The power of story.

My dad used to tell special stories to us kids about Bruno the Bear. Bruno was just a cub, like us. We gloried in his secret stashes of honey, in angry bees swimming in the dirty river, the little bear cleaning behind its ears at Momma’s command, and so on.

With Bruno we burrowed safely into the comfy cave, his bear dad always just a few lumbering steps away. And of course our own dad’s strong voice retailing all of this from the center of his dadly person. We metamorphosized into stillness and wonder.

That was a long time ago, I know, but isn’t it amazing that people’s ears perk up immediately when a story begins, whether they are children or not.

I wonder if you and I might feel that way Thursday afternoon and Friday evening and Saturday night at Holy Week Triduum. Will we come to attention when the story of the last supper is read? What about the Passion reading of Good Friday? Or are they just a test of our endurance?

There will be no problem as long as we get caught up in God’s great story.

Like this.

It was the night Jesus died. He took some normal, coarse bread. He blessed it, broke off pieces and gave them to his disciples. The words he said have been remembered and retold throughout history. Eat of this, he said, it is my flesh. I am going to give up everything I have and am so that you can live. And this wine, it is my blood. I will shed it because I love you. Drink deep.

With that he picked up a pail of water—smelly because it came from a well. He took a rough cleaning cloth and did what nobody would have ever foreseen or even wanted in a million years. He washed their feet.

Peter takes our part: “Lord you will never wash my feet! Stop it!” Peter does understand that Jesus is the Christ of God (Messiah), but this does not help to explain the menial foot-washing that only a servant would do.

Peter had tried previously to halt Jesus’ humility, remember, and Jesus answered with, “Get behind me, you Satan!” In the desert, the devil had tempted Jesus in a fashion not too far removed from this one. In effect, Satan’s temptations had said, ‘You are equal to God, act like it!”

Now Jesus warns Peter again, this time at the supper, “If I do not wash you, you will have no part in me,” and then goes ahead and washes Peter’s feet.

Why? And why do we memorialize it on Holy Thursday? Because the entire relation of human beings to God is one of receiving love and giving back love, no matter what the cost.

If Peter will not allow Jesus to care for him in this very earthy way, he will be refusing the gift of God’s labor on his behalf. “You can’t love us in that way,” he would be saying.

Jesus’ action is a reply. “I do not want to be Godly in the way you imagine. I want to show you that only humility can love and be loved. I want to show you that death is the most humble act of all.”

On Good Friday he washes us again, but this time in the humble flow of his own blood.

Will we listen to this story?

To that extent we will receive and will be stilled. We will be emptied as he was and as his followers were.

You are invited to email a note to the author of this reflection:
Fr. John Foley, SJ