Tonight, this is what Christ leaves us, a model to follow, as He says, so that what He does we are to do as well. That, like Him, we are to shed our pride, stoop down in humility, and wash another’s feet.
Perhaps, the impact of such an action has been lost by us who are used to sox and shoes, but in the days of Jesus, to wash another’s feet was so humiliating that a slave was not allowed to do so, because one’s feet walked in mud, in sand, and where animals walked as well. We need only use our imagination to know what that means. Therefore, to wash one’s feet was, indeed, a true act of servitude.
What’s more, is that this isn’t simply one of the disciples, this is Jesus, God and man, who humbles Himself to the point that He, literally, casts Himself before the feet of those whom He created, removing their sandals and washing their feet.
It would have been more than enough for Him to have been born, taken our sins, and die, in order to save us, but, it wasn’t, He wanted to show the amazing depths of His love, not by saying a word, but instead by doing something that removes all doubt as to how much He truly loves us.
And, if that wasn’t enough, on this same night, He left us the very gift of Himself, “a memorial feast… which all…generations shall celebrate…as a perpetual institution,” He left us His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, He left us the Most Holy Eucharist that we celebrate tonight, that we celebrate daily, and whom we kneel before later on tonight as we adore Him in the tabernacle.
Yet, for this to happen, He also had to give us another sacrament as well, the sacrament of Holy Orders, a sacrament that gives any priest the authority to speak seemingly simple words, the words of consecration. The same words spoken by Jesus, which carry so much power that by those words bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ, that by those words the entire world can change, that by those words, we, also, can be changed.
You may have noticed that I pause at the words of Consecration and they become the slowest words I say during the Mass, I assure you it is not for dramatic flare, it is because the impact that those words have is beyond words, and, it is by those words that Jesus dwells upon that altar.
But, that is not where it ends, for just as the Last Supper preceded the crucifixion, so, too does it happen again. Jesus is the new lamb of sacrifice, the reason this night was also the night of the Passover, because He is the unbloody sacrifice.
Perhaps we might miss it having become so used to seeing it, but shortly after those words are spoken, we elevate the paten and the chalice, His Body and Blood separately, which means we are declaring His death. It is only when His Body is mingled with His Blood before communion that we receive Him, alive and Resurrected.
This is why while the words of Consecration are powerful; Communion is, indeed, the culmination of what those words bring about. In fact, St. Maximillian Kolbe says just that, he says: “The culmination of the Mass is not the consecration, but Communion.”
And, at Communion as St. John Vianney puts it: “Every Consecrated Host is made to burn itself up with love in a human heart,” and when the fire of that love starts to diminish we have Jesus in the tabernacle, as we will tonight, one last time to spend time with Him before we walk on the road of Calvary and venerate the Cross of His love.
This is why it is no mistake that this night we celebrate these two sacraments, the institution of the Most Holy Eucharist and the institution of the Priesthood, because without one, there is no other, the Eucharist needs the priest and the priest needs the Eucharist, and everyone needs both.
On this Holy Night then, as we recall those events, we have before us the fulfillment of the Mandatum of Christ, the mandate to love one another as He has loved us, because tonight both the priesthood and the Eucharist were born, so that never again would we go hungry, never again would we forget His love.
Therefore, as we process with Jesus, as we reserve Him in the tabernacle, let us spend time with Him, let us kneel at His feet, as He knelt at ours, for in the words of St. Francis of Assisi, with whom I leave you with tonight: “What sublime humility and humble sublimeness, that the Lord of the Universe, the Divine Son of God, should stoop as to hide Himself under the appearance of bread for our salvation!”
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