Holy Thursday
The Mass for Holy Thursday has two
options that I have never seen implemented. First, the celebrant or community
can opt not to do the washing of the feet. Secondly there may be an offertory
“for the poor” with the presentation of the gifts – that is, there could be a
collection, but it is not to be a parish collection. It must go to the poor. I
am going to take the road less traveled for both of these tonight. I will
specifically announce that the offertory will go to the family whose father is
about to be baptized at our Easter Vigil. Their oldest son is in St. Paul’s
School. Specifically, they need a washing machine and dryer, and if we at this
Holy Thursday Mass want to pitch in a little, it will be a few less weeks that
they need to wait for one.
As for the practice, and the
non-necessity of the washing of the feet, recent events have made me
contemplate this.
Let me put the ritual into perspective.
First, it is obvious that it is a sacramental and not a sacrament. Second, it
should be employed to the extent that it helps elucidate the central themes of
this Mass. The missal states, for example that two themes should be paramount,
“the institution of the Holy Eucharist and of the priestly Order, and the
commandment of the Lord concerning fraternal charity.” However, the ritual could always be misunderstood.
One small way in which it might be misunderstood is to think that it should be an
affirmation of holiness in the parish priest who may perform it. It may be
thought, because the priest is meant to be a holy man, therefore he washes the
feet of his parishioners. The display therefore might be seen as the holiness
of the priest. But this goes against what Jesus said about his actions at the Last
Supper. He told the twelve apostles the opposite of this. He said, “because, in
comparison to me you are NOT holy, you must therefore wash each other’s feet.” The
ritual therefore does not affirm holiness in the priest. It shows the
unholiness in fallen humanity, and likewise the holiness of the Lord who
forgives all our sins.
This explanation is easy enough to
put forward. But let me take the time that would have been used now for this ritual to
go through the history that I have pondered recently in connection to this
second paramount theme of this Mass.
In the early 20th century a certain
form of clericalism held sway in the
consciousness of most Catholics. Holiness was seen as the goal for the
"expert" Christians, that is to say the priests and the nuns, but not
for the laity. They were expected just to tow the line and keep themselves out
of trouble. That is, they were just to avoid sin and do what they were told. It
was not suggested that by their own exercise of Christian virtues they might
accomplish great things in God's eyes for his kingdom. It was not common for
them to hear that they should become saints.
There was a certain comfort in this situation for all involved, and so only the
best of the teaching officials, and a couple uncommon laymen, seemed to be
challenging the sentiment. Happily for the church those good bishops and
priests who wanted to correct the popular notion of holiness had their day in
the Second Vatican Council. There, as the bishops of the world crafted the
document concerning the Catholic Church, a document known as Light of the Nations, a teaching was set
forward which challenged this notion - that holiness was really for priests and
nuns - by reinforcing the scripture and tradition about the ways of Almighty
God. Holiness was defined not as a career path in the Church, nor as the
exclusive expectation for priests and nuns, but rather as the practice of
Gospel-formed charity. Further, the greatest example of charity was not to be
found in any great accomplishments, but above all in surrendering one's life
for the Lord. Martyrdom was the
greatest example of love that any Christian could show, and this of course is
the grace of God, not a career choice in the Church. Holiness in this modern
era of the Church, then, was to be found in a comparison of the individual
Christian’s life with that supreme act of self giving for the love of God. Holiness
is the death of Christ reflected in the virtues in the believer's soul. If this
new sentiment had been quickly adopted by all the members of the Catholic
Church things would have changed for us much more quickly and in a much better
way than they did. However, we know the history of how Catholics responded to
Vatican II: with all sorts of infighting and even more kinds of novel ideas to
try to reinvent the Church. Change for the sake of change would lead to
holiness. Or, in many a priest's mind, external growth of more programs and
structures was still the measure of the Church. The prospect of liturgical
roles for the laity in the Mass kept the greater vision of holiness on the back
burner, because we were still focused on the one hour Mass. Not nearly enough
priests made the true vision of holiness a high priority in the midst of all of
the changes in the liturgical externals. The internal dispositions remained all
too similar for several decades.
This is the history I have
contemplated. And thank God it is history. Things have indeed changed so much.
The Church in parts of the United States is exploding with immigrant
populations, and a few Dioceses cannot build churches fast enough. In other
parts – like here – we have more space in the pews than we know what to do
with. In all of this, Priests could still try to maintain their shrinking
churches as places of comfort where professional prestige is still honored and
lauded. But the laity who are left in the shrinking churches - and the laity
experiencing the growing pains of the growing churches - for any lay man or
woman who really wants to attend Mass, less and less do they have the
comfortable option once suggested to them, of “merely avoiding sin and towing
the line.” We are almost at the end of the line.
Now the gift of white martyrdom is
being offered to many believers in America, just as red martyrdom is being
accepted by believers who are being slain by the Islamic State terrorists. The
only option left may be the first one: a heartfelt embrace of the radical
demands of the Gospel. One of the external changes after Vatican II was
communion in the hand, as a throwback to an ancient practice of intimacy with
the Lord. Along with it we have brought back the ancient practice of
responsibility on the laity for evangelization; the priest gives the divine
mysteries to the laity, but the messy prospect of encountering sinners and
bringing them to God is not done by the priest. Christians must discover anew,
despite their own discomfort, how to be the “salt of the earth” and “the light
of the world.”
Maybe I should be washing people’s feet right now, because I am not yet
holy like Christ is holy. But maybe others here can say the same thing.
