Homily for Holy Thursday - The Food of the Humble

 

Homily for Holy Thursday

March 28, 2024

Humility

 

            Probably most of us watched the Super Bowl this year, which featured the commercial about people washing each other’s feet. I thought it was nicely done, but the following day on social media, most comments said, “Ew! That’s gross. Why are those people washing each other’s feet? Nasty!” On one hand, it shows just how far removed we are from a Christian culture, where most secular people may have never heard the story that we just read, of Christ washing His Disciples feet as an act of service. But on the other hand, perhaps people found it so offensive because it embodies one of the least popular virtues in today’s society: humility.

            To wash one’s feet is slave labor. Only the lowest servants were given this disgusting job. In a few moments, when I wash the feet of several of our parishioners, I have instructed them to carefully pre-wash their feet so that it’s not an unsanitary task…but in Jesus’ day, these Apostles’ feet were probably muddy, smelly, perhaps deformed. They may have stepped in something gross. So it brought Jesus to the lowest of the low – true self-emptying.

            There is a word in Greek for this pouring-out-of-oneself – kenosis. Jesus began His kenosis when He left Heaven to be born in a stable. But tonight He empties Himself even more, making Himself a slave of the slaves. This only prefigures the complete kenosis that He will endure the following day – being humiliated, beaten, stripped, jeered at, and left to die. Tonight He pours water on feet in humble service; tomorrow He will pour His Blood upon the earth in complete humility.

            And so I ask you – are you willing to imitate this example of lowliness? Sometimes we enjoy spending time with the wealthy and sleek, the good-looking and the talented – if that is the case, cultivate relationships with those who are “the least” of society – the disabled, the janitor, the immigrant, those with no influence, no money, nothing that the world says is exalted. Once, the Catholic social reformer Dorothy Day was speaking with a homeless man, when a reporter came up to ask her a question. Dorothy continued her conversation for some time, before noticing the reporter, and asking him, “Did you wish to speak to one of us?” Despite her fame, she never assumed that the reporter was there for her…the homeless man and herself were on the same footing.

            Sometimes we think that certain tasks are beneath us – if that is the case, be willing to clean the bathroom, take out the trash, clean up the mess. St. Rosanna Negusanti became a nun after his children died, and would always choose the most menial tasks in the convent. She was so effective that the abbess renamed her “Sister Umilita” – Sister Humility. She was given the large task of organizing the building of a new convent, but instead of telling the workers what to do and where to go, she would find the stones herself and build the walls along with the workers!

            Sometimes we think that our opinions always have to be right in every argument – humility urges us to look beyond our ego and submit our wills (on non-essential matters) to our spouse, our coworker, our parents.

            But in this scene of the washing of feet, there are other characters that must practice humility – the Apostles. It is a humbling thing to allow someone to do something for us! It means that we are vulnerable and needy. How many of us bristle at that thought! We want to be independent, able to handle life on our own!

            And how many of us carry this over into our own spiritual life? “I don’t need God every day,” we think, “Just when things get really bad. Otherwise, I’ve got this.” Only a humble person prays, because humility recognizes that we desperately need God – we don’t have this, and are dependent upon Him for every single breath.

            Humility is also the hallmark of the other mystery we celebrate tonight: the Eucharist. Is there anything more humble than that God of the universe taking on the appearance of bread and wine? God, Who can create the stars and the planets with just a word, places Himself at our disposal – to be loved, or to be mocked; to be received with reverence, or to be treated with disrespect. What humility! Can there be any more way for God to lower Himself than to become our food?

            And such a humble Food must be the food of the humble. Proud and arrogant men have no use for the Eucharist. For those puffed up with pride will say that it is silly to believe He is truly here; or they say they have no need of Him and they stay away from Mass. It takes humility to accept, with faith, that this is truly Jesus…but the only path to Heaven is the path of humility.

            As a spiritual writer once said, “In Paradise there are many Saints who never gave alms on earth: their poverty justified them. There are many Saints who never fasted: their bodily infirmities excused them. There are many Saints too who were not virgins: their vocation was otherwise. But in Paradise there is no Saint who was not humble.”