Holy Thursday of Holy Week

Introduction

A family gathered around a table for a meal is an event that many of us have experienced. Family meals can be a time of nourishment but also a time of celebration. We celebrate birthdays, anniversaries and departures. These are special days. Thursday in Holy Week is one such special day in the life of Jesus and of the Church.

Holy Thursday

Holy Week is the most solemn week in the church's calendar. During this week we Christians celebrate the central mystery of our faith: the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus.

This is the time of year also when our Jewish neighbours celebrate Passover. The Feast of Passover celebrates God's liberation of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt. Almost 2,000 years ago Jesus and his disciples gathered in Jerusalem to celebrate Passover. It was during the Passover supper that Jesus' life drew to an end.

It was on this night which we call Holy Thursday that Jesus celebrated his last supper with his chosen apostles.

Scripture

During supper, Jesus got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel.... Jesus said to them, "Do you know what I have done to you? ... So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet." - John 13: 1,4-5, 14

Reflection

As we place ourselves with the disciples in the supper room, our eyes are riveted on Jesus as he bends down to wash dirty feet. Washing the disciples' feet was not romantic. A servant's work never is! Jesus' washing of feet was a sign of his stooping down to become a servant. John invites us to see the reflection of God's love in this humble service. We see the reflection of Jesus' face in the basin of dirty water.

Reflection Questions

1. Close your eyes and allow yourself to join Jesus for the Passover meal with his disciples. Try to imagine yourself at the table that night. What do you see on the table? Where are you seated? Jesus is coming to you. Offer to him the part of you that you most want cleansed. Listen to his words. What does he say to you?
2. Stooping down to wash the feet of his disciples was an act of servanthood. How do you stoop down to become servant for family, friend or co-worker? How do you reflect God's face in the "basin" of daily life?
3. In what ways are you the hands, the feet, the eyes of Christ?

Prayer

Jesus, you invited your disciples, and now you invite me to be servant for others. Free me to respond to this call.

St. Teresa's Prayer

Christ has no body now but yours
No hands, no feet on earth but yours.
Yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion on this world.
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good.
Yours are the hands with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet
Yours are the eyes, you are his body
Christ has no body now but yours.

For other prayers, see this page