of you : I know the ones I have choses; but what scripture says must be fulfilled : He who shares my table takes advantage of me. I tell you this now before it happens, so that when it does happen you may believe that I am He.”
These words are aimed at Judas, who some minutes later will leave the group of disciples to go and betray Jesus his Master and sell him : so in passing close to Jesus who is Love, he takes advantage of his friendship to betray him. Jesus gives an example of a practical, efficient charity that is made solemn by his declaration “No servant is greater than his master, no messenger is greater than the one who sent him.” In other words, when we serve our brothers we are identified with Jesus our Master and so we are like him in a total state of humility, in the total gift of oneself. ’Now that you know this, blessed are you if you behave accordingly’. This is true happiness for those who love. Jesus has us enter into an attitude of great humility. The Father has placed everything into his hands. “Having love those who were his in the world, Jesus loved them to the end.” All he offers is quite simply his Love ! Jesus’ humility astounds us. He received all power from the Father, and he loves his own right to the end. This is how he chooses us to bring about his work of Love. ’I have chosen David my servant, he is a man according to my heart, my arm will be a support for him and my hand will make him strong. ’God is present to each one of us in a great humility.
“Truly I say to you, whoever welcomes the one I have sent welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.” And so God pursues his work of Love in the world and in submitting ourselves to the humble reality of our lives ,we know that God takes up our defense, building up peace. Scripture will be accomplished : Jesus is going to be betrayed by his own, but that is part of God’s plan who will come to our help even here. God does not fail when Jesus dies, for he delivers us from death and from hell : the Father takes the Son in his Glory, in his Presence for ever, in this humanity woven by Mary. And so we have nothing whatsoever to prove, but we wish to accomplish God’s Will in all things. The Holy Spirit who is given to us places us in an attitude for us to do this, for he places us at the school of Love through humanity. It is a privileged way for us to offer ourselves to God and to die to ourselves. If we die to ourselves, God will live in us. Jesus died on the wood of the Cross so as to manifest to us all of his Love in order that we may live through him.In his Presence, we wish to be humbly submitted to each other and to events.