Author: Emeka Nwachukwu
PSALM OF PRAISE: Psalm 116
Alleluia! O praise the Lord, all you nations,
Acclaim him all you peoples!
Strong is his love for us;
He is faithful for ever.
LITANY OF PRAISE:
Our response to our prayers of praise and thanks is:
We praise you, we bless you, we thank you!
SCRIPTURE READING: John 13:1-5
Before the festival of the Passover, Jesus, knowing that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father, having loved those who were his in the world, loved them to the end.
They were at supper, and the devil had already put it into the mind of Judas Iscariot son of Simon, to betray him. Jesus knew that the Father had put everything into his hands, and that he had come from God and was returning to God, and he got up from the table, removed his outer garments and, taking a towel, wrapped it around his waist; he then poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel he was wearing. . . .
The Gospel of the Lord
REFLECTION: (Richard Leonard S.J.)
John, in his Gospel, writes that Jesus gathers his disciples at the Passover, but records nothing of the action of Jesus at the meal but focuses on what happened after it was over. John is the only Gospel to tell us how Jesus got up from the table and washed the feet of his disciples.
While that washing of a guest’s feet was a custom in Jesus’s day, a Jewish host certainly never did it. Indeed, not even Jewish servants usually performed this act. If possible, it was the task of the least in the house, one for the Gentile, or non-Jewish servant. The household code tells us that it was not done regularly, but only on those occasions where guests who had completed a long trip were received into the home at journey’s end.
By doing this act, Jesus announces the end of the road for weary travellers. For him and his disciples, the journey they had embarked upon years before was about to take a final turn. Indeed, it was to be a definitive rite of passage. And in doing so, Jesus also demonstrated what he had preached – that anyone who wants to be first must be the last of all and servant of all. In this ritual action, he walks the talk and does the job of the most-lowly slave in the house.
Because dusty, weatherworn feet were objectionable in Jesus’s day, I like to think his action at the Last Supper also reveals that, as Christ welcomes us to his table, he also says there is not a part of any of us that is untouchable or shameful, that nothing is beyond God’s loving touch – not one part – and that our God, revealed in Jesus, “gets down and dirty” so that, following his lead, we can rise up to claim our dignity as his disciples and commit ourselves again to acts of loving service that sets other people free. “So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet”.
By celebrating the Eucharist, we pray that Christ will continue to “Easter in us” and that there is no service too small, no act of kindness too insignificant, and no moment of love inconsequential in our service of all God’s people. We look for opportunities to take up the commission to serve all those who feel spent with the brokenness of their lives. And when we do this, we discover it has an extraordinary effect on us. With our brothers and sisters whom we serve, we can recognise the face of the rising Son and praise God together on our knees.
INTERCESSIONS:
Lord, in your mercy . . . Hear our prayer
CLOSING PRAYER:
Let us break bread together on our knees.
Let us break bread together on our knees.
When I fall on my knees with my face to the rising Son,
O Lord, have mercy on me.
Psalm 145/146
Alleluia! My soul give praise to the Lord;
I will praise the Lord all my days, make music to my God while I live.
Put no trust in the powerful, mere mortals in whom there is no help.
Take their breath, they return to clay
and their plans for that day come to nothing.
They are happy who are helped by Jacob’s God,
Whose hope is in the Lord their God,
Who alone made heaven and earth, the seas and all they contain.
It is the Lord who keeps faith for ever,
who is just to those who are oppressed.
It is God who gives bread to the hungry, the Lord, who sets prisoners free,
the Lord who gives sight to the blind,
who raises up those who are bowed down,
the Lord who protects the stranger and upholds the widow and orphan.
It is the Lord who loves the just but thwarts the path of the wicked.
The Lord will reign for ever, Zion’s God, from age to age. Alleluia !
LITANY OF PRAISE:
Lord, our hope lies all in you!
READING: Vatican II – Constitution on the Church (para 4)
When the work which the Father gave the Son to do on earth was completed, the holy Spirit was sent on the Day of Pentecost to sanctify the church continually and so that believers might have access to the Father through Christ in the one Spirit. This is the Spirit of life, the fountain of water springing up to eternal life, through whom the Father gives life to human beings dead in sin, until the day when, in Christ, he raises to life their mortal bodies. The Spirit dwells in the church and in the hearts of the faithful, as in a temple, prays, and bears witness in them that they are his adopted children. He guides the church in the way of all truth and, uniting it in fellowship and ministry, bestows upon it different hierarchic and charismatic gifts, and in this way directs it and adorns it with his fruits. By the power of the Gospel, he rejuvenates the church, constantly renewing it and leading it to perfect union with its spouse. For the Spirit and the Bride both say to Jesus, the Lord, Come ! Hence the universal church is seen to be “a people made one by the unity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit”.
REFLECTION: (James O’Halloran SDB)
We are asked in the church to be a community as the Trinity is a community. This raises intriguing questions as to what kind of community the Trinity is and how we make it present in the church. Just to choose a few challenging facts: the Trinity is a community where there is: a) intimate loving and sharing b) full participation of the three members c) absolute equality of persons d) outreach to the other.
How do we replicate this in the Church?
Now we are created in God’s image. In Genesis 1;26-27 we read how God created human beings ‘in our own image, after our own likeness . . . male and female . . . ‘ The statement that we were created male and female is significant. We are not meant to live in isolation. From the beginning God’s will was that we be a community of brothers and sisters without divisions: there can be differences that enrich, yes, divisions, no. The message of scripture is clear: no barriers. This theme is taken up by St.Paul who declares: There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for all are one in Christ Jesus.
So why must we be community? Quite simply because God is community, and we are created in God’s image. It is true that God is within me and I reflect an aspect of God to the world that no one else can, and it is also true that I am uniquely a cell of the body of Christ. Nevertheless would it not be accurate to say that we are more fully like God and Jesus when we live in harmony?
INTERCESSIONS: Lord, in your mercy . . . Hear our prayer
CLOSING PRAYER:
Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on me.
Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on me.
Melt me, mould me, fill me, use me.
Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on me.