LENT 2024: DAY 16 - Saturday March 2
“The disciples are motionless, lost in mute astonishment. When humility come from the God-man as it does here, it is obvious that it will be through humility that men will go back to God. Each one would have pulled his feet out of the basin were it not for love which pervaded their hearts. This work of condescension proceeded in silence, until the Lord came to Peter who felt keenly this inversion of values. “Peter asked Him, Lord, is it for Thee to wash my feet?” (John 13:6)
Peter had difficulty with the humiliation the Cross demanded. When Our Blessed Lord at Caesarea Philippi told him that He was to go to Jerusalem to be crucified, Peter protested against the repugnance of that humiliation. The same state of mind appears again. Peter combined, on the one hand, a genuine recognition of the mastership of Our Divine Lord and, on the other hand, a determination that glory should be achieved without suffering… Then Jesus said to Peter: “It is not for thee to know, now, what I am doing; but thou wilt understand it afterwards.” (John 13:6) Such love and condescension Peter could not understand until the full humiliation on the Cross was crowned by His Resurrection and the gift of His Spirit. Peter before had rebuked the Cross; now he rebuked the example of humiliation that led to the Cross. Illumination of many mysteries belongs to the future; now we know only in part… The humble man will wait, for it is the last act that crowns the play.
The Divine Master did not impart knowledge to Peter, and then ask him to submit. He asked him to submit, with the promise that it would all be made clear later on. The light became clearer as he followed it…. The tree does not understand the pruning, nor the land the plowing, nor can Peter understand the mystery of this great humiliation, as he vehemently says: “I will never let Thee wash my feet; and Jesus answered him, If I do not wash thee, it means Thou has no companionship with Me.” (John 13:8) Our Lord reminded Peter that true humility should not object to His humiliation, but, on the contrary, should recognize its necessity for mankind’s deliverance from sin. Why object to the Son of God made man washing external dirt from feet, when He Who is God had already humbled Himself in order to wash foulness from souls? Peter was ignoring his own need of inner redemption under the guise of protesting against a humiliation which was trivial when compared to the Incarnation. Was it a greater humiliation for the Word made flesh to gird Himself with a towel than it was for Him to be wrapped in swaddling bands and laid in a manger?
Our Lord went on to tell Peter that the condition of communion, fellowship, and companionship with Him was to be washed in a more effectual manner than the washing of feet. A refusal to accept Divine cleansing is exclusion from intimacy with Him. Not to understand that Divine love means sacrifice was to separate himself from the Master. The idea of having no part with Our Lord humbled him unspeakably, as he committed not his feet, but his whole being, to the Master: “Then wash my hands and my head too, not only my feet.” (John 13:9)
When our Lord had finished washing their feet, He put on His garments, sat down, and taught them the lesson that if He Who was Lord and Master renounced Himself and even His very life, then they who were His disciples must do the same.
“Do you understand what it is I have done to you? You hail Me as the Master, and the Lord; and you are right, it is what I am. Why then, if I have washed your feet, I Who am the Master and the Lord, you in your turn ought to wash each other’s feet; I have been setting you an example, which will teach you in your turn to do what I have done for you. Believe me, no slave can be greater than his master, no apostle greater than He by Whom he was sent.” (John 13:12-16)
“The Holy Name of Jesus”:
“God has given Him that Name which is greater than any other Name;
so that everything in heaven and on earth and under the earth
must bend the knee before the Name of Jesus,
and every tongue confess Jesus Christ as the Lord,
dwelling in the glory of God the Father.”
(Philippians 2:10-11)
(Chapter 37, pgs. 606-612)
+ FRASES PARA LEER