"What I just did was to give you an example: as I have done, you must do." (John 13:15) How many times have we heard the account of Jesus' washing the feet of his closest followers or witnessed the enactment of the moment during the Holy Thursday liturgy? Perhaps more often than we can count. If we were asked to write down what Jesus' reason was in doing such an action, how would you respond? Imagine a young teenager hearing the story read, turning to you with this question: "So, what's so significant about this story? He washed their feet." Presenting an answer to a younger person's inquiry is very productive because we must understand the answer in its simplest terms. In short we have to have realized its meaning for us in our lives.
"It is easier to talk a good game than to play the game well" is the answer Bishop Robert Morneau suggests. What the actions fo Jesus signify is that he focuses upon the "gap between doing and saying."
My Dad would often use the well-know and well-worn sentence: "Do what I say, not what I do" when we challenged a command. So, here Jesus is simply saying to his disciples and all his followers is this: I am going for you what I have told you is the Fathers' will for us. In the washing of others' feet, an act of great humility in the Jewish tradition, Jesus is teaching those who want to be like him to be what you profess to be. A true follower of Jesus cannot be a "Sunday Christian" and then a "Monday to Saturday hypocrite."
Throughout his life with us Jesus spoke many times about goals and then practiced them himself. How many times did he speak about the reason he came to our earth, to be one like us in everything except sin, to care for the poor -- the materially poor as well as the spiritually poor; to forgive those who have harmed others or ourselves; to love those who very being was ignored or injured?
During this Holy Week, especially during the Three Sacred Days (Sacred Triduum) we should consider this question: what teaching of Jesus truly challenges me?
