Today is May 15, Thursday of the Fourth Week of Easter.
At today’s Mass we read, “When Jesus had washed the disciples’ feet, he said to them: ‘Amen, amen, I say to you, no slave is greater than his master nor any messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you understand this, blessed are you if you do it'” (Jn 13:16-17)
This moment from the Last Supper is rich with meaning. In the Easter season, as we recall Christ’s resurrection, these words take on fresh significance. They’re not simply echoes of Holy Thursday — they are a renewed summons to live in the light of Christ’s Paschal mystery, which we’ve just celebrated in the beautiful liturgies of Holy Week.
After meditating on Christ the Good Shepherd in recent days, we now turn to his teaching at the Last Supper — a moment full of intimacy, humility and instruction. Jesus doesn’t just wash his disciples’ feet as a tender gesture; he accompanies it with a profound teaching about love, service and imitation.
The Dominican theologian Fr. Louis Chardon wrote that “knowledge contributed greatly to the torment endured by the soul of Christ.” Christ fully understood what lay before him, yet he still chose to serve. As Fr. Chardon observes, Jesus honored the washing of feet with a discourse that reflects “the unfathomable riches of his knowledge and the ardor of his love.” It’s a breathtaking insight: the deeper Christ’s awareness, the deeper his suffering — and yet the deeper still, his love.
Lived theology of the Incarnation
At the end of that discourse, Jesus prays, “Father, the world has not known you, but I have known you.” These are not the words of a distant Lord. They are the words of one who came to reveal, to teach and to serve.
This act of foot washing, then, is not a sentimental or symbolic gesture. It is the lived theology of the Incarnation. Jesus, our Master and Lord, bends down to serve — and in doing so, he teaches us how to lead, how to love and how to live.
“If you understand this, blessed are you if you do it.” That’s the invitation today: not just to admire Christ’s humility, but to imitate it. To serve without counting the cost. To lead by lowering ourselves in love. To act as Christ acted.
So let us pray today for the grace to see and serve as Christ did. That we might truly put on the mind of Christ and, through that transformation, become more like him.
Let us pray,
O God, who restore human nature to yet greater dignity than at its beginnings, look upon the amazing mystery of your loving kindness, and in those you have chosen to make new through the wonder of rebirth may you preserve the gifts of your enduring grace and blessing. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.
