Page Text: Holy Thursday is the day that Christians remember Jesus’ Last Supper where he gathered his disciples for a meal, often understood as a Passover Meal carrying the deep symbolism of liberation.
“The Last Supper” by Carl Heinrich Bloch. Wikimedia Commons.
We are told that the evening began with Jesus going about and washing the feet of his disciples and “showed how perfect his love was.” (Jn 13. 1-20)
John’s Gospel displays a poetic and at times elegant recital of some essential teachings of Jesus in chapters 13 to 18 including this one:
I give you a new commandment: Love one another; just as I have loved you, you also must love one another. By this love you have for one another, everyone will know that you are my disciples.
(Jn. 13.34f)
The special and down-to-earth washing of feet is a sacramental event of real earthiness and genuine “humility” since the Latin word humus means “earth.” The blessing of the feet is an honoring of the first chakra, which is how we connect to the Earth. Feet walk on the earth after all and in Jesus’s day, in sandy Palestine, walking in sandals sans socks, feet got plenty dusty and dirty. It was a great relief to get one’s feet cleaned and even massaged in those circumstances.
To wash one’s feet you have to bend down, that too is an exercise in humility; one can’t wash another’s feet by standing over one or even from sitting in a chair oneself. Abraham cleaned the feet of special visitors who approached him in Gen 18.4.
“My paten and my chalice are the depths of a soul laid widely open to all the forces which in a moment will rise up from every corner of the earth and converge upon the Spirit.” ~ Teilhard de Chardin, Mass on the World. Photo by Christine McIntosh on Flickr.
The high point of Holy Thursday is the Supper itself where the story goes that Jesus took bread and shared it with his disciples with words like these: “Take and eat, this is my body. Do this in memory of me.” And so too with the cup of wine.
These actions gave birth to the foundational Christian sacrament of the bread and wine, the food for the ages that reminds us of the intimacy to be had by eating the Cosmic Christ that permeates all of creation from the seeds to the sun, rain, soil and the entire universe that birthed earth, plants, animals, and ourselves.
The re-sacralizing of our every day habits of eating is at stake. All is sacred. Gratitude reigns, thus the practice is called “Eucharist,” which means to give thanks. How aware are we that food is sacred and communing together is also? And that the real meaning of religion is “supreme thankfulness or gratitude” (Aquinas)?
See Matthew Fox, The Tao of Thomas Aquinas: Fierce Wisdom for Hard Times, pp. 41-44.
To read the transcript of Matthew Fox’s video teaching, click HERE .
Banner Image: Jesus Washes the Feet of the Apostles. Mural, Basílica de Santa Maria del Mar, Portugal. Photo © José Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro / CC BY-SA 3.0. Wikimedia Commons.
Queries for Contemplation
How is humanity doing, how has it done, in responding to Jesus’s “new commandment” to “love one another”? Have we made any progress at it? What holds us back?
Recommended Reading
A stunning spiritual handbook drawn from the substantive teachings of Aquinas’ mystical/prophetic genius, offering a sublime roadmap for spirituality and action.
Foreword by Ilia Delio.
“What a wonderful book! Only Matt Fox could bring to life the wisdom and brilliance of Aquinas with so much creativity. The Tao of Thomas Aquinas is a masterpiece.”
–Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit
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