Today’s Gospel passage follows immediately after Jesus washes the feet of his disciples. This action is accorded primacy of place in John’s narrative about the Last Supper. By washing the feet of his disciples, Jesus actually demonstrates what the Eucharist is about.
As we all learned when we were children, the Sacrifice of the Mass is the rite by which we remember what Jesus did for us in dying on a cross. By remembering his sacrifice, we make Him present in our midst again. Jesus offered himself to the Father on the altar of the cross. We offer the Eucharist, the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus to the Father in this ritual action that we call the Mass. We then eat the body and drink the blood of Jesus.
St. Paul, in his First Letter to the Corinthians, tells us that some of them are eating and drinking the Lord’s Supper “unworthily.” What does this mean? If we read carefully, we discover that divisions have occurred in the community of Corinth. The rich are eating the Lord’s Supper before the poor and the working classes can get to the table because of their work. By coming to the Lord’s Supper before the poor and working people can get there, they are able to avoid rubbing elbows with these people.
This kind of thinking is in direct contradiction to the theology that informs our understanding of the Eucharist. At the table of the Lord, there are no classes, there are no differences. We all gather together, sinners all, in need of Christ’s redemptive love. While the institution of the Eucharist as it is narrated in the synoptic Gospels and in the writings of St. Paul is important information, the washing of the feet from St. John’s Gospel gives us an insight into the kind of motivation that drove Jesus to give His life for us. If we are to become what we eat, then we must have this same attitude.
“If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do. Amen, amen, I say to you, no slave is greater than his master nor any messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you understand this, blessed are you if you do it.” (John 13:14-17)
Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator