The Humility of Christ in the sacristy of Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence |
If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet,
you ought to wash one another’s feet.
I have given you a model to follow,
so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”
you ought to wash one another’s feet.
I have given you a model to follow,
so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”
What works about this is that the washing of the feet is not a ritual reenactment of some long ago scene—it is a here and now in the everyday world fulfilling a commandment of Christ. It is not a command given to some disciples, the apostles, and not to all. The priest (or bishop, or pope) does not represent Christ and the washees the apostles in a sacramental drama any more than the bread and wine represent Jesus’ body and blood. It is a here and now, in our modern world and every-day reality carrying on the work of God as Christ has revealed it to us. The priest is not Jesus washing the feet of Peter; he is “Joe” or “Jack” or “Mike” washing the feet of “Ralph” or “Fred” or “Louise” –and Ralph and Fred and Louise had better realize that as was done to them so must they then do also. It is about creating a world of service.
We have looked these past months in our dozens entries about basilicas and palaces and nuncios and bishops and plenary councils and whatever about the power of the Church. In stories like the battlefield nuns of the Civil War or Mother Seton or Vincent de Paul we have seen the Church as servant. Frankly there is much more history of the Church in its roles of power than in its roles of service. Cardinal Dulles said that the first millennium of the Church’s history was about witness and evangelization; the second millennium about power. The third millennium, he said, must be about service. And we need to take that seriously. Bishop Emile de Smedt of Bruges said in the first session of Vatican II that it was time to renounce the triumphalism, clericalism, and juridicism that has so characterized the Church of recent centuries. I am a historian—as a historian I am willing to deal with the palaces and the pomp, the fancy robes and exalted titles, the ceremony and the power. It is part of our history. I am also a person of the Gospel and as a person of the gospel I join my voice to Bishop de Smedt and so many others and confess that the triumphalism, the clericalism, and the juridicism has no place in the future of the Church. Let the dead bury their dead and let us go out and proclaim the Kingdom of God.
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