Holy Thursday

There is an anticipation that settles on the air with the beginning of the Easter Triduum. Every day of the Triduum allows you to enter into the mysteries of the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus. In Princeville, with the Brothers of St. John, you don't just enter the mysteries of the Triduum, you live them.

Holy Thursday offers the mystery of Christ's Last Supper with his Apostles and the Agony in the Garden (John 13:1-17:26.)

During the Last Supper Jesus knelt at the feet of his apostles and washed them. When I listen to Peter's reaction, I often think "Peter, why not? Why wouldn't you just let Jesus wash your feet? And then you go overboard... 'Wash my hands and head as well.'"

This Triduum, instead of looking at Peter from the outside, I truly discovered the man through identifying with his struggles. Peter was loved by Christ, even through his faults, through his pig-headed stubbornness and pride. It's just that Peter wasn't always willing to give those things to Him.

Too often, I keep the worst parts of myself: those faults that stand out and mark me as something less than worthy, as a shield against Christ. "Don't wash my feet Lord, there's too much I can't let you have." Jesus didn't wash Peter's feet because they were clean, he washed them because they weren't. This Holy Thursday, I was confronted with the question I had so long asked Peter, "Why won't you just let Jesus wash your feet?"

Jesus died on a cross, taking on a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8.) Not only did he take the little sins, I'm okay with giving him, but the ones I'd like to hold onto.


The fact of the matter is, that he can't take what I don't give him.

Jesus doesn't force anybody to love him. The real question behind what I've been asking Peter for years is, "How much do I love him?" The foot washing of Holy Thursday, threw me into the Triduum with the force of the Mercy of Christ as blood and water gushed out for the sins of his children.

"Wash not only my feet, but my hands and head as well."