“Our Lord guided the Twelve and led them home to was their feet. He signed them their role as heirs, and then rose to serve them as their friend.” (from “Hymn on the Washing of the Feet” by Cyrillona)
The beautiful words above begin our Triduum celebration this Holy Thursday as we celebrate The Mass of the Lord’s Supper. The words and actions from the Gospel of John this evening (Jn 13:1-15) remind us of this great act of service and love for a friend. It is also an action we are called to carry out in our relationships of love toward friend, neighbor and even our enemies. Jesus is preparing his first disciples and all who would follow them in the example of sacrificial love. The act of washing the feet of the disciples is met with dismay, confusion and for St. Peter refusal. How often in receiving the gift of love from God do we respond in a similar way?
We can find ourselves responding in these negative fashion because it calls for us to change our lives, to enter into conversion where we follow Jesus as a friend and brother in returning to him the gift of sacrificial love we have received.
Will you follow me? This is the question that Jesus poses again and again in the Gospel. Will you allow me to wash you clean? This is Jesus’ sacramental call to follow him through the refusal, dismay and confusion. Will you trust in my Father’s will for you? He asks us as a friend as a friend willing to give everything to us.

“Thanks to the Cross we no longer fear the tyrant, for we are by the side of the King.” (from Discourses on the Cross and the Thief by St. John Chrysostom.)
Our response to Jesus’ command to be washed and to wash is magnified as we celebrate the Good Friday of our Lord’s Passion. The confusion, dismay and refusal are magnified tenfold in the watching and participating in the movement of Divine Suffering and Divine Love. Even in the practice of love we will fall down and fail. But there we discover the true mercy and compassion, the reconciliation and friendship of Jesus Christ. “The Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how He had told him, “Before a rooster crows today, you will deny Me three times.”And he went out and wept bitterly.” (Lk 22:61-62) What did Peter see in the eyes of Jesus? Compassion, mercy and love…and he wept. He wept not because of fear and anguish but in repentance and hope, in the knowledge of reconciliation and forgiveness. On Good Friday as we come to venerate the Cross we echo the words of grace quoted above where our fear is turned to hope because we see in the eyes of Jesus the gift of life shared even in suffering and death. And then we enter into the great silence.

“Allow the light to open our eyes, so that we may look upon this splendor of light with radiant eyes, able to see the cause for such a brilliant night with unclouded minds.” (from Sermon Guelpherbytanus 5 by St. Augustine of Hippo) We have prayed through the hours of silence to the moment of resurrection and hope. In the obedience to Love we have lived, through these past forty days and all our lives, our eyes unclouded by fear see God as he truly is and how He participates in each and every moment of our lives, not as a puppeteer pulling strings but as a beloved embracing and lifting su up in love through grace. Jesus stands with us and calls us by name with the voice of peace. Jesus walks with us and invites us to hear him whispering joy. Jesus walks through the locked doors of our souls to free us from the sin of self imprisonment. He is with us for one reason…He loves each of us with the greatest love.

God Bless
Fr. Mark
All quotes come from “Lent and Easter with the Church Fathers” by Marco Pappalardo