Holy Thursday, In the evening, begin the Easter Triduum of the Lord’s Solemnity Passion, Death, and Resurrection
Also Read: Mass Readings for 14 April 2022
Maundy Thursday
‘May I wash you?’ Jesus is asking you.
Jesus did not bother to ask this question before washing the feet of His disciples. But Peter made Him to ask the question. Only with the expressed permission of Peter Jesus did continue. They were all guests and Jesus was the host. When you accept His invitation, you have to let Him wash you. Jesus puts this strange condition. Today when we accept a dinner invitation, it is our responsibility to present the best of ourselves at the table. But Jesus is different. Because He knows, with all our efforts, we shall not be clean enough for His table.
Let Jesus clean you so that you are perfect at His table. Jesus has invited you and I to His august table. He has invited us, in spite of us being not clean enough for His table. It is not another casual invitation to let it go easily. If you care yourself to be at His table let Him clean you and let Him feed you with His choice food and drink, His body and blood.
When we present ourselves at the confessional, we let Jesus clean us. When we take part in the holy mass with due preparation, we let Jesus feed us with His fine dishes. When man and woman receive the sacrament of matrimony, they let Jesus purify their love. With all other sacraments, we are letting Jesus make us cleaner, stronger, and closer to Him. When we read the Bible daily and have our daily personal and family prayer, we are letting Jesus help us walk closer to Him.
At the end of the dinner, He commanded his disciples to repeat what He did; to clean one another and to feed one another; not as a bothersome duty but as an expression of intense love shared from Jesus we have to love and forgive. When we forgive one another, we are indeed making ourselves and others clean for the banquet of Jesus. Save love, Jesus let no condition for the banquet or the preparatory washing.
Looking at a multitude of more than five thousand, Jesus once commanded His disciples to feed them, although there were hardly five loaves left to share. Even if you have started with an empty basket, and you care to share at His command, your basket will never go empty. Remember, the Eucharist has not gone empty since the first Eucharist was celebrated.
During these sacred hours let us stay closer to His table so that He washes us clean and feeds us with His sacred dishes.
Amen.
