Our People

Mass of the Lord’s Supper

Our Lady Star of the Sea Church, Watson’s Bay

By Most Rev. Anthony Fisher OP
Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney
20/3/2008

Feet. Not the most glamorous part of the human body. Many people are embarrassed at the thought of exposing them in public, especially in the middle of the Church’s most solemn liturgy, that of the Triduum.

Yet feet were an important symbol in ancient times. Feet were the only part of the Unseen God sometimes seen from below by those blessed with such a vision (e.g. Ex 24:10; 2 Sam 22:10; Ps 18:9; Ezek 43:7; Zech 14:4). The response of onlookers like Moses and Joshua was to take off their shoes and bare their own feet out of reverence for holy ground (Ex 3:5; Josh 5:15; Acts 7:33). The mighty, of course, could afford the vulnerability of being bare-footed, as their slaves would dress and undress their feet for them as required and even carry them about (cf. Acts 13:35). Devotees kissed the feet of their gurus, priests had them washed and victorious leaders even tread upon their enemies’ prone bodies (e.g. Ex 30:19-21; 40:31; 1 Kings 5:3; Josh 3:13; 10:24; Isa 49:23; Ps 2:12; 8:6; 47:3; Lk 17:16; Acts 10:25; Heb 2:8). The Jews looked forward to their enemies being made into God’s footstool (Ps 110:1; cf. Mt 22:44; Rom 16:20) and Christians, for all the forgiveness talk, relished the thought that the same would become of their enemies (Acts 2:35; Heb 1:13; 10:13; 1 Cor 15:25-27; Rev 3:9). So bare feet represented both sacred and secular power.

Washing those feet was a symbol of many things: reverence, subservience, but also plain hospitality. People arrived, often on foot, their feet tired, dusty, sandy. The welcoming thing was to wash their feet or at least offer them the wherewithal to do it themselves (e.g. Gen 19:2; 24:32; 43:24; Jud 19:21). When Abraham famously offered hospitality to three angels at Mamre, he first offered them water to wash their feet (Gen 18:4). St Timothy said that older widows could be enrolled as ‘nuns’ only if they were full of good works, kind to strangers and the afflicted, and “washed the feet of the saints” (1 Tim 5:9-10). In the chapter immediately before the one we have just heard from John’s Gospel (13:1-15), Lazarus’ and Martha’s sister Mary washes and anoints Jesus’ feet as a sign of affection but also of his Passion to come (12:1-8; cf 11:2). Judas, we remember, was annoyed by the money wasted and perhaps by the attention, money and attention he coveted for himself. The other evangelists admit that not only Judas but the other disciples felt that way (Mt 26:6-13; Mk 14:3-9). Luke tells of a similar incident in which a woman of ill-repute washed Jesus’ feet when his Pharisee host failed even to offer him water to wash his own feet (Lk 7:36-50). The point was, visitors deserved better, especially those who had walked many kilometres preaching the Gospel.

St Dominic Guzman, founder of the Order of Preachers, walked literally thousands of kilometres, through Spain, France, Italy and beyond, preaching the Gospel, establishing houses of Dominican friars or nuns, never staying long in any one place. Roads were often poor and he refused to ride on a donkey or horse: he wanted to live as the poor lived, and to be an itinerant preacher as Christ had been. The Dominicans take as their text on his feast day the words of the prophet Isaiah echoed by the apostle Paul, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach good news” (Isa 52:7; Rom 10:15). They like to joke that while it might have been beautiful to hear Dominic’s footsteps and know he was coming, his feet themselves would have been calloused, broken, dirty, probably disfigured and smelly, certainly a long way from the feet of a foot model used for a shoe advertisement!

 
Tonight Jesus washes his disciples’ feet, as we hear in our reading and see in the mandatum ceremony. Like the feet of those thousands of pilgrims who will walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge to Randwick for the Vigil in July, many of those apostles’ feet were, I suspect, tired, gnarled, smelly, sore. Thus Jesus tells of his love for them, of the hospitality of God, of the kingdom he promises, of reverence for their new priesthood, of the service they must give. Like Mary he also prepares them for burial, for that martyrdom that will come of having feet made beautiful by preaching the Gospel. The mandatum, the mandate or direction he gives, is to do the same in turn: what I have done, so you too should do.

It is not the last time he will say this tonight. The priests of old were ordained by washing and anointing their hands and their feet (Ex 29:1-9; 30:19-21 etc.). And both feet and hands will feature this night. Having washed his disciples feet Jesus put his clothes back on and returned to the Passover meal. And he took bread and wine in his sacred hands. And looking up to heaven to his Almighty Father, he gave thanks and praise. Then with his hands he broke the bread and gave it to his disciples. With his hands he took the cup and gave it to his disciples. He was handing over to them the Passover gifts, but so much more as well. He was handing himself over to them. Take this from my hands: it is my body. Take this from my hands: it is my blood. As God in Jesus Christ had done from the very moment of the incarnation, he was placing himself in the hands of sinful men. Now and for all time, his Body and Blood truly present under the species of bread and wine. And just as he mandated that they should imitate him in washing feet, so he tells them to imitate what he is doing with his hands: Do this in memory of me.

The Dominicans, I mentioned, have a thing about feet, at least Dominic’s beautiful feet, but also about hands. At their profession, their vows, when they give themselves away, they place their hands into the hands of their superior, in place of the Master General of the Order, in place of Holy Father Dominic, in place of Christ the Lord. It is, of course, a traditional gesture of fealty, of submission in holy obedience, and it is used in the Rite of the Ordination as well. Hands and feet a friar is given over to God.

Later again tonight Jesus will be taken in hand, this time by soldiers. He will be bound hand and foot. The authorities will literally wash their hands of him; the soldiers will slap him with their hands and kick him with their feet. Tomorrow he will be stretched out and nailed – hand and foot – upon the cross. Though twisted and gory, people will be drawn to gork at those hands and feet: they will look upon the one they have pierced (Ps 22:16; Zech 12:10; Jn 19:37). And almost the first thing the Risen Lord will say at Easter is “See my hands and my feet” (Lk 24:39) – wounded but glorious. No wonder Mary Magdalene will try to cling to them and at the Ascension so will all his disciples (Jn 20:17; Mt 28:9-10).

On this holy night, we pledge once again to use our hands and feet as they were used on that first Holy Thursday. To tell of reverence and love, of worship and praise, of service and sacrament. As Christ is passed over into the hands of sinful men, he calls us to do as he did, to give as he did, to give our all. Hands and feet: bound, wounded, the four truest Stations of the Cross, offered up and handed over, for the salvation of the world.